Introduction: Compliance as the Interaction between Rules and Behavior

Compliance has become important in our contemporary markets, societies, and modes of governance across very different public and private domains, stimulating a rich body of empirical work and practical expertise. Yet, so far, we do not have a comprehensive understanding of what compliance is and what mechanisms and interventions play a role in shaping it, or how compliance shapes various fields. Thus far, the academic knowledge of compliance has remained siloed in different disciplinary domains, and along different regulatory and legal spheres and different mechanisms and interventions. This chapter, which is the introduction to The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance, offers a comprehensive view of what compliance is. It takes a broad approach in seeing compliance as the interaction between rules and behavior. It discusses what different mechanisms and interventions are at play in shaping such compliance. And it reflects on the different methods for studying compliance and their inherent limitations.