Let me commend Michael Madison, Brett Frischmann, and Katherine Strandburg for writing such an interesting and useful article on the study of commons in cultural environments. We have tried to ...develop a useful framework for analyzing a wide variety of questions. Their adoption of a modified form of our Institutional Analysis and Development (LAD) framework for this important set of questions reassures us that we met our goal. Charlotte Hess and I organized a conference and coedited a book that examined some aspects of the knowledge commons using the IAD framework.' We have learned that aspects of cultural environments can be thought of as "cultural commons" because cultural products (e.g., new knowledge or software) are often available to many users who do not have to pay the producer in order to use those products.2 Many important questions related to the study of cultural commons await a careful institutional analysis.
Going beyond panaceas Ostrom, Elinor; Janssen, Marco A; Anderies, John M
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
09/2007, Letnik:
104, Številka:
39
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In the context of governance of human-environment interactions, a panacea refers to a blueprint for a single type of governance system (e.g., government ownership, privatization, community property) ...that is applied to all environmental problems. The aim of this special feature is to provide theoretical analysis and empirical evidence to caution against the tendency, when confronted with pervasive uncertainty, to believe that scholars can generate simple models of linked social-ecological systems and deduce general solutions to the overuse of resources. Practitioners and scholars who fall into panacea traps falsely assume that all problems of resource governance can be represented by a small set of simple models, because they falsely perceive that the preferences and perceptions of most resource users are the same. Readers of this special feature will become acquainted with many cases in which panaceas fail. The articles provide an excellent overview of why they fail. Furthermore, the articles in this special feature address how scholars and public officials can increase the prospects for future sustainable resource use by facilitating a diagnostic approach in selecting appropriate starting points for governance and monitoring, as well as by learning from the outcomes of new policies and adapting in light of effective feedback.
The Struggle to Govern the Commons Dietz, Thomas; Ostrom, Elinor; Stern, Paul C.
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
12/2003, Letnik:
302, Številka:
5652
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Human institutions-ways of organizing activities-affect the resilience of the environment. Locally evolved institutional arrangements governed by stable communities and buffered from outside forces ...have sustained resources successfully for centuries, although they often fail when rapid change occurs. Ideal conditions for governance are increasingly rare. Critical problems, such as transboundary pollution, tropical deforestation, and climate change, are at larger scales and involve nonlocal influences. Promising strategies for addressing these problems include dialogue among interested parties, officials, and scientists; complex, redundant, and layered institutions; a mix of institutional types; and designs that facilitate experimentation, learning, and change.
What's wrong with foreign aid? Many policymakers, aid practitioners, and scholars have called into question its ability to increase economic growth, alleviate poverty, or promote social development. ...At the macro level, only tenuous links between development aid and improved living conditions have been found. At the micro level, only a few programs outlast donor support and even fewer appear to achieve lasting improvements. The authors of this book argue that much of aid's failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. In their analysis, the authors apply the theoretical insights of the new institutional economics to several settings. First, they investigate the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, to analyze how that aid agency's institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, the authors use cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries also mediate the effectiveness of aid. Throughout the book, the authors offer suggestions about how to improve aid's effectiveness. These suggestions include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as "owners" in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation processes of development assistance programs. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0199278849/toc.html Contributors to this volume - Krister Andersson, Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, Indiana University Matthew R. Auer, Associate Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Roy Gardner, Professor of Economics, Indiana University Clark C. Gibson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California Elinor Ostrom, Professor of Government, Indiana University Sujai Shivakumar, National Research Council, Washington D.C. Christopher J. Waller, Chair of Economics, University of Notre Dame
▶ Applicability of polycentricity to global climate change. ▶ Examples of polycentric efforts. ▶ Examples of local efforts to help solve climate-change problems. ▶ Discussion of new carbon markets.
...The 20th anniversary issue of
Global Environmental Change provides an important opportunity to address the core questions involved in addressing “global environmental” problems—especially those related to climate change. Climate change is a global collective-action problem since all of us face the likelihood of extremely adverse outcomes that could be reduced if many participants take expensive actions. Conventional collective-action theory predicts that these problems will not be solved unless an external authority determines appropriate actions to be taken, monitors behavior, and imposes sanctions. Debating about global efforts to solve climate-change problems, however, has yet not led to an effective global treaty. Fortunately, many activities can be undertaken by multiple units at diverse scales that cumulatively make a difference. I argue that instead of focusing
only on global efforts (which are indeed a necessary part of the long-term solution), it is better to encourage polycentric efforts to reduce the risks associated with the emission of greenhouse gases. Polycentric approaches facilitate achieving benefits at multiple scales as well as experimentation and learning from experience with diverse policies.
Coproduction is a process through which inputs from individuals who are not “in” the same organization are transformed into goods and services. Two cases are presented — one from Brazil and one from ...Nigeria — where public officials play a major role. In Brazil, public officials actively encourage a high level of citizen input to the production of urban infrastructure. In Nigeria, public officials discourage citizen contributions to primary education. The third section of the paper provides a brief overview of the theory of coproduction and its relevance for understanding the two cases. The last section addresses the implications of coproduction in polycentric systems for synergy and development.
The literature on global climate change has largely ignored the small but positive steps that many public and private actors are taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A global policy is ...frequently posited as the only strategy needed. It is important to balance the major attention on global solutions as the only strategy for coping with climate change. Positive actions are underway at multiple, smaller scales to start the process of climate change mitigation. Researchers need to understand the strength of polycentric systems where enterprises at multiple levels may complement each other. Building a global regime is a necessity, but encouraging the emergence of a polycentric system starts the process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and acts as a spur to international regimes to do their part.
Government policies are needed when people's behaviors fail to deliver the public good. Those policies will be most effective if they can stimulate long-term changes in beliefs and norms, creating ...and reinforcing the behaviors needed to solidify and extend the public good. It is often the short-term acceptability of potential policies, rather than their longer-term efficacy, that determines their scope and deployment. The policy process should include a consideration of both timescales. The academy, however, has provided insufficient insight on the coevolution of social norms and different policy instruments, thus compromising the ability of decisionmakers to craft effective solutions to the society's most intractable environmental problems. Life scientists could make fundamental contributions to this agenda through targeted research on the emergence of social norms.
The concepts of formal and informal remain central to the theory and practice of development more than half a century after they were introduced into the debate. They help structure the way that ...statistical services collect data on the economies of developing countries, the development of theoretical and empirical analysis, and, most important, the formulation and implementation of policy. This volume brings together a significant new collection of studies on formality and informality in developing countries. The volume is multidisciplinary in nature, with contributions from anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists. It contains contributions from among the very best analysts in development studies. Between them the chapters argue for moving beyond the formal-informal dichotomy. Useful as it has proven to be, a more nuanced approach is needed in light of conceptual and empirical advances, and in light of the policy failures brought about by a characterization of the 'informal' as 'disorganized'. The wealth of empirical information in these studies, and in the literature more widely, can be used to develop guiding principles for intervention that are based on ground level reality. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance//toc.html Contributors to this volume - Rajeev Ahuja, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations Krister Andersson, Indiana University Martha Alter Chen, Harvard University Robert K. Christensen, Indiana University Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis, UNU-WIDER Keith Hart, Goldsmiths College, University of London Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University Robert Lensink, University of Groningen Norman V. Loayza, The World Bank Mark McGillivray, UNU-WIDER M. R. Narayana, Institute for Social and Economic Change Jeffrey B. Nugent, University of Southern California Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University Ana Maria Oviedo, University of Maryland Diego Pacheco, Indiana University Sally Roever, University of California, Berkeley Amos Sawyer, Indiana University Luis Serven, The World Bank Alice Sindzingre, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris Fredrik Soderbaum, Goteborg University Shailender Swaminathan, University of Alabama Pham Thi Thu Tra Pham, University of Groningen Liz Alden Wily, Independent Land Tenure and National Resources Management Adviser
What makes social-ecological systems (SESs) robust? In this paper, we look at the institutional configurations that affect the interactions among resources, resource users, public infrastructure ...providers, and public infrastructures. We propose a framework that helps identify potential vulnerabilities of SESs to disturbances. All the links between components of this framework can fail and thereby reduce the robustness of the system. We posit that the link between resource users and public infrastructure providers is a key variable affecting the robustness of SESs that has frequently been ignored in the past. We illustrate the problems caused by a disruption in this link. We then briefly describe the design principles originally developed for robust common-pool resource institutions, because they appear to be a good starting point for the development of design principles for more general SESs and do include the link between resource users and public infrastructure providers.
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