Browsing by Author "Herzog, Laura M."

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Comprehending Institutions more Thoroughly: A Complementary Application of the Institutional Resource Regimes (IRR) approach and the SES Framework (SESF) in the Context of Pesticide Use Regulation in Tropical Agriculture
(2019) Wiedemann, Ruth; Herzog, Laura M.
"Solving common-pool resource (CPR) problems requires adequate rules and regulations to structure and guide a sustainable use of the given CPR. To understand the different types of regulations, CPR research has elaborated analytical frameworks that aim at disentangling the diverse layers and elements of CPR settings. The most prominent ones are the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD) and the Social-Ecological System Framework (SESF). Both consider the regulatory as well as the ecological components of a CPR problem. An analytical tool that specifically assesses the institutional setting of CPR situations is the Institutional Resource Regimes (IRR) approach by Gerber et al. (2009). This paper examines the IRR’s potential to grasp the comprehensiveness of institutions and their ability to successfully tackle the given CPR problem. It scrutinizes the IRR’s complementarity to the SESF and its overall contribution to the study of institutions in CPR settings. The paper’s research question is thus: which innovative insights does the IRR contribute to the study of institutions in CPR problem settings? The study explores the potential of this analytical tool to specify the institutions of a CPR problem situation and to denominate their adequacy in solving the CPR problem at stake. Taking an analytical descriptive perspective, the paper first outlines the IRR’s scope and analytical objectives and formulates its potential assets for the study of institutions in the context of wicked environmental problems. A complementary application of the commonly used SESF and the IRR stresses the IRR’s contributions to the study of institutions. Both frameworks are applied to the CPR problem of water contamination caused by pesticide use in Costa Rican agriculture. The study highlights the added value of integrating the IRR and the SESF when analyzing rules in a CPR problem setting: its assessment of both private property rights and public policies, its definition of different regulation modes, and its categorization of resource regimes based on the regulations’ extent and coherence. The paper closes with a critical discussion of the IRR’s contributions to the study of the commons in the 21st century. Being the first application of the IRR in the context of an upper middle-income country in Latin America, this paper is a conceptual contribution to the omnipresent challenge of overcoming CPR problems."
Perceived Threats to Common-pool Resources: A Trigger for Actors’ Engagement in Cooperation?
(2017) Herzog, Laura M.; Ingold, Karin
"This paper focuses on cooperation among organizations in a common-pool resource (CPR) situation. Cooperation is particularly challenged in settings where resource degradation is produced by a variety of different sectors and parts of the population, and where the problem as well as public responsibilities transcend borders and jurisdictions. Focusing on transboundary water quality management in the Rhine River basin, we ask: How can cooperation among actors in a CPR problem situation be established? And what drives two actors to cooperate with each other? We argue that the degree of threat to a CPR is an important driver for collective action and focus on actors’ exposure to and their perception of a threat to a CPR. Furthermore, we rely on applications of the ecology of games framework, taking the larger institutional context of CPR management into account. This allows us to test whether the participation in regional and international waterbody associations also enhances interaction among actors. Based on survey data and applying advanced network statistics (Exponential Random Graph Models, ERGM) we come to the conclusion that joint participation in a water body association as well as strong problem exposure enhance cooperation among actors. Problem perception is a more delicate factor which hints at having effects on cooperation depending on its intensity and interpretation by actors. Our study thus contributes to research on cooperation in CPR problem settings and further highlights the necessity to include more systematically the effects CPR problems have on actors when analyzing CPR problem settings."