Robust Normative Systems

Abstract

Although normative systems, or social laws, have proved to be a
  highly influential approach to coordination in multi-agent systems,
  the issue of emph{compliance} to such normative systems remains
  problematic. In all real systems, it is possible that some members
  of an agent population will not comply with the rules of a normative
  system, even if it is in their interests to do so. It is therefore
  important to consider the extent to which a normative system is
  emph{robust}, i.e., the extent to which it remains effective even
  if some agents do not comply with it. We formalise and investigate
  three different notions of robustness and related decision problems.
  We begin by considering sets of agents whose compliance is necessary
  and/or sufficient to guarantee the effectiveness of a normative
  system; we then consider quantitative approaches to robustness,
  where we try to identify the proportion of an agent population that
  must comply in order to ensure success, and finally, we consider a
  more general approach, where we characterise the compliance
  conditions required for success as a logical formula.