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A Computational Text Analysis Approach to Investigating Public Discourse and Participation in the Case of the 2022 Arizona Legislative Study Committee on Housing
(2024) Castille, Eve L.; Janssen, Marco A.
There is increasing interest in participatory processes as a means to deal with complexity in governance challenges. It is thought to improve decision-making and outcomes by incorporating diverse values and knowledge and generating creative solutions through dialogue and deliberation. Who communicates, who has decision-making authority, and in what context the communication occurs shape the participants, the institutions they create, and the interactions they have within social-ecological systems? We build on the growing public discourse scholarship field to demonstrate how who communicates and who has decision-making authority shapes the institutions that are created. We demonstrate how computational text analysis methods may be used to investigate public discourse. Our study is the first application of these methods to public discourse of which we are aware.
A configurational approach on the strategic relevance of cooperative models of agri-food value chain organization for sustainable transformation
(2024) De Herde, Véronique; Dufays, Frédéric
Cooperative models in agri-food value chains are characterized by modes of horizontal and vertical organization among different collective actors, cooperative and investor-owned businesses. The cooperative models can adopt different organizational features at horizontal level (between actors at the same value chain stage) and at vertical level (between value chain stage). These organizational features range from coordination among autonomous collective actors to integration in a centralized operating and decision-making structure. Depending on contractualization and internal governance, these models can present polycentric governance features marked to varying extent. We raise the question whether we may identify archetypes of cooperative models that are more, or less strategically relevant for sustainable transformation, depending on their underlying social-ecological context. This paper informs theoretically a configurational evaluative framework in this regard, with an eye on a future qualitative comparative analysis of use in this epistemological process. Against a backdrop of institutional and social-ecological literature, the paper successively discusses analytical dimensions of differentiation of cooperative models, conditions that can be constitutive of contextualized configurations, and outcomes of strategic relevance. The paper then discusses the underlying premises and limits of this theoretically informed configurational framework. For instance, the paper explores the limits of a value chain meso-level approach anchored in the perceptions of the stakeholders’ representatives, reducing complex variables to a set of conditions of value chain configuration.
A Framework for Multi-LLM Agent-Based Modeling in Social-Ecological Systems for Environmental Decision-Making through Conversational Experiments
(2024) Kim, Sola; Chang, Dongjune
"This paper presents a novel Multi-LLM Agent Modeling framework that integrates agent-based modeling with large language models (LLMs) to advance the realism and effectiveness of environmental decision-making experiments within social-ecological systems. By focusing on individual and collective agent behaviors, our framework offers a detailed examination of how diverse sociodemographic factors and environmental beliefs influence sustainable practices. The agents, defined by unique profiles and embedded with predefined values, beliefs, and norms, operate within a controlled virtual environment to simulate real-world dynamics and interactions. Our approach not only enhances the comprehension of environmental decision-making processes but also facilitates the development of targeted interventions aimed at promoting sustainable practices across various community segments. This research contributes to the broader application of agent-based models in environmental policy-making, emphasizing the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion in modeling efforts and highlighting the potential of LLMs to capture complex dynamics within social-ecological systems."
A Nonpartisan Metric for Public Policy Solutions: An Excerpt from Politics 4.0: A Unifying Theory
(2024) Denn, Jonathan
In the 18th century, a simple measurement tool, an accurate and waterproof timepiece, solved the problem of longitudinal navigation. Today, navigating choppy political waters may likewise be solved by a simple measurement tool—a universal nonpartisan scoring system for public policy solutions. This paper introduces the theory of Politics 4.0, a role-based political model, ground truth for model-based forecasting AI, the methodology, and an innovative hyper-personalized exponential polling tool to leverage the Wisdom of the Crowd, Law of Large Numbers, Mean Reversion, and Narration. The OECD has said this tool has major potential for success and replication, meaning the tool can be adapted to any country, state, county, or major city.
Agroecological transitions and the political ecology of Elinor Ostrom : the role of ontologies and epistemic power in polycentric governance.
(2024) Mazé, Armelle
Agroecological transitions emerged over the last decade as a major issue into the political agenda in several European countries as a response to the loss of biodiversity and as the adoption of more resilient adaptation strategies to climate changes towards more sustainable food systems (Altieri 1995, 2005, Gliessman 2018; FAO ) . Whereas the Green Revolution after WWII was looking mainly in intensifying agricultural production and rising yields of major crops, such as wheat, rice, corn, sugar cane, in order to support food security and respond to quantitative nutritional needs of human populations (Patel, 2013). Retrospectively, this intensification of agricultural activities, through more specialized and monoculture of cropping systems is responsible for the large loss of biodiversity, as well as of many environmental degradations, such water pollution, soil erosion, etc. Concerns emerged about the declining trends and deteriorating ecological elements and their functions in productive agricultural landscapes (Francis et al. 2003). In this context, agroecology emerged as an alternative paradigm to conventional agriculture promoting on more diversified and resilient agri-food systems (Altieri, 1995; Gliessman, Francis et al. 2003; Wezel et al. 2009; Altieri et al 2015; Ollivier et al. 2018). The aim of this communication is to analyse, by proposing an extension of the IAD/SES frameworks (Ostrom (1990, 2009), to the polycentric governance of complex agroecosystems in the context of agroecological transitions. As stressed by Hess and Ostrom 2003 and Denzau and North (1993), It emphasizes the role of shared mental models and rationality involved in system thinking about the dynamics of polycentric governance (McGinnis and Ostrom 2014; Cole et al. 2019). A specific attention will be paid on the role of ontologies in setting the boundary systems and problem setting. To sustain our analysis, several case studies will be explored more precisely in relation to multi risk assesment in the context of climate change adaptation and agroecological transitions. From a classical perspective, farming activities are not considered by themselves as a shared common-pool resources (CPR), in contrast to specific natural resources, such as water, common pasture forestry, etc. that are in fact used and shared by farmers. By broadening her IAD/SES analytical framework, Ostrom (2009) offers new perspectives for the analysis of more complex social-ecological systems (SES), such as human-made agroecosystems and their related social-ecological landscapes. As stressed by Ostrom (2014) “a framework provides a shared orientation for studying, explaining, and understanding phenomena of interest” (Ostrom 2014,269). Our analysis especially emphasizes the role of ideas, artefact and infrastructure in supporting paradigm shift in knowledge regimes and the role of epistemic power in polycentric governance of agroecological transitions. Agroecological transitions are complex and multidimensional processes. Our analysis is sustained by two case studies. One related to the rise of peasant seed networks (Mazé et al. 221 a&b), and the other on recent public policies supporting the integration of sustainability dimensions in geographical indications systems (Mazé 2023).
Analysing a WEFE Nexus System in Portugal: Complementing systems thinking with institutional analysis
(2024) Schütze, Nora
The integrated governance of natural resources has gained increasing attention in the last decades among scientists and policy-makers, most notably under the approach of the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus. It reflects the biophysical interdependencies between people and their use of water, and energy, the production of food, and the protection of ecosystems. Challenges of the WEFE nexus relate to often irreconcilable trade-offs between the use and protection of these natural resources. Furthermore, they are characterized by complex cause-effect relationships that are separated in space and time. To understand the root causes of these challenges and also develop strategies and policy instruments to address them, a systemic understanding is indispensable, but arguably often lacking in current debates on the WEFE nexus. To develop such a systemic understanding, systems thinking is considered crucial. Systems thinking is a holistic approach to understanding and addressing complex problems by considering the interactions and interdependencies among various elements within a system, identifying the drivers of system behaviour, and uncovering mental models. Rather than viewing phenomena in isolation, systems thinking emphasizes the interconnectedness of components and their dynamic relationships over time, and the idea that structure drives behavior (Meadows 2009). However, we argue that the role of governance and institutions in shaping systems behaviour and performance at multiple levels has not sufficiently been considered in related studies. To address this gap, we complement systems thinking with institutional analysis in this paper. More specifically, we use Participatory Systems Dynamics Modelling (Sedlacko et al. 2014) to develop a systems map of the WEFE nexus in a case study on the Alentejo region, Portugal. Based on this systems map and through a polycentric governance perspective, we apply the Network of Adjacent Action Situations (McGinnis 2011) (NAAS) to zoom into decision-making processes within the WEFE nexus system, and understand how institutions at multiple levels drive actors’ behaviour in this system. The NAAS allows us to understand how outcomes of one Action Situations impact actors’ decision-making processes in other Action Situations. The concept is particularly useful for understanding the interconnected nature of WEFE nexus issues where actors intendedly and unintendedly influence each other in their usages of water, land, and energy resources, the production of food, and their impact on nature. Empirically, we aim to identify the institutional and governance-related drivers of the system under analysis, and the determinants of the system’s performance from an institutional, and polycentric governance perspective. Furthermore, we are interested in leverage points and how to intervene in the system to solve the WEFE nexus problems. The case study of the Alentejo region is located in southern Portugal, having a Mediterranean climate. Traditionally, the region has been characterized by extensive, multi-functional agricultural systems, such as the Montado. However, since two decades, the region is undergoing processes of agricultural intensification, and expansion of irrigated agriculture. The region is thus now shaped by intensive irrigated agriculture, which is mostly olive and almond cultivation, which has contributed to interrelated challenges such as biodiversity and ecosystem loss, soil erosion, and water salinization. Main drivers of this process include the construction of the Alqueva dam and the respective provision of water at an affordable price with relatively low water fees (Morgado et al. 2022; Silveira et al. 2018), and the payments of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (Pinto-Correia and Azeda 2017). However, we observe empirical research gaps on the underlying governance processes at different levels, the role of actors and their interests, and how different drivers, including institutions, interdependent and mutually influence each other. Furthermore, studies that adopt a WEFE nexus perspective seem to be missing in the Alentejo region. We aim to contribute to closing these empirical research gaps. From a conceptual and methodological point of view, we aim to advance the understanding of systems in polycentric governance literature, by addressing questions on the definition of system boundaries and understanding systems behavior; as well as the understanding of institutions in literature on systems thinking.
Animal Distribution Patterns and Habitat Selection: The Arapaima in Amazon Floodplains
(2024) Cunha, Priscila dos Reis; Castello, Leandro; Martins, Eduardo; Hymans, Debora Carolina; Fleischmann, Ayan Santos
Sustainably managing exploited animal populations requires a deep understanding their habitat use and landscape distribution. While factors like landscape connectivity, habitat size, and physico-chemical conditions are common predictors of animal spatial distribution how these dynamics emerge in river-floodplain ecosystems remain poorly understood. To address this gap, our research focuses on the spatial and temporal dynamics of Arapaima spp., a large fish managed by riverine communities of the Amazon Basin. Specifically, we are studying how lake characteristics and floodplain hydrological connectivity influence arapaima populations dynamics. Drawing on 23 years of count data of Arapaima population, we developed a N-mixture modeling framework to estimate population rates (e.g., survival, recruitment, migration) across lakes with varying connectivity and characteristics. Initial findings indicate that hydrological connectivity may significantly influence both the survival and migration rates of Arapaima, underscoring its significance in management planning.
Applying Policentricity to Arts Organizations
(2023) Mack, Robert
Polycentric governance attracts a great deal of interest in especially issues of collective action and ways to better manage common pool resources. Comparatively little research has looked at the viability of applying such models to arts organizations as a means to improve the sustainability of both the organizations and the art forms themselves. This paper will look at attempts by several arts organizations to employ at least some key principles of polycentric governance, and apply frameworks developed by the Ostrom Workshop to evaluate those efforts. Through this assessment, we learn how arts organizations can employ to their advantage characteristics of polycentric governance to improve on, decentralize, and engage in a broader stakeholder base for sounder decision-making, as well as broaden their engagement with the arts community itself. We also see how these case studies provide important lessons on the potential pitfalls inherent in managing systems of self-governance and challenges with oversight and cooperation that can result. Finally, these learnings are then employed to evaluate a recent effort by an Opera Camp at Indiana University Bloomington to create a more sustainable model for opera organizations through the application of principles of polycentric governance.
Attention Economies and Online Governance Surfaces
(2024) Nabben, Kelsie; Schneider, Nathan; Tomari, Ronen; Zargham, Michael
This paper considers the intersection of governance and attention in online contexts. In particular, it assesses the relevance of "attention economies,'' or the analysis of human attention as a process and a finite resource, to digital "governance surfaces,'' or the means available for organizational adaptation and action. Existing theoretical frameworks for the governance of community-managed resources lack adequate consideration for how people’s attention is engaged and directed. To address this critical gap, this paper presents heuristics for analyzing how attention relates to governance in the analysis and design of complex systems. These heuristics draw insights from a review of literature surrounding attention economies and governance, as well as from three different case studies of attempts to address attention in the design of online governance surfaces. The heuristics are analytical and normative tools intended to enable researchers and system designers to better describe the flows and limits of attention in a governance system. They invite consideration of whether the system’s orchestration of attention is appropriate, efficient, and just.
Bridge Contracts in Ghana
(2024) Greenacre, Jonathan
Hundreds of millions of people in Africa and other developing regions lack access to basic services. For example, over 2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water. One key reason is weak state-provided collective goods in many African countries which are needed to connect firms and governments located in urban areas with excluded communities, most of whom live in rural communities. These weak goods include poor roads, lack of wifi access, and low levels of public education. This paper argues innovative contracts can foster polycentric governance which can connect firms based in urban areas and rural communities in Africa. These 'bridge contracts' can produce substitute collective goods connecting these urban firms to rural communities, even when state-provided collective goods are weak. The paper uses the 'Vodafone Cash' mobile money payment system as a case study for this argument. The paper describes how contracts embedded within the system enable Vodafone to provide this service to 11 million, including those in rural areas. This argument is supported by two weeks of in-country interviews with members of the Vodafone Cash marketplace conducted in January and a survey of such members in September 2023.
Building BLOCs for Autonomy and Self-Determination in Philadelphia
(2024) O, Kermit
Enclosure, the division of common land into private segments which forms the underlying logic of capitalism, also finds expression in our relationships to time, space, community, the body, knowledge, labor, and life itself. Abolition derives from both the Latin abolere, to destroy, and adolere, to grow. Abolition might therefore even be defined as the dissolution of enclosures, which creates or restores pathways for living. Commoning, the return to stewardship, sharing, and solidarity, is a key strategy in our approach to abolitionist horizons. While we must resist relations of domination at every turn, it is essential to prefigure the world we want. Building BLOCs — block level organizing committees — to dream, design, and democratically develop our immediate social and material realities is one tactic being explored in Philadelphia for modeling and practicing more liberatory relations, toward greater autonomy and self-determination.
Building BLOCs: Modeling Resilience at the City-Block Scale in Philadelphia
(2024) O, Kermit
Enclosure, the division of common land into private segments which forms the underlying logic of capitalism, also finds expression in our relationships to time, space, community, the body, knowledge, labor, and life itself. Abolition derives from both the Latin abolere, to destroy, and adolere, to grow. Abolition might therefore even be defined as the dissolution of enclosures, which creates or restores pathways for living. Commoning, the return to stewardship, sharing, and solidarity, is a key strategy in our approach to abolitionist horizons. While we must resist relations of domination at every turn, it is essential to prefigure the world we want. Building BLOCs — block level organizing committees — to dream, design, and democratically develop our immediate social and material realities is one tactic being explored in Philadelphia for modeling and practicing more liberatory relations, toward greater autonomy and self-determination.
Building Civic Artisanship through Golden Rule Mindfulness
(2024) Malik, Anas
Drawing on Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of American democracy, Vincent Ostrom argued that polycentric orders require civic artisanship for their adaptability and long-term wellbeing. Civic artisanship occurs when individuals take into account others’ interests and perspectives in devising and revising rules for managing social problems. Underlying civic artisanship is the Golden Rule: to do for others what you would have others do for you. Various religious and cultural liturgies urge Golden Rule mindfulness, ie., growing one’s empathy and imagination of the “other”. A major challenge to sustaining a democratic order is the intergenerational transmission of the habits of heart and mind that underlie self-governance. This paper proposes a technique for invigorating civic artisanship for responding to environmental challenges in intercommunity contexts: start meetings with golden rule mindfulness boosts, ideally with awe-inducing artifacts. The ultimate goal is a change in individuals’ civic attitudes, habits, and engagements. The paper concludes with some tentative notes on a pilot study.
Building Knowledge Commons: Reciprocity-based Revenue Streams Applied to Open Access
(2022) Bravo Govea, Esther
This paper aims to delineate the potential application of reciprocity-based revenue streams in the context of Open Access. This model offers an alternative to the commercial scientific publishing of scholarly communication, aiming to explore various livelihood options rooted in reciprocity and voluntary remuneration from information users. The analysis of reciprocity-based revenue streams draws from the framework proposed by Paul Stacey and Sarah Hinchliff Pearson (2017), encompassing memberships and individual donations, the pay-what-you-want model, and crowdfunding. Frequently, when thinking about open access, it is conceived as available and accessible information, however, this does not mean that it is cost-free. Despite end users sometimes not paying for access to information, there are production and consultation costs involved in its processing and dissemination. As highlighted by the Joint Information Systems Committee (2005), Open Access alone is not the way to cut the high costs of publication. The conclusions lead us to state that, although the main approach is that Open Access is not free, the commons model can assist us in incorporating financing alternatives stemming from the communities themselves.
Can Nationally Prescribed Institutional Arrangements Enable Community-Based Conservation? An Analysis of Conservancies and Community Forests in the Zambezi Region of Namibia
(2021) Mbidzo, Meed; Newing, Helen; Thorn, Jessica
Community-based conservation is advocated as an idea that long-term conservation success requires engaging with, providing benefits for, and establishing institutions representing local communities. However, community-based conservation’s efficacy and impact in sustainable resource management varies depending on national natural resource policies and implications for local institutional arrangements. This paper analyses the significance of natural resource management policies and institutional design on the management of common pool resources (CPRs), by comparing Namibian conservancies and community forests. To meet this aim, we reviewed key national policies pertinent to natural resource governance and conducted 28 semi-structured interviews between 2012 and 2013. Key informants included conservancy and community forest staff and committee members, village headmen, NGO coordinators, regional foresters, wildlife officials (wardens), and senior government officials in the Minis-try of Environment and Tourism and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry. We explored the following questions: how do national natural resource management policies affect the operations of local common pool resource institutions? and how do external factors affect local institutions and community participation in CPRs decision-making? Our results show that a diversity of national policies significantly influenced local institutional arrangements. Formation of conservancies and community forests by communities is not only directly linked with state policies designed to increase wildlife numbers and promote forest growth or improve condition, but also formulated primarily for benefits from and control over natural resources. The often-assumed direct relationship between national policies and local institutional arrangements does not always hold in practice, resulting in institutional mismatch. We aim to advance theoretical and applied discourse on common pool resource governance in social-ecological systems, with implications for sustainable land management policies in Namibia and other landscapes across sub-Saharan Africa.
Challenges and opportunities of mineral extraction for energy transition on Indigenous land
(2024) Kellner, Elke
Energy transition is a critical aspect of fulfilling the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, given that approximately two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions stem from energy-related sources. Low-carbon technologies are pivotal in this transition, leading to an increased demand for minerals. Limiting global warming to 2 °C to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement requires a quadrupling of minerals by 2040 than today. Given the current low recovery and recycling rate of these minerals, a substantial portion of the mineral supply must originate from new sources, resulting in an increase in mining activities. The current geopolitical situation, e.g., China's significant control over mineral extraction and refining processes, has led to an increase in domestic mining projects in the Global North. Particularly concerning is the trend of these projects being situated on Indigenous land. A recent publication shows that more than 50 % of mining projects for energy transition are located on or near Indigenous land. 29% of these projects are on land where Indigenous peoples are recognized as managing or exercising some form of control or influence. Indigenous communities, in contrast to recent settlers or colonizers in these regions, rely directly on local natural resources for their livelihoods. This dependency makes them highly vulnerable to environmental changes in addition to their relationships to nature and place-based identity. Consequently, they are particularly exposed to the environmental repercussions of mining activities such as the processes of mining, rehabilitation, and closure. This article gives an overview of the challenges and opportunities of mineral extraction on Indigenous land based on recent literature and exemplary examples. Further, it suggests how western-based social-ecological systems frameworks could be adapted to integrate Indigenous ontologies.
China’s Grassroots’ Governance: A Comparative Analysis of the Constitutional Choices on Three Self-governance Organizations
(2024) Chen, Youhong; Qin, Bing
This paper is based on the Ostroms’ theory of "Governing the Commons" and Polycentrism, exploring the reform paths of grassroots governance in China following the 1978 reforms. The article analyzes the organizational structure, prerequisites, and basic rules of three community organizations constructed at the constitutional level. It delves into four aspects: the transformation of the relationship between the state and society, changes in the legal nature and function of organizations, and the capacity of these organizations to protect rights, discussing the fundamental structure and principles of grassroots governance. The paper compares and reflects on the institutional performance of these organizations, particularly focusing on the constitutional choices made in establishing property and governance rights systems. It examines how individual-based rights can facilitate collective action and the protection of community interests. This research is the result of over twenty years of "participatory research" by our team. The paper argues that tens of thousands of individuals who have acquired practical knowledge, skills, and experience in community self-governance, and who embody a 'public entrepreneurial spirit,' can become significant social capital in the modern governance of the nation. They can offer meaningful insights for the continuous and stable development of grassroots governance reforms in China.
Climate Change and Incentives to Cooperate in Local Commons
(2024) Halonen-Akatwijuka, Maija
"This paper analyzes incentives to cooperate in maintenance and improvement of local commons, such as irrigation systems. I show that climate change modelled as a reduction in agricultural productivity reduces the value of the relationship but also reduces the temptation to freeride in maintenance. The overall incentives to cooperate are improved because lower temptation to freeride is the dominant effect. Therefore, the negative effect of climate change is mitigated by higher degree of cooperation -- but only if agricultural productivity was initially so high that full cooperation was not possible. While climate change results in full reduction of surplus if agricultural productivity was initially relatively low and cooperation at the first best level was already sustainable."
Co-Governance and Resilience Justice
(2024) Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold; Rebecca Wells-Gonzalez; Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah; Tiago de Melo Cartaxo; Irie Ewers; Sarah Stricklin
In co-governance, governance authority and management responsibility for resources, environments, or infrastructure are shared by the government and communities. Distinct institutions of co-governance emerge and evolve from the grassroots struggles of marginalized and oppressed communities for justice, empowerment, and resilience (capacities to adapt to disturbances and changing conditions). Instead of merely forming commons or merely making government processes/structures more participatory and inclusive, these communities form new institutional structures that integrate governmental power and resources with community power and resources. We show that co-governance institutions arise less out of a concern for efficient and sustainable use of resources and more out of a concern for social equity and community capacities. Building on Ostrom’s work on polycentric collective governance institutions and more recent scholars’ studies of key features of co-governance, we articulate the design principles of co-governance institutions that are specifically aimed at equity (justice) and community resilience in marginalized and oppressed communities. Using examples of co-governance in both Global South and Global North regions, we explore how these design principles address resilience justice problems.
Co-producing Knowledge through Collective Engagement: Exploring the compatibility of carbon programs with the values of Tribal communities in the U.S.
(2024) Ruseva, Tatyana
To increase the pace of carbon removal, carbon programs have been enacted to encourage carbon sequestration and storage on forestlands. To date most work related to participation in carbon programs has focused on private forestlands, with little attention given to forests owned by Tribes and tribal members. As such, there is limited understanding of the needs and barriers for Tribal communities to participate in carbon programs, in addition to access and equity considerations associated with program participation. The goals of this study therefore are: (1) to identify opportunities and barriers for Tribes to participate in carbon programs by analyzing linkages among related decisions, and (2) to examine the compatibility of existing carbon programs with the values and needs of Tribal communities. To address these objectives, we adopt participatory and institutional approaches, which have increasingly been used to address socio-ecological problems. Specifically, the Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach provides a framework for participants and investigators to co-produce knowledge through collective engagement (via interviews and discussion-based focus groups) and helps facilitate the integration of traditional ecological knowledge. The Networks of Action Situations (NAS) approach enables multi-level institutional analyses to uncover interactions within and between related decisions for carbon program participation.
Collective action and polycentricity in agroecological sustainability transformations – Exploring theoretical and conceptional issues of state-society relations
(2024) Götz, Ariane; Thiel, Andreas
Agroecology has gained prominence to advance agricultural sustainability transformations. Central to it are: producing along ecological principles, working with the social-ecological context of a farm and community, and empowering local communities (small farmers). Collective action theory is claimed to be well-suited to approach the topic. De Molina et al. (2019) argue that the normative theory of polycentric governance, provides analytical categories to assess whether the institutional configuration of a particular context is conducive to agroecology. This paper examines these conceptual and theoretical-ontological claims. We aim to understand how research informed by normative polycentric governance captures state-society interrelations of agroecological transformations, and whether foundations need adjusting. The inquiry is structured by several questions: What are premises of polycentric governance regarding state-society interrelations of agroecological sustainability transformations? How does polycentric governance theory hold up in view of the contextual characteristics of the state-society relations of the globalized agrifood system? Which conceptual and theoretic-ontological issues need addressing in that regard? What follows for the future research agenda on agricultural sustainability transformations? The paper draws on an desk review of the international political economy of food and agriculture, agroecological sustainability transformations and polycentric governance, as well as field research in the MENA region.
Common-Pool Resource Management Problems in Enhanced Weathering Deployments for Carbon Dioxide Removal
(2024) Woollen, Beck; Planavsky, Noah
It has become increasingly clear that limiting global warming below 2°C will require gigaton levels of annual carbon dioxide removal (CDR), alongside aggressive decarbonization efforts. The need to scale up CDR comes at a time when public trust in the process is at an all-time low. It has been widely publicized that swaths of existing carbon offsets fall short of their promised removals. A new round of more effective project governance from a diverse set of stakeholders is imperative for CDR to meaningfully contribute to global climate mitigation efforts. Given increasing backlash against conventional forestry-based CDR projects, the last five years have seen the rise of a host of durable CDR technologies defined by an ability to remove and sequester carbon for millennia or longer. Although some durable CDR technologies (such as direct air capture) operate in relatively isolated environments, many others are open-system in nature—meaning their implementation will inextricably influence broader ecosystems. Enhanced weathering (EW) is a promising open-system technology, that can deliver billions of tons of permanent (10,000-year) carbon removals. Here we explore the need to consider common-pool resources in EW. We lay out how in a purely market-based system there is a potential for a strong inefficiency (the potential loss of some sequestered carbon) in EW process because of secondary carbonate precipitation in surface waters. Given the potential for failure in a traditional market, we view the growth of the process through the lens of successful common-pool resource management. We specifically explore this management using Elinor Ostrom’s eight design principles, the IAD framework, and the SES framework. This example represents what we believe to be one of many intersections between open-system CDR technologies and the commons they interact with. Because these durable CDR technologies’ deployment remains at a nascent scale, path dependency in terms of project governance is likely much lower than it will be decades in the future, once scaling has occurred and governing rules, norms, and institutions have been solidified.
Common-Pool Resources and Climate Change Adaptation in Nigeria: Bridging Local Actions and Global Goals
(2023) Innocent Onuche, Oche; Francis Ojonugwa, Onu
Despite the escalating challenges arising from climate change, the imperative of sustainably managing common-pool resources assumes a central role in bolstering local resilience and advancing global climate objectives. Nigeria, renowned for its abundance of communal resources, serves as an illuminating case study where the intersection of "Common resources and Climate Change Adaptation" takes precedence. This paper meticulously explores the intricate interplay between communal resources and strategies for adapting to climate change, shedding light on the pivotal role of these shared assets in harmonizing grassroots initiatives with international climate aspirations. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach that draws insights from environmental science, political ecology, economics, sociology, and governance studies, this study scrutinizes the dynamics of resource management, local adaptation practices, and the influence of policy frameworks. Methodologically, a comprehensive array of sources, including government reports, publications from national and international organizations, scholarly articles, books, research papers, and archival materials, informs the investigation. The theoretical foundations of this study encompass the Adaptive Capacity Framework, Social-Ecological System (SES) Framework, and Environmental Governance Theory. The paper underscores that Nigerian communities reliant on common-pool resources face heightened vulnerability to climate change impacts, encompassing intensified droughts, flooding, and extreme temperature. These adverse consequences jeopardize the availability and quality of common-pool resources, thereby affecting community well-being. In conclusion, this paper contends that communities reliant on common-pool resources have demonstrated remarkable adaptability and resourcefulness in addressing the challenges posed by climate change. However, persistent critical obstacles including resource degradation, deficient governance structures, and limited access to information and resources, demand attention. This paper emphasizes the imperative of fostering community-based resource management institutions and enhancing community access to climate information and early warning systems as viable measures to confront the multifaceted challenges of climate change in Nigeria.
Commons Identity Crisis, Can it be Resolved? Empirical Analysis of the Success Factors of Water User Associations Establishment in Jordan Valley
(2024) Nusir Mai
"Jordan is classified to be one of the most water-scarce countries in the world, The main challenges facing the agricultural sector in Jordan are water availability and water quality. The social, economic and geopolitical context of the Jordanian community impacts the process of managing common-pool resources in general, and in managing irrigation water distribution in Jordan Valley (JV) in particular. JV is the primary agricultural hub and region of the country; this position has encountered challenges over time due to increased water resource constraints and degradation which hugely affected the agricultural sector in the region. Water User Associations (WUA) were created in the early 2000s as a response to encountered risks and challenges by natural and socio-economic factors in the region, The roles of distributing irrigation water to agricultural units, maintenance of water networks and representation of farmers in JV were given to WUAs’ by Jordan Valley Authority. The agreed-upon tasks to be assigned to the WUAs' are deemed insufficient according to members of the WUAs’. With the rising risks of climate change and social factors, a temporal institutional analysis of the WUAs' role in JV irrigation water distribution is done by developing a future-oriented modified version of the IAD framework, which highlights the role of informal institutions in institutional change."
Communal villages, reparatory justice and social trust in post-communist Romania
(2024) Dumitru, Adelin-Costin; Diaconu, David
For centuries, the free Romanian peasants managed forests, pastures or infrastructure as commons. Some of the commons were managed by a self-governing organization, the obste. The imposition of the communist regime in 1948 meant that the obsti had been dismantled. In the late 1990s, during the transition to democracy, members of the old obsti made efforts to re-establish the old organization, efforts concretized in 2000, when a new law allowed the obsti to function again. In this paper, we focus at first on describing the positive process of re-establishing the Obsti and the restitution processes after 1989. Afterwards, adopting a position according to which reparatory justice is necessary in order to restore the moral fabric of societies which had been affected in the past by egregious historical injustices, we analyze those processes' normative implications. Issues such as whether or not it is fair to focus on righting past wrongs and dealing with those who benefited from historical injustice or who are the relevant duty-bearers in present societies have received much attention in the literature on reparatory justice. Nonetheless, the case of re-establishing the Obsti poses new, challenging problems to this ever-growing research direction.
Community-based water management: The case of unregulated self-governance of drinking water systems in coastal Bangladesh
(2024) Hossain, Mohammad Jobayer
Substantial progress has been made toward drinking water access globally, including in Bangladesh, where over 98% of people have basic water services. Bangladesh’s rural water supply policy deploys the responsibility of maintaining the water infrastructure solely to the community, which is performing well for 95% of the country's population for groundwater-based hand pump systems. However, the coastal region in Bangladesh still suffers from chronic water insecurity driven by complex socio-hydrology, resulting in no access to suitable groundwater. To access clean drinking water, this hazard-prone, low-income, climate change vulnerable community depends on community-based adaptation technologies (e.g., Rain-fed Pond, Pond Sand Filter, Rainwater Harvesting) subject to numerous limitations, particularly poor operation and management. Here, we used three theories of common-pool water management: (i) Ostrom’s design principles, (ii) collective action, and (iii) moral economies for water to evaluate the self-governance of the community-based Pond Sand Filter (PSF) system. Data was collected through individual interviews with water users and management personnel in January 2024 in two PSF sites (one functional and another non-functional system) in Khulna, coastal Bangladesh. Our initial findings reveal that the existing management system can be defined more by moral economies for water than collective action and design principles by ensuring access and equity but cannot guarantee sustainable self-governance. We argue that a functional system does not guarantee a good system. The functional PSF system has been running for more than ten years, but there is a lack of trust and accountability in water management. Along with the moral economies for water, we still need design principles and collective action for a sustainable self-governance system. Besides, the self-governance of these common pool resources is a risky responsibility due to the unbearable cost of maintenance and increased threats of climate change. This study will inform the decision maker to make necessary policy reforms to improve service delivery and ensure sustainable water in a low-income, hazard-prone, and climate-change context.
Conflict and Control: Dispute Resolution and Community Stature on English Wikipedia
(2024) Narayan, Sneha; Smith, Dylan; Helmbold, Kyra; Burkhardt, Henry
Wikipedia exemplifies the potential for large groups of people to work together to produce digital public goods. As in any large collaboration, disputes inevitably arise among Wikipedia’s editors. On English Wikipedia, the thorniest disputes are adjudicated by an elected group of volunteers known as the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom), with input from other active editors. We assembled a dataset of 1,483 proposed arbitration cases that occurred between 2004 and 2023 on English Wikipedia, to explore how a Wikipedian’s stature within the editing community (in terms of their role, duration of participation, and number of edits contributed), impacts the dispute resolution process. Our initial findings show that Wikipedians who participate in ArbCom deliberations are dramatically more experienced than the average Wikipedia editor. Additionally, the stature of a user filing a case to be heard by ArbCom is associated with the likelihood of ArbCom accepting their case. This inquiry helps us understand the dynamics of participation in the rule-making and self-sanctioning processes within a long-standing community dedicated to maintaining information commons.
Contribution Systems
(2024) Rennie, Ellie; Potts, Jason
We propose the idea that ‘contribution systems’ are a new class of economic mechanism. Like firms, they organise production with purpose, but they do not use contracts. Like markets, they are permissionless to enter, but they do not do exchange. Like commons, they pool resources and are egalitarian, but they enable reward. They don't use prices, but they compute value. They don't have leaders or owners, but they are goal-oriented. They are a type of economic institution that is a production mechanism and an allocation mechanism, and which creates and distributes value, and so is a type of economy. Yet while this economy shares many similarities with existing economic mechanisms, it is not quite any one of them, but a new hybrid object. A contribution system is an economic platypus. And our purpose here is to report some early and new sightings.
Cultural fit of institutions: A critical condition to make the 30 by 30 initiative successful
(2024) Kellner, Elke
After extensive negotiations in the last years, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted in December 2022. Target 3 of the framework aims to elevate the global coverage of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures to a minimum of 30 per cent by the year 2030 (also called '30 x 30 initiative'). This goal is a fundamental component of the worldwide endeavour to halt and reverse the decline of biodiversity. However, it is also intended to bring about advantages for both biodiversity and human society by “recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories” (COP 15 2022). Scientists and conservation groups have lauded the ambitious framework, however, concerns persist such as goals to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss and the lack of legally binding measures (Gilbert 2022). Social scientists pointed out that “achieving target 3 requires new knowledge about the social implications of different scenarios by which it might be implemented. Generating this knowledge will require innovative collaboration across disciplines and sectors.” (Sandbrook et al. 2023). Other scholars mention that the social and economic impacts of the initiative need to be more considered to address social and environmental justice concerns (Schleicher et al. 2019). Reyes-García et al. (2022) emphasize in their perspective on the post-2020 Biodiversity Agenda “that transformative change requires the foregrounding of Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights and agency in biodiversity policy”. This presentation introduces the concept of cultural institutional fit which can be used to assess whether the institutions regulating protected areas adequately account for the different cultural knowledge systems, values, beliefs, customs, and resource uses of the affected human actors.
Cyberspace as a Commons: International Governance of Intelligence Activities
(2024) Gaberman, Anna
The substantive international law, or lack thereof, governing state intelligence activities is fraught with debate. Blurry sovereign territorial lines and difficulties in attribution allow the rise of technological capabilities and increasing prevalence of cyberespionage activities to further complicate the issue. Cyberspace is not the first frontier in espionage that international law has had to grapple with, and it likely won’t be the last. Beyond territorial borders, states have established a governance structure for peacetime espionage in the global commons which intentionally avoids strict construction of specific issues while building in principles to facilitate legal intelligence collection. This paper argues that intelligence in cyberspace should be subject to governance as a commons space, like that of the high seas, because of its borderless nature, remote access abilities, and benefit of the “due regard” principle to productive use. While international law in this area is far from a comprehensive regime, a formal forward-looking agreement on cyberspace could provide a framework for state and private actors alike while leaving room for custom and secret practice to fill the gaps. Governing cyberspace as a commons means delineating between territorial and borderless cyberspace, defining “peaceful” use to incorporate intelligence collection, and considering the proportionality of actions.
Dangers of Commonism, or Ostrom vs. the Commonizers
(2024) Theesfeld, Insa; McGinnis, Michael D.; Cole, Daniel H.
The community of scholars exploring governance and institutions for the management of an increasing range of resources systems is steadily growing. As long as we were dealing with classical, traditional natural resource governance, the resource units and property regimes were relatively easy to define. In the last two decades new commons and global commons have been added to the research agendas of commons scholars and gained lots of attention in society. The considered resource unit needs to be specified and may not always be subtractable nor the system excludable. The focus is not the appropriation, but rather the joint provision of the resource system. Following this thought, sometimes, commons have been interpreted as social constructions that guarantee the transformation of society towards sustainability and well-being. From a Bloomington School perspective, we want to critically review this development of the recent radical-normative use of the term “commoning.” After addressing the shifting meaning of “commoning” in the literature, our goal in this paper is to “rescue” “commons” as an analytical concept from normative “commonism.” Inter alia, we not only raise concerns but also offer suggestions for structuring empirical observations in the hope of inspiring more constructive discussion.
Design Principles and Social Isolation among Older African Immigrants
(2024) Adeniji, Dolapo
This study explores how older African immigrants in the United States experience social isolation, which manifests as a lack of interactions with people from other races. Using qualitative data and Elinor Ostrom’s design principles (DP), the study describes how older African immigrants do not interact with their counterparts from other races in the United States and take advantage of aging programs designed to reduce social isolation. The study finds that the blamable factors are cultural differences (DP2) that make older African immigrants feel like non-citizens (DP1); the shame of feeling like strangers (DP5); communication challenges stemming from language and cultural differences (DP2) that sometimes spark conflicts(DP6); the belief that they have limited rights to associate with other races (DP7); and the lack of interactions between sociocultural organizations of older African immigrants and those of different races (DP8). Understanding these challenges can help foster a more inclusive and race-friendly community for older African immigrants.
Digital Enclosures and Commons Solutions: A Political-Ecological Approach to Data Governance
(2024) Coco, Brooke Ann
Over the past two decades, critical scholars have observed a gradual enclosure of the digital sphere by state and market forces, employing terms such as digital capitalism (Schiller, 1999), information capitalism (Schiller, 2007), platform capitalism (Srnicek & De Sutter, 2017), platformisation (Poell et al., 2019), and surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019). Given that these phenomena exhibit dynamics similar to those in the tangible commons - such as free riding, congestion, and pollution - some have turned to commons theory as a strategic countermeasure. However, the non-rivalrous and exclusionary nature of digital data classifies it as a club good, challenging the applicability of a commons analytic framework for data governance. This presentation explores recent scholarship that extends Elinor Ostrom's work to propose a political-ecological approach for conceptualizing and governing digital data as a commons. It further examines the practical applications of this approach by introducing Superset, an initiative that creatively combines web3 technologies with existing regulatory and governance frameworks to manage a digital commons. This contribution highlights the adaptability of Ostrom's framework in addressing the unique challenges of digital data while also acknowledging the obstacles encountered along the way.
Dynamic Archetype Analysis in Sustainability Science
(2024) Orozco, Richard; Ekström, Hanna; Pacheco-Romero, Manuel; Alexandridis, Nikos; Williamson, Matt; Levers, Christian; Eisenack, Klaus
"Archetype analysis has been used to study changes in a wide range of social-ecological systems. However, it is still an open question how to aptly address the dynamic aspects of archetypes, considering changes of archetypes over time and their underlying drivers. By capturing change and dynamics in archetypes, we would be better equipped to theorize about causality in sustainability transitions. Here, we conceptualize and classify different approaches to develop archetype analysis from a time-dynamic perspective. We drew on previous research that has incorporated temporal dynamics when studying archetypes, and also theorized on new potential approaches that could be developed. We conducted a proof-of-concept analyses using cluster analysis, causal loop diagrams and dynamic time warping to test their ability to analyze dynamic archetypes. Therefore, we used data from the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) database and their three main drivers of social-ecological system change: population, urbanization, and gross domestic product. Our results showcase promising quantitative methods for generating dynamic archetypes, and empirical insights gained from the different approaches. In identifying mechanisms of change for SSPs in UK, we illustrate how triggers and mechanisms interact to produce varying degrees of likelihood of transition between different SSPs. Looking globally at clusters of countries following similar SSP pathways, we see that countries that differ in historical pathways share projected future patterns of change. Lastly, we propose how to expand the eight core principles of archetype analysis to also cover temporal dynamics. This is a milestone to better understand system changes over time and to develop resilience and adaptation mechanisms to an ever-changing world."
Efficiency and Equity of Posted Price Markets for Irrigation Water: Theory and Experiment
(2024) Dawoon, Dawoon; Sesmero, Juan; Reeling, Carson
We study the performance of thinly traded posted price markets under two competing trading rules, recursive and non-recursive trading. Recursive markets allow sellers and buyers to trade multiple times over a growing season so as to increase the chances of market clearing. By contrast, non-recursive markets allow for one-shot trading. Our analysis shows that recursive trading, in line with intuition, raises efficiency when heterogeneity among traders is limited. Under low heterogeneity, and relative to its non-recursive counterpart, recursiveness alleviates congestion frictions (which take place when more than one buyer tries to purchase from the same capacity-constrained seller, forcing rationing) and worsens mismatch frictions (which take place when low-valuation consumers and/or high-cost sellers are matched, crowding out other, more remunerative trading matches), but the first force dominates, thereby inducing higher efficiency. Conversely, recursive trading can reduce efficiency when agents are highly heterogeneous. In this setting, recursive trading worsens mismatch frictions much more than it lowers congestion frictions, thereby reducing market efficiency. But these insights rest on the assumption that agents play a sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium. This assumption can be strict, considering bounded rationality or other forces that may induce behavioral deviations from equilibrium. In this study, we use a laboratory experiment to test the extent to which subjects play the predicted equilibrium and its implications for the relative performance of competing market designs. We find that subjects deviate from the Nash prediction and that such deviations reverse our theoretical predictions regarding the relative performance of competing designs. Most prominently, a recursive design always increases market efficiency and decreases distributional equity (i.e., the extent to which both sellers and buyers of water rights benefit from trade), regardless of the agents’ degree of heterogeneity in water valuations.
Enabling sustainable collaboration on open source software in and among European Union municipalities
(2024) Schweik, Charlie; Linåker, Johan
Collaboration in Open-Source Software (OSS) development is prominent in the private sector, and commonly enabled through institutions for collective action -- non-profit foundations – that act as neutral territory with open governance structures that support cross-organizational OSS collaboration. Uptake and collective action around OSS development in Public Sector Organizations (PSOs) exists but is more restrained because of their outsourcing of technical capabilities and legal and policy constraints. Consequently, studies on OSS nonprofit foundations in industry are maturing, but comparable studies on collective action within the public sector are limited. In this paper, we help close this gap through a qualitative study of three cases of public sector OSS collective action, each representing a form of association involving individual PSOs as members. The cases vary in terms of maturity, size, legal structure, geographical representation, and number and complexity of hosted OSS projects. Across these cases, we ask: (1) How did these efforts begin? What motivated the actors to initiate collective action? (2) How have they evolved over time? What, if any, collective action problems have emerged? (3) What mechanisms were applied to help overcome emergent collective action problems? Data is collected through multiple methods, including surveys, focus groups, and interviews. We combine the IAD\Governing Knowledge Commons framework and the Institutional Collective Action Framework to structure our analysis.
Entangling Organizational Success and Survival in Complex Polycentric Systems
(2024) Alston, Eric
The broadest way to characterize organizational resilience verges on the tautological: an organization is resilient if it survives. Survival means existing resources are sufficient for the organization to continue to exist. But as formally constituted fonts of collective action, organizations exist to realize shared human intent within an uncertain world. This makes an organization’s purpose inextricable from resilience in practice, because purpose greatly defines an organization’s size, internal processes, and the extent of competition it faces for members and consumers. Within the complex polycentric adaptive systems that are human societies, an organization’s resilience is entangled with its success in achieving its purpose, for sufficient failure to realize a purpose, or abandonment of purpose altogether will lead to an organization losing the people and resources that are integral to its survival. This analysis explores common definitions of organizational resilience and success and interrogates these definitions as a function of purpose, shedding new light on what it means to survive collectively in an uncertain competitive landscape.
Expanding the Comprehension of Innovation Ecosystems using the Institutional Grammar: A Case Study in Heilbronn
(2024) Prieto Valero, Carlos Alberto
Innovation ecosystems have become a prominent topic in economics over the last few years. The field of innovation ecosystems aims to examine the dynamics of actors, actions, and elements, as well as the institutions and connections that hold significance for innovative achievements and the new value generation through innovation from an individual or a group of individuals. Recent research has advocated for a more contextually informed exploration of ecosystems and their actual manifestations to foster a deeper understanding of the interaction between processes and their evolving nature. In this sense, this investigation looks to expand the comprehension of Innovation ecosystems using the Institutional Grammar method to analyze different institutions that govern and constrain the behavior of the actors. Furthermore, this study seeks to bring insights into the value of the grammar of institutions for studying, for instance, innovation ecosystem programs. The method will be applied in one of the most innovative regions in Germany: Heilbronn. The goal is to increase our understanding of the interplay of institutions and extend our knowledge of institutional design and evaluation of innovation ecosystems. The implications are to promote institutional research using the Institutional Grammar perspective and provide recommendations for improving innovation ecosystem dynamics.
Exploring the Potential of Polycentric Governance to Cultivate Civic Virtue for Social-Ecological Sustainability, including by Re-enchanting Human-Nature Relationships
(2024) Marshal, Graham
Much of humanity has become alienated from Nature as an enduring consequence of transformation at the IAD framework’s metaconstitutional level of analysis to a ‘disenchanted’, anthropocentric worldview rendering her of only instrumental value to humans. The resulting loss of affinity with Nature diminished the salience of calls for her protection, leading to a contemporary shortfall in the civic virtue ultimately required for successful collective action towards social-ecological sustainability. This paper explores the potential of polycentric governance to ameliorate this shortfall, including by strengthening the contemporary salience of social-ecological sustainability by helping to ‘re-enchant’ human relationships with Nature. A review and synthesis of literature affirms such potential, particularly in respect of the community-based forms of polycentric governance informed by traditional Indigenous knowledge systems that Fikret Berkes identified as pivotal to sacred ecology as a re-enchanted tradition of ecological science. Such community-based forms of governance are informed by a non-anthropocentric, or community-of-beings, worldview wherein both humans and non-humans exercise agency in reciprocating each other’s contributions to social-ecological sustainability. Community-based governance for this sustainability has advantages in protecting, and engaging people with, the opportunities for Nature experience that re-enchantment depends on. Efforts to realise these advantages faces formidable structural obstacles given the continuing hold of a disenchanted worldview. Overcoming these obstacles involves modest steps, each an experiment in practising reciprocity with Nature. Lessons gained across diverse communities filter upwards through the governance system to incrementally re-establish metaconstitutional conditions favouring human-Nature affinity.
Exploring the potentials of polycentric governance analysis: The comparative diagnosis of hybrid organic farming governance in Tunisia and Morocco
(2024) Thiel, Andreas
Polycentric governance addresses the emergence, structure and performance and self-organizing dynamics of co-production. The paper considers organic farming sectors as emblematic cases of polycentric co-production and engages into comparative institutional analysis in its regard, addressing organic agricultural sectors in Tunisia and Morocco. That way, it illustrates the analysis of polycentric governance and the adjacent action situations within it as well as what endogenous and exogenous factors shape system performance. As commonalities it finds that characteristics of transactions in terms of asset specificity play important roles. Further, it finds that the political economy of who and what has an interest and resources to coordinate in polycentric governance greatly orient sector and system performance. Transaction costs of access to the sector and its coordination establish exclusionary mechanisms to polycentric governance and regulate expansion of inherent public goods provisioning at stake in polycentric organic farming. The comparative analysis shows that public (open access) provisioniong of the coordination function in polycentric governance (i.e. standardization, accreditation, certification) are crucial to public goods expansion in polycentric governance.
Fairness in Energy Transitions: Confronting Ecologically Tragic Situations
(2024) Rodeiro, Manuel
Transitioning societies to spatially extensive renewable energy sources (e.g., manufacturing and erecting wind turbines, solar panels, building geothermal power plants, hydroelectric dams, harvesting biofuels, and extracting the rare earth minerals and other materials necessary to do all of this) engenders numerous questions of fairness. Despite aiming to make society greener, developing renewable energy infrastructure ensures the future degradation and destruction of wilderness and ecosystem services on a massive scale. But continuing usage of fossil fuels will result in a myriad of environmental disasters (flooding, shoreline erosion, forest fires, desertification, glacial melt, etc.) from climate change. How ought societies to fairly balance the litany of competing interests in cases where whatever decision is made, grave harms will occur? In hopes of gaining greater clarity for confronting these issues, this paper examines four reasonable approaches (cost-benefit, sufficientarian, democratic, and pluralist) for fairly adjudicating clashing demands in ecologically tragic situations, i.e., circumstances in which the preferred way of meeting some citizens’ vital interests is through acts of environmental destruction that undermine the vital interests of other citizens. This paper will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the respective frameworks, ultimately recommending a liberal pluralist approach for securing fairness in energy transitions.
Food systems transformation: a value chain perspective
(2024) De Herde, Véronique; Mechri, Aicha; Filippi, Maryline; Bijman, Jos
Research on the transformation of agri-food systems towards sustainability has shifted over the recent years, from emphasizing the central role of governance towards a narrower focus on value chain organization. Value chain organization focuses specifically on the micro- to meso-level coordination of actors aiming at value creation and distribution. The shift to transformative value chain coordination induces the need to recognize that value chains foster a multiplicity of values, beyond economic profitability alone. The ensuing question is under which framework conditions value chains may foster this multiplicity of values and therefore promote pathways towards food systems transformation. This paper aims at replacing value chains within a transformative agenda towards sustainability. To this end, firstly, the paper aims at framing value chains as both intervention points and internal coordination mechanisms among stakeholders. The paper then explores how research scopes and (inter)disciplinary perspectives align with these epistemological boundaries. Subsequently we articulate this renewed epistemological perspective with analytical frameworks, ranging from transaction costs economics to food system and territorial approaches and from research on collective action to polycentric governance. By fostering an interdisciplinary dialogue across these interlocking strands of thoughts, the paper intends to outline a research agenda to successfully accompany food system transformation and policy intervention.
Formalizing the Theory of Planned Behavior in Agent-Based Models, Literature review
(2024) Taraghi , Mahdi; Yoder, Landon
The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) offers a valuable framework for understanding humans decision-making. This paper explores how Agent-Based Models (ABMs) utilize TPB to investigate the interplay between social interactions, individual perceptions, and feedback from the environment in shaping behavior. We reviewed a collection of studies that utilize TPB within ABMs, focusing on how they formalize and operationalize this statistical model in a dynamic form. Our analysis reveals a diversity in approaches, which researchers implemented to handle this issue based on their research questions and available data. In most of the reviewed models, the dynamic nature emanates from evolution of SN or ATT. To account for social influence of agents and internal dynamics of the ATT or SN, researchers used Relative Agreement Model of opinion dynamics. Additionally, the review highlights various methods for translating intention into behavior within ABMs, ranging from threshold-based approaches to regression-based model. We conclude by proposing future directions for research, including incorporating dynamic updates for TPB constructs and exploring the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior. By addressing these considerations, researchers can develop more powerful ABMs for understanding complex social dynamics and decision-making processes.
Formulating Nationally Determined Contributions in Brazil: Procedural Decisions and Governance Challenges
(2024) Cunha Silva, Leonardo
This research examines the administrative process of implementing the obligations under Article 4(2) of the Paris Agreement by Brazilian public authorities. The aim is to analyze in micro level perspective the policy-making process, describing the interactions between participants, the action situation, and its outcomes. To do this, we employ a case study approach where we compare the procedural rules outlined in the Paris Agreement and its rulebook with the implementing choices observed in administrative processes accessed through public information access laws. The results reveal significant discretion in the process of formulating Brazil's nationally determined contributions, varying depending on the government in power at different moments. In conclusion, we hypothesize the influence of the absence of legal procedural standards in the NDC formulation process and the accusations of violation of progressive goals duty at the update stages.
Fostering African Data Commons: Embracing the Philosophy of Ubuntu
(2024) Sun, Simon; Muhadia Shabaya, Marie; Kalema, Nai Lee
The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) in Africa is gaining attraction, serving as a driver for economic expansion and industrial progress across sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and education. However, the A.I. development in Africa is still in its nascent phase due to several factors, including the high cost with building data infrastructure, limited internet accessibility and a shortage of powerful computing resources essential for training A.I. models. Central to these challenges is the scarcity of access to high-quality training data, predominantly controlled by companies located outside of Africa, a phenomenon some describe as “data colonialism.” The fundamental problem arises from the proliferation of privacy-centric regulations embedded within various regulatory regimes and contractual agreements. Consent serves as the mechanism through which individuals in Africa relinquish their personal information. At its essence, data governance centers on the rights of individuals regarding their personal information, reflecting a regulatory philosophy originating in the West.
Four Decades of Polycentric Evolution in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
(2024) Baehler, Karen; Biddle, Jennifer
This paper reports preliminary results from our application of Baldwin, Thiel, McGinnis, and Kellner's Context-Operations-Outcomes-Feedback (COOF) framework to the case of collaborative watershed management in the Chesapeake Bay region from the 1980s to the present. We provide a novel approach to operationalizing the framework and discuss its utility. Based on initial analysis, we find a low probability of a polycentric governance (PG) arrangement emerging and surviving in the Chesapeake Bay given the evidence of a larger volume of inhibiting conditions compared to enabling conditions in the period leading up to the establishment of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement (CBA) and Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) in 1983-84. Yet these polycentric programs not only formed, but also grew in size, scope, and rigor over the next four decades. Key inhibiting conditions, such as the chronic inability of state leaders to impose pollution limits on politically powerful interests (urban/suburban developers and farmers), have significantly slowed progress toward Bay restoration to date and generated large volumes of criticism. Despite the system's many weaknesses, the original partners (DC, MD, PA, VA and the EPA) have continued to participate, and new partners (DE, NY, and WV) have joined. Some progress has been made toward pollution reduction, and some indicators of Bay health have improved. The paper identifies primary and secondary games played by principal actors within the Bay's PG institutions and emphasizes the vital role play by litigation in maintaining accountability for progress.
Games of Power: Enabling Game Theory to Untangle Power
(2024) Gerullis, Maria; Unnikrishnan, Hita
Power takes many forms in social situations and influences dynamics and outcomes in social-ecological systems (SESs) every day. Game theory models social situations between different entities (groups or individuals), with strategies and outcome pay-offs. The canonical two-players two-choice games (2x2 games) can be used to depict a wide diversity of social interdependence relationships beyond the archetypical social dilemma. We explore how practical power and power by design (Morrison et al. 2019) work across social situations using 2x2 games. We sort out 144 strict ordinal 2x2 games from the archetypical games of interdependence (Bruns and Kimmich 2021) and relate them to typologies of power within the domain of SES governance. Our contribution extends beyond the conventional understanding of the impact of framing on strategic interactions, by delving deeper and more explicitly into the role of power dynamics in shaping the arrays of 2x2 games that are dominant underpinnings prevalent in environmental governance discourses. It also challenges persistent Eurocentric, patriarchal, and colonialist epistemologies underpinning the assumptions made by game theory (as applied to real world scenarios) by advocating for a nuanced examination of how power dynamics contribute to the selection and perpetuation of specific game configurations within typologies of games. We see this paper as contributing and expanding existing scholarship on synthesis and communication across different fields relevant to SES governance.
Global Evidence that Bottom-Up but Not Co-management Improves Compliance with Commons Governance Compared to Top-Down Regulations
(2024) Quintana, Anastasia; Gaines, Steven; Ristig, Erin; Neilson, Larissa; Glave, Dylan
"Noncompliance threatens the sustainability of the commons. Arguments for bottom-up commons governance is often premised on assumptions that commons users comply more when they craft the rules that govern them. However, there is limited evidence linking governance and compliance, especially at large scale, because the gold standard for measuring compliance as a binary (comply/not comply) maps poorly onto the complexity of overlapping formal and informal rules that characterize commons governance. In this paper, we advance an emerging methodological tool to diagnose compliance types using a two-dimensional model with both quantitative and qualitative applications. We then use this tool to examine whether self-governance increases regulatory compliance with marine protected areas, a widespread tool for fisheries management, through the analysis of a survey of fisher attitudes collected by the nonprofit organization, Rare, in seven countries with total n>5000. Using a cluster analysis, we found four compliance ideal-types: committed, supportive, ambivalent, and resistant. Top-down governance was associated with more resistant fishers while bottom-up governance was associated with more committed fishers. Contrary to our expectations, co-management was indistinguishable from top-down governance. Based on the ratios of different compliance types, we suggest several policy levers that could improve governance. This study suggests that more attention should be given to how resources users perceive rules rather than just the behavior of compliance."
Governance Anomalies and the Logic of the Commons: Epistemological Clarifications and Implications for Praxis
(2024) Oakerson, Ronald
"This paper draws on a book manuscript in draft—Science of the Commons: An Epistemological Inquiry—to address governance anomalies that have accrued in the course of commons research. Building on my work with the NAS Panel on Common Property Resources (1983-86), I propose revisions in the taxonomic concept of the commons—modifying its defining attributes. I show that the concept-in-use, defined by subtractability (of resource units) and difficulties of exclusion (from the resource system), is a less-than-good fit for plainly relevant cases. Redefining both attributes, I arrive at a modified conception: an indivisible resource system producing divisible goods that are necessary participants in the system’s productive process, but also are appropriable by multiple independent users entitled to access. These defining conditions also comprise the necessary conditions for Hardin’s 'tragedy of the commons,' tying the taxonomic concept logically to a specified problematic situation. Lin Ostrom’s 'design principles' can then be reformulated to supply the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for transforming such a situation. Ergo, the 'logic of the situation' (in Popper’s sense) combines social approval of individual use with social disapproval of unsustainable use, providing the normative parameters for rules-based governance in a growing and ever more diverse set of cases."
Governance approaches to balance trade-off situations between Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement. Insights from Chaco Culture National Historical Park, US
(2024) Kellner, Elke
While the UN and its member states place high hopes on the achievement of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Emissions Gap Report for 2022 concludes that the international community is significantly off track in achieving the Paris Agreement's goals, and there is currently no viable path to limit global warming to 1.5°C. In addition, the recently published Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023 shows that there is a global lack of progress. One of the barriers to achieving the goals are trade-off situations between the goals. This requires governance approaches to balance competing (resource) interests. This study gives insights into the governance approaches to balance a complex trade-off situation in the World Heritage site Chaco Culture National Historical Park, US, as a critical case in this regard. Data were collected through document analysis and 20 semi-structured interviews between 2022 and early 2023 and analysed through qualitative content analysis. The presentation concludes with reflections on how to improve governance processes to balance trade-off situations in WHS.
How actors manage scientific and other information across scales in polycentric governance for collaborative ecosystem recovery
(2024) Koontz, Tomas
Restoration of complex socio-ecological commons involves diverse stakeholders in multiple jurisdictions and organizations. When these decision centers are part of a polycentric governance system, it opens possibilities for sharing information vertically and horizontally. A key type of information shared in large social-ecological commons is scientific knowledge. Scientific information can be used by local level actors to inform local solutions, or to make connections to the larger scale. Prior research suggests much information sharing and learning in polycentric governance is horizontal, with actors sharing information across their level of governance. As well, different types of information may be shared in different directions, with scientific information shared from the large scale down to the local scale, and time and place information shared from the local scale to other local scales or up to the larger scale. This research examines how scientific information is sought and shared by local level actors in the polycentric Puget Sound region (USA). This is a science-rich and institutionally thick polycentric governance system with four types of local collaborative partnerships that are connected vertically to a distinct larger scale jurisdiction. Thus it is an opportune setting to ask and answer questions about sharing and use of scientific information. Analyses of a survey completed by over 200 local partnership members indicates that respondents are comfortable working with science and actively seek it from a variety of horizontal and vertical sources in roughly equal measure. They report sharing scientific information vertically upward less often, but a nontrivial amount. Their key purposes for seeking scientific information include both applying it to address local issues and learning about larger scale connections. Finally, the importance of scientific information compared to other types of information depends on the type of science: natural science is valued more than other types of information, but social science is valued less.
Hybrid modes of governance for ecosystem services provision: A review
(2024) Amblard, Laurence; Mann, Carsten
The paper deals with emerging hybrid forms of environmental governance combining state, market and community-based governance features, including policy mixes. Conceptual approaches in sociology, political science and institutional economics share a similar focus on hybrid modes of governance and policy mixes as promising approaches for dealing with current environmental and societal challenges. However, the diversity of scientific perspectives has led to different, partially overlapping, definitions and typologies in the literature. This poses limitations for analytical clarity, comparison and policy implications. The paper reviews how hybrid modes of governance for ecosystem services provision are conceptualized, taking into account their different characteristics (type of governance or policy instruments, underlying theoretical orientation, actors involved, formulation and application level). A set of 120 published journal articles serves as a basis for characterizing the different concepts, definitions and rationales of hybrid modes of governance and for synthetizing the empirical evidence on their performance. As an outcome, this paper provides for a research agenda to further improve the understanding of hybrid modes of governance and their potential for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services.
Icy Intersections: Worldview-based Decision-making in Arctic Frozen Commons Governance Under Climate Change
(2024) Shaffer, Leah
"This paper broadly investigates governance in Alaska through the lens of worldviews within decision making processes, and the resulting differential impacts across communities, jurisdictional levels, and livelihoods. Specifically, this research explores conflictive and collaborative spaces resulting from multi-level stakeholders’ management decisions in the Upper Kuskokwim River region of Alaska, USA."
In The Weeds: A Review and Synthesis on Invasive Species Governance
(2024) Dosamantes, Elena; Lien, Aaron; Henry, Adam; Gornish, Elise
As distant places become ever more connected through the movement of goods and people around the globe, non-native plant and animal species are provided with new avenues to spread. Effectivde management of invasive plants requires not only knowledge of methods for control and eradication, but also knowledge of the factors that enable and inhibit coordination and cooperation—collective action—between disparate actors. To date, the literature on invasive species has focused almost exclusively on managing invasions from a technical perspective, with much less focus on governance factors like behavior change, coordination, and collective action. To fill this gap, we undertake a systematic review to learn (1) how much research has been done to understand the social and governance factors related to effective management of invasive plants, (2) what aspects of governance factors has this research focused on, (3) what are the gaps in the literature, and, based on these gaps, (4) what are the most pressing future research needs. We based our search terms on the North American Invasive Species Network’s (NAISN) invasive plant list of 357 species. This search resulted in 186,789 journal articles. We used a filtering process to determine articles were relevant to our research questions. Using this filtering process, we found that less than 0.03% of invasive plant literature explores aspects of governance. We share the results of our analysis of these articles, including common approaches to stakeholder engagement and collaboration, the reported effectiveness of different collaborative approaches, and gaps in knowledge. We find that research has begun to recognize invasive species as a collective action problem and identifies cooperation and stakeholder engagement as important factors. However, researchers lack a shared framework that would guide high-quality, empirical analysis of invasive species governance as a complex socio-ecological problem.
Information Exchange and Use in Polycentric Youth-led Climate Action
(2024) Mudaliar, Praneeta
Youth-led climate action is emerging as a direct reaction to decades of inaction in the policy arena for transformative policy change to a just and green transition to a low-carbon future. By connecting a variety of organizations such as environmental groups, faith groups, health groups, professionals, and unions, youth movements undertake self-organized collective action cooperating to change some institutions and devise new ones, resulting in a polycentric environmental movement. Today’s youth equipped with knowledge of how centuries of exploitation and systemic inequities have led to the climate crisis are more likely to be inclusive, diverse, and encompass new knowledge systems. Scholarship from environmental governance and social movements highlights the importance of scientific knowledge, local knowledge, Indigenous ways of knowing, and experiential expertise or citizen science as being salient, yet little is known about how youth groups share and use information from different knowledge systems for their activism. Interviews from two youth groups in the Greater Toronto Area in Canada reveal patterns in information sharing, the role of knowledge brokers, and information saliency. Results indicate youth actors frequently access not just scientific information through peer-reviewed journals, local information, and Indigenous ways of knowing, they also seek financial information such as budgets and investments of institutions and experiential expertise from local experts. In addition to credibility, salience, and legitimacy, youth groups also draw upon accuracy, an author’s positionality and informativeness and effectiveness of information to decide which information to include in their activism. Interestingly, even misrepresented science was an important type of information that young people draw upon to further their activism. Since many youth activists are still in college, a practical implication of this study is to expand the environmental studies curriculum to include courses on finance, fiduciary, business approaches, as well as different ways of knowing to help youth activists to legitimize their demands and obtain concrete victories.
Institutional Analysis of Stakeholder, Rightsholder, and Public Participation under NEPA: Procedural Justice in the Case of a Proposed Arizona Copper Mine
(2024) Lewis, Sydey
Copper demand is surging in the U.S. and around the world as countries embrace new forms of energy to combat climate change. But copper mining – while a key strategy to address supply shortages – can serve as a vehicle for injustice by imposing socio-ecological burdens for nearby communities. Due to the growing demand for copper with resulting justice issues, more research is needed to evaluate governance for the mining sector using an environmental justice lens. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a key environmental regulation that governs mining in the U.S. Therefore, I used a qualitative case study approach to examine how NEPA requirements shape engagement in public comment opportunities. I selected the Resolution Copper Mine as a case study because of its potential to support the energy transition but pose a significant dilemma for justice: the mine is anticipated to generate 25 percent of the U.S. copper demand each year but disturb lands that hold spiritual significance for Native American Tribes. I used the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to analyze institutional dynamics and evaluate the NEPA process for public participation using a procedural justice lens. Drawing on interview data and document analysis, the results show that process rules such as a land exchange bill and the lengths of comment opportunities were among the key barriers for participation. Socioeconomic conditions of communities including access to social resources (i.e. access to internet and technical assistance) and institutional trust posed further barriers for participation. Hence, this study suggests that federal decision-makers should aim to better integrate procedural justice into the NEPA process.
Institutional analysis to assess inclusive decision-making in community resource management: A diagnostic review of barriers and interventions in participatory processes.
(2024) Hayes, Tanya M.; Murtinho, Felipe
Scholars and practitioners frequently cite participatory governance arrangements as critical for successful resource management. While recognizing the rights of local and indigenous communities in their own development and resource management is fundamental for sustainability, centering communal decision-making in resource management does not guarantee that said decisions will be democratic, inclusive, or equitable. A critical question for community leaders and practitioners alike, is not whether communities should have rights to manage their resource systems, but rather, how to identify and support communal decision-making processes that are inclusive of diverse voices, transparent, and just. Here, we tackle one piece of this question by using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to diagnose how communal governance characteristics shape inclusion in local decision-making process, namely who and how distinct community members participate in resource management decision-making forums. While the IAD framework has frequently been applied to assess how local rule-making rights are linked to successful resource management outcomes, relatively few studies have used the IAD framework to diagnose participation within communal decision-making arrangements. The objectives of our paper are to identify relatively malleable local governance elements that can be tweaked to facilitate more inclusive collective decision-making in community resource management. To do so, we apply the IAD framework in conjunction with Agarwal’s participation typology to a systematic review of 59 case studies to map out the barriers to, and interventions to support, participatory decision-making in community resource management (forests, water, fisheries). Our study focuses specifically on how local governance factors influence who participates (e.g., individual attributes based on socioeconomic status; gender, race, ethnicity) and how they participate (leadership roles, voice, and influence). In our analysis, we pay particular attention to how local governance conditions (e.g., decision-making rules, leader attributes, organization) and external interventions serve to thwart or support inclusion in communal decision-making processes. In mapping out the barriers and interventions along the IAD framework, our analysis points to the need to pay more attention to how local rules arrangements shape participation, and in turn, offers specific entry points to promote more inclusive decision-making processes.
Institutional diversity in agricultural systems
(2024) Perez Ibarra, Irene; Arahuetes-de la Iglesia, Diego; Tenza-Peral, Alicia; Estévez Moreno, Laura X; Lacosta García, Javier; Lare David, Ismael; Pastore Benaim, Ignacio; Martín Suárez, Andrea
Successful governance of natural resources in agricultural systems requires the adaptation of institutions to specific social and environmental contexts. This adaptation, together with the history of the agricultural cases, results in a variety of rules, norms, and strategies used by local actors for resource sharing, i.e., institutional diversity. Here we explore this institutional diversity by quantifying and comparing the three dimensions of institutional diversity: 1) diversity of rule taxonomy, 2) diversity of grammatical components, and 3) diversity of the functionality of institutions. We coded institutions from transcripts of interviews with farmers from a selection of small-scale agricultural systems in Spain. Our results show not only the great institutional diversity that exists to adapt to even small contextual social and environmental differences, but also that traditional institutions are, in some cases, changing very rapidly, calling attention to the urgent need to document traditional institutions as an important part of our intangible cultural heritage.
Institutional Diversity in Romanian Carpathians (Abstract)
(2024) Diaconu, David; Miroiu, Adrian
This paper examines various ways of governing the commons in the Romanian Communal Villages and their governance system known as Obște. Historically, the Romanian rural areas were characterized by two perspectives of local governance: communal villages and villages under vassalage. This paper presents both ways but with an emphasis on the institutional diversity of the communal villages. From a methodological standpoint, the paper employs a mixed-methods research design including document analysis, interviews, surveys, and economic data from various periods. Regarding timeframe, the paper takes into account a few critical junctures. For example, the year 1948 – when the new (socialist) political regime enforced nationalization and collectivization policies, and 1989 – when the Romanian revolution took part and the political regime switched from a socialist to a democratic one. Along with the general perspective about commons governance throughout Romania, the paper also refers to several fruitful case studies and their specificities linked to institutional development and outcomes. Finally, the paper aims to offer insight into some of the Romanian Carpathians’ institutional diversity puzzle, contributing to the development of both commons and institutional theoretical frameworks.
Institutional Fit, Social-ecological Context, and the Emergence of Governance
(2024) Anderies, John; Aggarwal, Rimjhim
Institutional 'fit' has long been central to governance scholarship but implies that 'governance' is an external intervention applied to a system. If complexity theory and the notion of self-organizing governance is to be taken seriously, then governance is an emergent feature of dynamic interactions among social, ecological, and biophysical contextual factors. This study explores the question of how governance emerges within social-ecological systems using a combination of archetype analysis of small-scale irrigation cases and formal modeling techniques. The case study analysis helps highlight how different configurations of attributes that co-occur in each archetype and their inter-relationships may lead to specific types of governance and provides potential examples of how institutional 'fit' as viewed from outside the system may be understood as path-dependent fine-tuning between different SES attributes. The archetype analysis is complemented with formal modeling to further illustrate how ideas from complexity theory may be used unpack the notion of governance of SESs and offer some general practical principles for fostering sustainability in variable environments.

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