Kunal and Gaurav are right. In this post, I was talking of the trade-off between rules and principles in policy enforcement. Actually, when you think of it, rules vs. principles is not a simple dichotomy, but a spectrum of choices.
Imagine that these choices are spread from left to right. At the left end of the spectrum is automation. Rules are enforced automatically, without anyone having the responsibility of enforcing them. The best example of automation in my stories was actually the turnstile – it automated the task of checking for tickets, leaving very little scope for discretion.
Another example is the jugad “automation” that the Hyderabad police enforced. Blocking off the right turn doesn’t seem like an example of automation, but for our purposes, it is, because it enforced the rules without the police having to intervene.
To the right of automation come rules – clear and transparent rules that leave no scope of discretion to the enforcers. But then, whether to follow the rule or not is still a choice – and ensuring that officials enforce the rule depends on the existence of procedural mechanisms.
As you move further to the right, you find that the rules have more and more discretion embedded in them. For example, consider the difference between enforcing a red light and ticketing someone for rash driving. The former is easier to enforce fairly than the latter.
At the extreme right of the spectrum is the idea of “principles-based regulation”. This distinction between rule-based regulation and principles-based regulation is used most often in the financial sector, so let me use an example from Banking to illustrate.