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Spontaneous disorder: conflict-kindling institutions in virtual worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2017

CARL DAVID MILDENBERGER
CARL DAVID MILDENBERGER*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
*
*Email: carldavid.mildenberger@unisg.ch
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Abstract

This paper analyses the emergence and persistence of disorder due to bellicose (i.e. ‘conflict-kindling’) institutions. It does so relying on a novel empirical approach, examining the predatory and productive interactions of 400,000 users of a virtual world as well as its institutions. The paper finds that while there are many cases of spontaneous order in that virtual world, and while the users are not more conflict-loving as such, bellicose institutions sanctioning suicidal attacks in a supposedly safe region spontaneously emerged and rigidly persist, thus upholding disorder (i.e. a particularly violent kind of ordered anarchy).

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Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 14 , Issue 5 , October 2018 , pp. 787 - 809
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2017 

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