•Develop knowledge classificatory system using the social–ecological system framework.•Propose suite of key variables relevant for benthic fisheries social–ecological systems studies.•Intent is to ...aid knowledge accumulation among benthic fisheries researchers.•Illustrate approach through two studies of benthic fisheries in Mexico and Chile.
Ostrom proposed the underpinnings of a framework for the systematic study of the governance of complex social–ecological systems. Here we hypothesize that Ostrom's social–ecological system framework can be useful to build a classification system for small-scale benthic fisheries, regarding their governance processes and outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge accumulation of benthic fisheries. To tailor the framework, we relied on discussions among experts and a systematic literature review of benthic fisheries from 1980 to 2010. This literature review helped us refine variable definitions and provide readers with illustrative reference papers. We then illustrate the approach and its potential contributions through two studies of the emergence of self-organization in Mexico and Chile. We highlight synthetic lessons from the cases and the overall approach as well as reflect on remaining challenges to the development of a social–ecological system framework as a diagnostic tool for knowledge accumulation and synthesis.
I assume multiple types of players--“rational egoists,” as well as “conditional cooperators” and “willing punishers”--in models of nonmarket behavior. I use an indirect evolutionary approach to ...explain how multiple types of players could survive and flourish in social dilemma situations. Contextual variables that enhance knowledge about past behavior assist in explaining the origin of collective action. Among the important contextual variables are types of goods, types of groups, and rules that groups use to provide and allocate goods. Finally, I reexamine a series of design principles that were derived earlier from an examination of extensive case materials.
Globalization, the process by which local social-ecological systems (SESs) are becoming linked in a global network, presents policy scientists and practitioners with unique and difficult challenges. ...Although local SESs can be extremely complex, when they become more tightly linked in the global system, complexity increases very rapidly as multi-scale and multi-level processes become more important. Here, we argue that addressing these multi-scale and multi-level challenges requires a collection of theories and models. We suggest that the conceptual domains of sustainability, resilience, and robustness provide a sufficiently rich collection of theories and models, but overlapping definitions and confusion about how these conceptual domains articulate with one another reduces their utility. We attempt to eliminate this confusion and illustrate how sustainability, resilience, and robustness can be used in tandem to address the multi-scale and multi-level challenges associated with global change.
Scholars have tended to recommend ‘optimal’ solutions for coping with open‐access problems related to common‐pool resources such as fisheries, forests and water systems. Examples exist of both ...successful and unsuccessful efforts to rely on private property, government property and community property. After briefly reviewing how the often‐recommended solutions have worked in the field, I suggest that institutional theorists move from touting simple, optimal solutions to analysing adaptive, multi‐level governance as related to complex, evolving resource systems.
Governing natural resources sustainably is a continuing struggle. Major debates occur over what types of policy "interventions" best protect forests, with choices of property and land tenure systems ...being central issues. Herein, we provide an overview of findings from a long-term interdisciplinary, multiscale, international research program that analyzes the institutional factors affecting forests managed under a variety of tenure arrangements. This program analyzes satellite images, conducts social-ecological measurements on the ground, and tests the impact of structural variables on human decisions in experimental laboratories. Satellite images track the landscape dimensions of forest-cover change within different management regimes over time. On-the-ground social-ecological studies examine relationships between forest conditions and types of institutions. Behavioral studies under controlled laboratory conditions enhance our understanding of explicit changes in structure that affect relevant human decisions. Evidence from all three research methods challenges the presumption that a single governance arrangement will control overharvesting in all settings. When users are genuinely engaged in decisions regarding rules affecting their use, the likelihood of them following the rules and monitoring others is much greater than when an authority simply imposes rules. Our results support a frontier of research on the most effective institutional and tenure arrangements for protecting forests. They move the debate beyond the boundaries of protected areas into larger landscapes where government, community, and comanaged protected areas are embedded and help us understand when and why deforestation and regrowth occur in specific regions within these larger landscapes.
A major problem worldwide is the potential loss of fisheries, forests, and water resources. Understanding of the processes that lead to improvements in or deterioration of natural resources is ...limited, because scientific disciplines use different concepts and languages to describe and explain complex social-ecological systems (SESs). Without a common framework to organize findings, isolated knowledge does not cumulate. Until recently, accepted theory has assumed that resource users will never self-organize to maintain their resources and that governments must impose solutions. Research in multiple disciplines, however, has found that some government policies accelerate resource destruction, whereas some resource users have invested their time and energy to achieve sustainability. A general framework is used to identify 10 subsystem variables that affect the likelihood of self-organization in efforts to achieve a sustainable SES.
Human-induced causes of forest change occur at multiple scales. Yet, most governance mechanisms are designed at a single level – whether international, national, regional or local – and do not ...provide effective solutions for the overarching challenge of forest governance. Efforts to “decentralize” governmental arrangements frequently do not recognize the importance of complex, polycentric arrangements and are based on a presumption of a single government at one level taking charge of a policy arena, often ignoring the existence of many vibrant self-governed institutions. Polycentric institutions provide a useful framework for governance, enabling aspects of preferred solutions to be used together in efforts to protect the long-term sustainability of diverse forested social-ecological systems. By considering the interaction between actors at different levels of governance, polycentricity contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the variation in diverse governance outcomes in the management of common-pool resources based on the needs and interests of citizens and the complexity of resources and governance systems at local, regional, national, and global levels. In this paper, we discuss challenges to polycentricity such as the matching of the boundaries of those who benefit, those who contribute with the boundary of the resource. We describe some approaches that have been effectively utilized to address these challenges in forests in various parts of the world. We also provide a brief overview of how the concept of polycentricity helps in the analysis of climate change and the closely related international effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through degradation and deforestation (REDD).
There is an increasing drive to combine agent-based models with empirical methods. An overview is provided of the various empirical methods that are used for different kinds of questions. Four ...categories of empirical approaches are identified in which agent-based models have been empirically tested: case studies, stylized facts, role-playing games, and laboratory experiments. We discuss how these different types of empirical studies can be combined. The various ways empirical techniques are used illustrate the main challenges of contemporary social sciences: (1) how to develop models that are generalizable and still applicable in specific cases, and (2) how to scale up the processes of interactions of a few agents to interactions among many agents.
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