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The failure of the Costa Rican government to interpret and manipulate crucial
information before, during and after the protests was decisive in determining the course of
events. The mismanagement of information – the opacity of the proceedings leading to the actual
vote over the initiative in the Legislative Assembly – in itself could have sufficiently angered the
public so as to spark protests of such magnitude, as low-level corruption and secret dealings of
politicians are par for the course in Costa Rica, as in the rest of the developing world. The
substance of the initiative also had an effect. As discussed above, the evidence indicates that a
large part of the public rejected the Combo not for its perceived consequences, but for its
significance regarding a fundamental part of their “national patrimony,” highlighting the
importance of core beliefs and national identity on processes of political and economic
transitions.
James March and Johan Olsen (1989) have introduced the concept of a “logic of
appropriateness,” stressing the role of institutions – understood as sets of rules and actions that
determine the appropriateness of certain actions in determinate circumstances. The behavior of
the Costa Rican people could be seen in this view as responding to the unacceptable actions of
the government, regarding both their treatment of the ICE and their behavior towards the public,
rather than the result of a rational calculation regarding expected utility. Can such an approach be
consistent with a rational-choice-based analysis? Not if one takes rationality only to mean the
self-interested maximization of utility in terms of material goods. A ‘broader’ or ‘weaker’
definition of rationality, on the other hand, can include among the preferences available to
individuals other types of goods, such as emotional well-being. An individual can still be
assumed to be rational if he pursues the maximization of his preferences, whatever they may be.
The rational choice approach is, by definition, silent about preference formation and about the
Convention