Facing the inevitable? The dynamics of impasse in collective contexts

This contribution aims at showing some of the advantages of taking a novel, broad and sys- temic view on constitutive rules based on a failure oriented analysis, relying on the notion of impasse. Basically, impasses can descend by two main kinds of causes: either a mismatch be- tween rules (how things should be done) and facts (how things are actually done), or an inter- nal contradiction among rules. Given the definitional character of constitutive rules, one could say that they set a new "logical space" for action, and that impasses (both mismatches and internal contradictions) push the action out of such space, thus threatening the identity of the regulated interaction and coordination. It is fairly clear that impasses may endanger the life of an institution; on the other hand, in a lot of other situations similar issues can arise in systems of constitutive rules that are not fatal to them. The main claim here is that, in order to understand such situations, an analysis of the dynamic evolution of impasses from definitional to institutional, in social settings is neces- sary. What the proposed analysis will show is a stepwise process towards the "institutionaliza- tion" of the impasse. Both definitional and institutional impasses can be said to be ontological, though each in a different sense. What makes definitional impasse ontological are the rules of the institution, while what makes institutional impasse real and unavoidable is a mechanism of social recog- nition. While definitional impasse can be overcome without changing the rules, with institutional impasse agents necessarily face two alternative possibilities: either the death of the institution, in case it is not possible to find a meaningful coordination; or the change of the rules of the institution, in order to preserve its very identity.