Browsing by Author "Pérez, Irene"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Cooperation in Asymmetric Commons Dilemmas
(2012) Pérez, Irene; Baggio, Jacopo A.; Rollins, Nathan D.; Janssen, Marco A.
"This paper is a study of collective action in asymmetric access to a common resource. An example is an irrigation system with upstream and downstream resource users. While both contribute to the maintenance of the common infrastructure, the upstream participant has rst access to the resource. Results of our two-player asymmetric commons game show that privileged resource access player invest more than the downstream players. Investments by the downstream player into the common resource are rewarded by a higher share from the common resource by the upstream player. Decisions are mainly explained by the levels of trust and trustworthiness. Introducing uncertainty in the production function of the common resource did not aect the results in a significant way."
The Effect of Information in a Behavioral Irrigation Experiment
(2015) Janssen, Marco A.; Anderies, John M.; Pérez, Irene; Yu, David J.
"When governing shared resources, the level and quality of information available to resource users on the actions of others and the state of the environment may have a critical effect on the performance of groups. In the work presented here, we nd that lower availability of information does not affect the average performance of the group in terms of their capacity to provide public infrastructure and govern resource use, but it affects the distribution of earnings and the ability to cope with disturbances. We performed behavioral experiments that mimic irrigation dilemmas in which participants need to maintain infrastructure function in order to generate revenue from the use of water. In the experimental design, there is an upstream-downstream asymmetry of access to water that may lead to unequal access to water. We find that inequality of investment in irrigation infrastructure and water appropriation across players is more pronounced in experiments where resource users have limited information about the actions of others. We also find that inequality is linked to the ability of groups to cope with disturbances. Hence a reduced level of information indirectly reduces the adaptive capacity of groups."
Governing the Invisible Commons: Ozone Regulation and the Montreal Protocol
(2014) Epstein, Graham; Pérez, Irene; Schoon, Michael; Meek, Chanda L.
"The Montreal Protocol is generally credited as a successful example of international cooperation in response to a global environmental problem. As a result, the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances has declined rapidly, and it is expected that atmospheric ozone concentrations will return to their normal ranges toward the end of this century. This paper applies the social-ecological system framework and common-pool resource theory to explore the congruence between successful resolution of small-scale appropriation problems and ozone regulation, a large-scale pollution problem. The results of our analysis correspond closely to past studies of the Protocol that highlight the importance of attributes such as a limited number of major industrial producers, advances in scientific knowledge, and the availability of technological substitutes. However, in contrast to previous theoretical accounts that focus on one or a few variables, our analysis suggests that its success may have been the result of interactions between a wider range of SES attributes, many of which are associated with successful small-scale environmental governance. Although carefully noting the limitations of drawing conclusions from the analysis of a single case, our analysis reveals the potential for fruitful interplay between common-pool resource theory and large-scale pollution problems."
Governing the Invisible Commons: Ozone Regulation and the Montreal Protocol
(2013) Epstein, Graham; Pérez, Irene; Schoon, Michael; Meek, Chanda L.
"The Montreal Protocol is generally credited as a successful example of international cooperation in response to a global environmental problem. As a result, the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances has declined rapidly, and it is expected that atmospheric ozone concentrations will return to their normal ranges toward the end of this century. To explore the Montreal Protocol, this paper expands on the commons literature, which focuses mostly on small-scale appropriation problems and applies a similar logic to the matter of large-scale, in this case global, externalities of production. In particular, we apply a social-ecological system framework and common-pool resource theory more broadly to the governance of transboundary pollution. The paper shows how the social and environmental settings that surrounded negotiation of the ozone-depletion problem were particularly conducive to a successful agreement, including a larger set of variables than those previously reported. Our results concur with past studies that focus on the importance of variables such as a limited number of producers, advances in scientific knowledge, and the availability of technological substitutes. However, by applying the social-ecological system framework, we identify other factors of importance that shifted the ozone case from an open-access tragedy to a successful example of global collective action."
Resource Intruders and Robustness of Social-ecological Systems: An Irrigation System of Southeast Spain, A Case Study
(2011) Pérez, Irene; Janssen, Marco A.; Tenza, A.; Giménez, A.; Pedreño, A.; Giménez, M.
"Globalization increases the vulnerability of traditional socialecological systems (SES) to the incursion of new resource appropriators, i.e. intruders. New external disturbances that increase the physical and sociopolitical accessibility of SES (e.g. construction of a new road) and weak points in institutional SES of valuable common-pool resources are some of the main factors that enhance the encroachment of intruders. The irrigation system of the northwest Murcia Region (Spain) is an example used in this article of the changes in the structure and robustness of a traditional SES as a result of intruders. In this case study, farmers have traditionally used water from springs to irrigate their lands but, in recent decades, large agrarian companies have settled in this region, using groundwater to irrigate new lands. This intrusion had caused the levels of this resource to drop sharply. In an attempt to adapt, local communities are intensifying the use of resources and are constructing new physical infrastructures; consequently, new vulnerabilities are emerging. This situation seems to be heading toward the inevitably collapse of this traditional SES. From an institutional viewpoint, some recommendations are offered to enhance the robustness of SES in order to mitigate the consequences of intruders."
Resource Intruders and Robustness of Social-Ecological Systems: An Irrigation System of Southeast Spain. A Case Study
(2010) Pérez, Irene; Janssen, Marco A.; Giménez, A.; Tenza, A.; Pedreño, A.; Giménez, M.
"Globalization increases traditional social-ecological systems’ (SES) vulnerability to the incursion of new resource appropriators, i.e., intruders. New external disturbances that increase the physical and socio-political accessibility of SES (e.g., construction of a new road) and weak points in institutional SES of valuable common-pool resources are some of the main factors that enhance the encroachment of intruders. The irrigation system of the northwest Murcia Region (Spain) is an example used in this article of the changes in the structure and robustness of a traditional SES as a result of intruders. Farmers have traditionally used water from springs to irrigate their lands but, in recent decades, large companies have settled in this region and use groundwater to irrigate new lands. This intrusion had led the levels of this resource to drop sharply. In an attempt to adapt, local communities are intensifying the use of resources and are constructing new physical infrastructures; consequently, new vulnerabilities are emerging. This situation is inevitably heading towards the collapse of this traditional SES. From an institutional viewpoint, some recommendations are offered to enhance the robustness of SES in order to mitigate the consequences of intruders."
Social Roles and Performance of Social-Ecological Systems: Evidence from Behavioral Lab Experiments
(2015) Pérez, Irene; Yu, David J.; Anderies, John M.; Janssen, Marco A.
"Social roles are thought to play an important role in determining the capacity for collective action in a community regarding the use of shared resources. Here we report on the results of a study using a behavioral experimental approach regarding the relationship between social roles and the performance of social-ecological systems. The computer-based irrigation experiment that was the basis of this study mimics the decisions faced by farmers in small-scale irrigation systems. In each of 20 rounds, which are analogous to growing seasons, participants face a two-stage commons dilemma. First they must decide how much to invest in the public infrastructure, e.g., canals and water diversion structures. Second, they must decide how much to extract from the water made available by that public infrastructure. Each round begins with a 60-second communication period before the players make their investment and extraction decisions. By analyzing the chat messages exchanged among participants during the communication stage of the experiment, we coded up to three roles per participant using the scheme of seven roles known to be important in the literature: leader, knowledge generator, connector, follower, moralist, enforcer, and observer. Our study supports the importance of certain social roles (e.g., connector) previously highlighted by several case study analyses. However, using qualitative comparative analysis we found that none of the individual roles was sufficient for groups to succeed, i.e., to reach a certain level of group production. Instead, we found that a combination of at least five roles was necessary for success. In addition, in the context of upstream-downstream asymmetry, we observed a pattern in which social roles assumed by participants tended to differ by their positions. Although our work generated some interesting insights, further research is needed to determine how robust our findings are to different action situations, such as biophysical context, social network, and resource uncertainty."
Transformation of Resource Management Institutions Under Globalization: The Case of Songgye Community Forests in South Korea
(2013) Yu, David J.; Anderies, John M.; Lee, Dowon; Pérez, Irene
"The context in which many self-governing commons systems operate will likely be significantly altered as globalization processes play out over the next few decades. Such dramatic changes will induce some systems to fail and subsequently transform rather than merely adapt. Despite this foreseeable trend, the research on globalization-induced transformations of social-ecological systems (SESs) is still underexplored. This study seeks to help fill this gap by exploring patterns of transformation in SESs and the question of what factors help explain the persistence of cooperation in the use of common-pool resources through transformative change. Analyzing 89 forest commons in South Korea that experienced such transformations, we find the following: 1) two broader types of transformation are observed, cooperative and non-cooperative; 2) two properties of social connectedness within forest organization, the number of user groups (villages) and the ratio of cross-institutional links, are associated with the extent to which user groups maintain cooperation through transformation; 3) the ratio of cross institutional links is positively associated with cooperative transformations while number of user groups is negatively associated with the same outcome; and 4) biophysical conditions of the location of user groups may have aected the type of social connectedness that developed in the region."