A. Omicini, R. Tolksdorf, and F. Zambonelli (Eds.): ESAW 2000, LNAI 1972, pp. 1-18, 2000.  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000 Engineering Social Order * Cristiano Castelfranchi National Research Council - Institute of Psychology Division of "Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive and Interaction Modelling" castel@ip.rm.cnr.it Abstract. Social Order becomes a major problem in MAS and in com- puter mediated human interaction. After explaining the notions of Social Order and Social Control, I claim that there are multiple and comple- mentary approaches to Social Order and to its engineering: all of them must be exploited. In computer science one try to solve this problem by rigid formalisation and rules, constraining infrastructures, security de- vices, etc. I think that a more socially oriented approach is also needed. My point is that Social Control  and in particular decentralised and autonomous Social Control  will be one of the most effective ap- proaches. 1 The Framework: Social Order vs Social Control This is an introductory paper. I mean that I will not propose any solution to the prob- lem of social order in engineering cybersocieties: neither theoretical solutions and even less practical solutions. I want just to contribute to circumscribe and clarify the problem, identify relevant issues, and discuss some notions for a possible ontology in this domain. I take a cognitive and social perspective, however I claim that this is relevant not only for the newborn computational social sciences, but for networked society and MAS. There is a dialectic relationship: on the one hand, in MAS and cybersocieties we should be inspired by human social phenomena, on the other hand, by computa- tionally modelling social phenomena we should provide a better understanding of them. In particular I try to understand what Social Order 1 is, and to describe different approaches to and strategies for Social Order, with special attention to Social Control * This work has been and is being developed within the ALFEBIITE European Project: A Logical Framework For Ethical Behaviour Between Infohabitants In The Information Trading Economy Of The Universal Information Ecosystem. - IST- 1999-10298. 1 The spreading identification between "social order" and cooperation is troublesome. I use here social order as desirable, good social order (from the point of view of an observer or designer, or from the point of view of the participants). However, more generally social or- der should be conceived as any form of systemic phenomenon or structure which is suffi- ciently stable, or better either self-organising and self-reproducing through the actions of the agents, or consciously orchestrated by (some of) them. Social order is neither necessarily