ABSTRACT
After a long period of neglect, the problem of social order has recently revived in social science discourse. This revival is largely due to the efforts of theorists attempting to explain the conditions under which rational egoists cooperate. One line of analysis offers invisible hand theories suggesting how cooperation may emerge spontaneously among rational egoists under anarchy (Axelrod, 1984; Ullman-Margalit, 1977; Taylor, 1987; Calvert, 1991; 1994). Another, drawn from the new institutional economics,l focuses on the state's role in creating and maintaining cooperative equilibrium between individual actors (North, 1981; 1983; 1990; North and Weingast, 1989; see also Hardin, 1991).
