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Institutional Failure and Reform: A Problem in Economic and Political Analysis of Water Resource Development
(1967) Ostrom, Vincent
(From pp. 1, 2, & 8): "The purpose of this conference is to consider the question of what special contribution, if any, can political scientists make to the analysis and formulation of public policy? At an earlier time, essentially the same question might have been posed by inquiring about What special contribution can political scientists make to political reform? More recently, the reform motif has become something of an anathema to the more scientifically rigorous political scientists. Yet, we keep returning to the problems of reform like moths drawn to a candle flame. Perhaps we will be able to make a special contribution as political scientists to the analysis and formulation of public policy only when we develop the capability for analyzing the issue of reform with some measure of professional competence. "My invitation to participate in this meeting was to direct attention to the tangible and practical problems of public policy associated with water resource development and not to discourse about political reform as such. Yet, contemporary studies of water resource development persistently turn to allegations of institutional failure among resource development and management agencies and conclude by either explicitly or implicitly proposing a program of reform. Most of these studies have been made by economists, those done by political scientists have a similar, albeit, variant approach to institutional failure and reform. The studies by economists are both more systematic and more consistent in their critique, and I shall use their work as the principal point of departure. "There are quite tangible and practical reasons, unrelated to the wiles of politicians, for problems of water resource development to become deeply involved in the political process. The water problem is, in fact, a multitude of problems, but most of these are problems of fluidity. Whenever water behaves as a liquid, it has the characteristics of 1) a common pool, flow resource involving; 2) a complex bundle of potential goods and bads which sustain; 3) a high level of interaction or interdependency among the various joint and alternative uses. The interrelationships among all three of these characteristics of a water resource situation simply compounds the difficulties in settling upon stable, long-term institutional arrangements for the economics development of water resources."
Exchange of Water Supply
(1960) Ostrom, Vincent
"California's water 'problem' arises from a personal preference congeries relevant to an area yielding limited water supplies. Semi-arid Mediterranean Southern California coastal regions provide climatic amenities attractive to population. These same weather conditions are expensive to water resources. By contrast, more abundantly supplied Northern California has not attracted large populations. Yet in the modern metropolis a relatively abundant water supply is essential to meet a variety of requirements. The resolution of this paradox is central to California water resource development. Marked contrasts in water yield and population distribution can be noted in comparisons of the south and north coastal areas of California. The south coastal area comprising Ventura basin and the Southern California coastal plain contains over one-half of the state's population with less than two percent of the state's natural run-off. By contrast, the north coastal area has less than three per cent of the state's population with nearly forty per cent of the state's water crop. The problem of geographic redistribution of water supplies is further complicated by extreme seasonal and cyclical variations in floods and droughts."
Land Reform, Development, and Institutional Design
(1972) Loveman, Brian
"Land reform has often been viewed as a major remedy for the ills afflicting developing societies. Like the elixirs of the traveling medicine man, no one knows all of the ingredients; no one knows the side effects. But, land reform is guaranteed to cure all--or most all--diseases of developing nations. As John Montgomery has observed, land reform is an example of 'a principle which has been tested and has survived, though its effects have rarely been reported or explained'."
Constitutional Level of Analysis: Problems and Prospects
(1979) Ostrom, Vincent
From p. 20: "The problems and prospects inherent in using the constitutional level of analysis to inform political inquiry are sufficiently great that they deserve careful consideration in laying the theoretical foundations for empirical investigations of political behavior and policy analyses. The theoretical analysis occurs at the constitutional level where inquiry is oriented to a consideration of alternative institutional arrangements. The conduct of empirical investigation occurs at the operational level within the constraints of given institutional structures. If empirical inquiry is to be informed by an appropriate theoretical analysis we need to proceed at both the constitutional and the operational levels of analysis. If we do so we may discover important links between political theory, political practice, and political science. We would then be in a position to test propositions about whether political structures do make a difference in the way that people are governed and live their lives in human societies. "Considering the nature of human artisanship we need to come to terms with conceptions of political structures as entailing more than words on paper. No one would expect a chemical formula to work by itself. Political institutions entail political artisans as well as political formulas. Then we learn how to treat artisans, and the conceptions they use, as informing conduct in relation to structures we may be in a position to determine the relationship of the structure of institutional arrangements to the consequences that flow for human societies. This requires more than the study of behavior per se. The constitutional level of analysis must accompany the operational level of analysis in the study of political phenomena not as natural phenomena, but as artifactual phenomena."
Strategy and the Structure of Interdependent Decision-Making Mechanisms
(1967) Ostrom, Elinor
From p. 54: The paradigm presented ... begins to sketch in the type of analysis that one could undertake when examining the affect of decision-making structures on individual behavior. It is hoped that the paradigm will be of help in stimulating further theoretical and empirical work on the relation between the structure of decision-making mechanisms and the strategies of individuals employ when attempting to reach solutions to problems through the utilization of different structures."
Polycentricity
(1972) Ostrom, Vincent
"Application of the concept of polycentricity to the organization of government in metropolitan areas is examined. A polycentric order is defined as one where many elements are capable of making mutual adjustments for ordering relationships with one another within a general system of rules where each element acts with independence of other elements. Spontaneity, in the sense that individuals will be led to organize elements in a polycentric order, initiate self-enforcing arrangements and alter basic rules, is explored as an attribute of a polycentric order. "Reliance upon polycentricity in the organization of various decision-making arenas is examined in relation to markets, judicial decision making, constitutional rule, selection of political leadership and formation of political coalitions and in the operation of a public service economy. The existence of polycentricty in each of these decision making arenas suggests that the governance of metropolitan areas can occur in a polycentric political system so long as no single set of decision makers is able to gain dominance over all decision-making structures. Polycentricity is not confined to market structures but can apply to the organization of diverse political processes and by implication can apply to the political process as a whole. A polycentric political system will be one where each actor participated in a series of simultaneous games and where each act has the potential for being a move in simultaneous games. "Implications of a theory of polycentric organization for research in the governance of metropolitan areas are considered in relation to problems of language and differences of approach as reflected in the use of different units of analysis. Advantage can be taken of these differences so long as contradictory hypotheses can be derived from different theoretical formulations and be used as political experiments if careful attention is given to difference in diagnostic assessments and to differences in the predictive inferences associated with different proposals for policy change. It is this circumstance that provides a challenging opportunity for the generation of empirical research on metropolitan governance being undertaken in the 1970s. We may be on the threshold where political science becomes a cumulative intellectual discipline grounded in analytical theory and when empirical research can be used to mobilize evidence for rejecting some of the propositions which now pass for political science. Theory can be improved only when erroneous conceptions can be abandoned and when weak conceptions can be replaced by stronger conceptions."
Voluntary Group Response to Types of Collective Goods
(1978) Kiser, Larry L.
"Collective goods have been defined into three primary types distinguished by the attributes of nonsubtractibility, infeasibility of exclusion, and combination of both nonsubtractibility and nonexclusion. But these distinctions are often blurred in analysis involving collective goods. Mancur Olson's theory of groups and collective goods is an example, with the result that Olson claims unwarranted generality for his theory of small groups. The following develops the implications for voluntary provision of collective goods by focusing on the distinctions among the different types of collective goods."
Some Problems in Doing Political Theory: A Response to Golembiewski's 'Critique'
(1977) Ostrom, Vincent
"Robert T. Golembiewski's 'A Critique of 'Democratic Administration' and Its Supporting Ideation' serves a useful purpose. It challenges some assumptions of public choice theory as well as some of my arguments about democratic administration as an alternative to bureaucratic administration. Golembiewski's 'Critique' is representative of various criticisms that have been made (Heikoff, 1973; Neiman, 1975; Self, 1975). However, it is so discursive that an effort to respond to each point is not feasible in this essay. I shall respond only to major issues. I see no point in discoursing on the general virtues and vices of market economies or on 'cycles of governance' since these have not been the focus of my inquiries. "Several issues are raised that are central to the task of doing political theory. These include the general issue of methodological individualism, the related assumptions about self-interest and preference orderings, and the place of values, efficiency, and Pareto optimality. These issues are, in turn, imbedded in a more general problem: that of using language as a tool for theoretical inquiry and testing the usefulness of different conceptual languages for generating inferences and researchable hypotheses. "The language problem gives rise to a serious potential for misunderstanding. Many conclusions that Golembiewski attributes to me, for example, are not my conclusions and do not follow from the conceptual language that I use. In translating some of my arguments into his language, Golembiewski says something different than I have said. In some cases the virtual antithesis is asserted. In other cases, targets of convenience in public choice theory or economic theory more generally are used to condemn by association without critically examining the relevant issues in my own work. These problems will become apparent in the course of this essay. Before turning to some methodological issues in doing political theory, I need first to establish the context for Golembiewski's 'Critique' and my response."
Organization
(1969) Ostrom, Vincent
"Every development--street sweeping, production of fertilizers, irrigation works, the development of new seed stocks--has a component to it that is concerned with how the activities of people are organized in relation to another. Our effort will be to clarify the essential structure of relationships that apply to institutions of all types and to indicates some of the variations that apply to institutions of different types. However, our focus will be upon the practical implications that are relevant to the man of action who is concerned with knowing what he is doing. As a result, we shall focus upon those who are attempting to do something which involves the activities of many other persons. We shall refer broadly to such individuals as organizers or entrepreneurs. Business entrepreneurs are only one type of organizer. In speaking of organizers we shall refer to all of those who struggle with the practical problems of how to organize the activities of the diverse individuals who become associated with the operation of diverse undertakings or enterprises. Enterprises may be organized as a family endeavour, individual proprietorship, business corporation or stock company, cooperative society, public enterprise, government agency, political party, outlaw society, or revolutionary group. In the rare case, individuals may be concerned with the organization of a nation-state or an international organization."
The Erosion of Public Highways: A Policy Analysis of the Eastern Kentucky Coal-Haul Road Problem
(1978) Oakerson, Ronald J.
"[This dissertation] extends work initially undertaken for a Master's essay on the subject of unlawful coal hauling on the highways of Eastern Kentucky. The analysis builds upon the theory of public goods and considers the impacts of common property relationships on public goods in order to pose the general problem of joint and alternative uses. The object of the research is to explore the limiting factors in present institutional arrangements and the possibilities of different institutions. The methodology includes the use of personal interviews to reconstruct the strategies and claims of different participants and the conduct of legal research to determine the relative availability of different remedies."

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