The Role of Groups in Norm Transformation: A Dramatic Sketch, in Three Parts

This Essay seeks to sketch the preliminary outlines of a story in which groups matter. Groups are something more than the sum of their parts, I will suggest, or at least something different. Particularly in the unsticking of sticky norms-a task for which legal scholars have commonly looked to "expressive law" and individual "norm entrepreneurs"-groups might also have a role to play. Such lock-in of inefficient norms is especially likely, moreover, where coordination is the dominant strategic imperative.

With increasing globalization and a growing role for technology in the modern economy-each of which depends upon patterns of convergence-such coordination is of ever increasing importance. Given the nature of groups as mechanisms of coordination, then, the importance of groups might also be expected to grow in the years ahead.