How is credibility related to power?

[W]hen an actor forcefully aims to change institutions against the functions that other actors accord to it, the result will be a struggle of power.” See P. Ho, “An endogenous theory of property rights: opening the black box of institutions”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 2016, 43/6, p. 1134.

In this sense one should be reminded that: “[O]rdaining and prohibiting belong to a mode of institutional intervention that will only work when the function of what is intended already concurs with what locally exists as actors’ aggregate perceptions. Ironically, … governments often chose ordaining and prohibition in a symbolic demonstration of resolve or to strike deals with other powerholders. The outcome is a contested institution lacking credibility, or an empty institution decoupled from actors’ daily praxis.” See ibid., p. 1141.