Understanding When Do People Obey Laws Through an Integrated Approach to Compliance: Concluding Remarks

This chapter provides a blueprint of the integrated approach to compliance as well as how to apply it in future research. First, it summarizes the integrated approach and the various elements essential to creating compliance. Second, it cautions against using this approach as a fixed recipe for creating compliance. Rather, it should be considered an analytical toolkit that helps identify the appropriate ingredients that could create compliance across different contexts. Lastly, it highlights how this approach (even as a guiding tool) has consequences both for future research in compliance and policy design. Without an integrated approach, both researchers and policymakers have had a piecemeal approach to improving compliance. This piecemeal approach, the chapter emphasizes through real-world examples, has led to disastrous policies which (while both well-intentioned and well-researched) failed to take into account the impact it has on the overall conditions in which individuals interact with laws. In the end, this chapter, and the book, argues for and proposes a holistic, multifaceted approach to understanding an individual’s interaction with laws.