The Drama of the Commons (2002) / Chapter Skim
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8 Institutional Interplay: The Environmental Consequences of Cross-Scale Interactions
8 Institutional Interplay: The Environmental Consequences of Cross-Scale Interactions
Pages 263-292
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From page 263... ...
In complex societies, institutional interplay is a common occurrence; the resultant interactions can be expected to loom large as determinants of the performance of individual institutions and of their robustness or durability in the face of various pressures for change. With regard to institutions that address environmental matters commonly referred to as resource or environmental regimes (Young, 1982a)
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From page 264... ...
There are good reasons to believe, for example, that interactions between trade regimes and environmental regimes at the international level, which were once highly asymmetrical, are becoming increasingly symmetrical as environmental regimes gain strength and begin to generate significant consequences for the operation of the global trading system. Institutions also interact with one another as a result of both functional interdependencies arising from inherent connections and strategic links arising from exercises in political design and management.
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From page 265... ...
The emphasis throughout is on vertical interplay or interactions among institutions operating at different levels of social organization. The levels of interest range across the full spectrum from micro-scale or local systems to macro-scale or global systems.2 For the most part, however, I direct attention to interactions among (1)
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From page 266... ...
INTERPLAY BETWEEN (SUB) NATIONAL AND LOCAL RESOURCE REGIMES Patterns of land use and the sustainability of human/environment relations associated with them are determined, in considerable measure, by the interplay of (sub~national predominantly modern and formal structures of public property and local often informal systems of land tenure based on common property arrangements.3 For their part, patterns of sea use and the sustainability of the relevant marine ecosystems are affected greatly by the interplay of (sub~national regulatory systems legitimized by the creation of exclusive economic zones (EEZs)
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From page 267... ...
Because informal/local and modern/national systems commonly coexist though they seldom enjoy equal standing in relevant political and legal arenas actual patterns of land use and sea use are affected substantially by cross-scale interactions between these disparate systems operating at different levels of social organization. In the following subsections, I evaluate these hypotheses with reference to terrestrial and marine ecosystems and illustrate the dynamics involved with brief accounts of the use of forest lands in Southeast Asia, grazing lands in the Russian North, and fish stocks in the eastern Bering Sea.
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From page 268... ...
Throughout much of the Russian Federation, where the legacy of collectivization introduced during the period of Soviet rule remains strong, serious land claims on the part of local peoples are just beginning to surface (Fondahl, 1998~. How can these clashes between the claims of national governments to public property and the claims of local communities to common property be resolved?
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From page 269... ...
Unsustainable practices involving the use of natural resources appear to have contributed to the collapse of some small-scale systems in areas as diverse as the Middle East and Central America. But so long as their informal socioeconomic systems remain intact, local peoples do not have strong incentives to harvest timber for export, to extract hydrocarbons or nonfuel minerals to sell on world markets, or to build massive dams to support large-scale irrigation systems and industrial agriculture.8 Where systems of common property controlled by local users prevail, therefore, we can anticipate that patterns of land use will differ markedly from the patterns likely to arise where systems of public property prevail.
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From page 270... ...
But the shifting balance between systems of public property and systems of common property has played a key role in allowing these developments to happen. Local users pursuing long-established lifestyles have no incentives to adopt strategies leading to forest degradation and, in the process, undermining the resource base needed to sustain these lifestyles.
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From page 271... ...
But it is clear that the shifting balance between national claims to public property and local claims to common property will play a role of considerable importance in determining future patterns of land use in northwestern Siberia. Systems of Sea Tenure The story of sea tenure differs often quite dramatically from the account of land tenure set forth in the preceding subsection.
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From page 272... ...
in a variety of fisheries is particularly noteworthy in this connection (Iudicello et al., 1999; Tietenberg, this volume:Chapter 6~. In part, the scarcity of systems of private property and public property associated with marine resources arises from limitations on the authority of states to exercise control over marine systems.
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From page 273... ...
Coastal states do not have the authority to transfer title to marine systems to private owners in the way that states traditionally have been able to dispose of sizable portions of the public domain. Many governments consider it inappropriate even to collect economic returns from the use of marine resources treated as factors of production, a practice that is routine in situations involving the use of natural resources (e.g., timber, hydrocarbons)
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From page 274... ...
Justified in large part by the need to manage large marine ecosystems on an integrated basis and to bring to bear the insights of science in order to ensure sustainability in the use of marine resources, these regimes have been insufficient to prevent a growing crisis in many of the world's fisheries brought on by an excess of harvesting capacity and an inability both scientifically and politically to establish and enforce appropriate quotas or other restrictions governing the consumptive use of living marine resources (McGoodwin, 1991~. In fact, national governments have provided regular subsidies to harvesters in a manner that has led to the acquisition of larger and more powerful harvesting capabilities along with heavy debt loads.
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From page 275... ...
Because the regime established to regulate fishing in this area has the status of a national arrangement, the state of Alaska has been barred from instituting measures to protect local fishers in the area from competition on the part of large, heavily capitalized fishers based in Washington and Oregon. The exclusion of foreign fishers from the FCZ caused them to shift their focus to an area of the central Bering Sea located just outside the FCZ and known as the doughnut hole.
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From page 276... ...
In any event, it is clear that the growth of coastal state jurisdiction over marine resources and the subsequent emergence of (sub~national systems of sea use have triggered new forms of institutional interplay in this realm whose consequences have been costly not only for many individuals, but also for the welfare of small coastal communities in an area like Alaska. INTERPLAY BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL REGIMES Turn now to institutional interplay occurring at higher levels of social organization and, more specifically, to the hypothesis that the effectiveness of international environmental regimes measured in terms of efficiency and equity as well as sustainability is determined, in considerable measure, by the interplay between rules and decision-making procedures articulated at the international level and the political, economic, and social systems prevailing within individual member states.
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From page 277... ...
Small wonder, then, that many other countries find the United States a difficult partner when it comes to the creation and implementation of international regimes. In other cases, the problem arises from the allocation of authority between national and subnational units of government in contrast to the separation of powers among the component parts of national governments.
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From page 278... ...
Yet such mechanisms are alien to the political cultures of many countries, and government agencies in these countries are lacking in experience with mechanisms of this sort that would allow them to assimilate such a governance system into familiar and well-understood ways of doing business (Chertow and Esty, 1997; Rose, this volume:Chapter 7; Tietenberg, this volume: Chapter 6~. For its part, capacity is a measure of the availability of the social capital as well as the material resources needed to make good on commitments entered into at the international level (Chayes and Chayes, 1995; Keohane and Levy, 1996~.
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From page 279... ...
What is more, those responsible for administering international regimes are seldom in a position to resort to what constitutes the normal procedure for handling interplay of this sort between national and subnational governments, a setting in which national governments ordinarily possess the ultimate authority to compel subnational governments to adjust their rules and procedures to ensure that they do not conflict with arrangements designed and implemented at the national level.~4 The result is a mode of operation in which the rules of international regimes are framed in terms that are sufficiently generic to allow officials in individual member states considerable leeway in operationalizing them within their own jurisdictions. Up to a point, this is clearly desirable.
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From page 280... ...
CAFF has become a forum in which officials from government agencies and representatives of NGOs (e.g., the World Wildlife Fund) interact freely; it has succeeded in capturing and holding the attention of public agencies in a number of member states, and it has emerged as a mechanism for applying universal guidelines relating to biological diversity to the particular circumstances prevailing in the Circumpolar North.~5 One of CAFF's highest priorities has been to promote and oversee the creation of a Cir
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From page 281... ...
Regimes for Marine Resources Turning now to institutional interplay relating to marine resources in the Barents Sea and the Bering Sea, an even more complex pattern of institutional interplay comes into focus. In effect, the regimes that have emerged in these areas feature interactions between and among three differentiable sets of institutional arrangements: the global rules governing EEZs, the (sub~national regulatory systems that individual coastal states have put in place to govern activities within their individual EEZs, and several regional arrangements created to deal with situations in which the EEZs of individual states either adjoin each other (i.e., the relevant states are adjacent or opposite states)
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From page 282... ...
Two particularly interesting examples of these regional arrangements are the predominantly bilateral Norwegian/Russian regime dealing with the fisheries of the Barents Sea and the somewhat more complex set of arrangements that have emerged in the Bering Sea Region. Not only do these cases exemplify different strategies for dealing with institutional interplay, but they also have produced different outcomes.
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From page 283... ...
But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that difficulties plaguing efforts to manage the interplay of institutional arrangements across levels of social organization constitute a significant feature of this story. IMPLICATIONS AND TAKE-HOME MESSAGES The principal conclusion to be drawn from the analysis set forth in the preceding sections is that cross-scale interactions among resource regimes generate an inescapable tension.
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From page 284... ...
A more promising response to this tension involves the establishment of arrangements that many analysts have explored in recent years under the rubric of co-management (Berkes, this volume:Chapter 9; Osherenko, 1988~. In the typical case, co-management involves the creation of environmental or resource regimes featuring partnerships between local users of natural resources and agencies of (sub~national governments possessing the formal authority to make decisions about human activities involving marine and terrestrial ecosystems as well as the material resources needed to administer management systems.
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From page 285... ...
We must bear in mind as well that the creation of institutions at every level of social organization is a political process centering on what can be described as institutional bargaining (Young, 1994~. Whatever their consequences in terms of considerations like sustainability or efficiency, environmental or resource regimes always have significant consequences for the interests of those nonstate actors as well as states subject to their rules and decision-making procedures.
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From page 286... ...
Where interplay occurs between institutions operating at the local level and institutions operating at the national level, for example, I describe the resultant interplay as an instance of cross-scale interactions. 3 In the discussion to follow, public property refers to land/sea and associated natural resources owned by the state; private property refers to land/sea and natural resources belonging to individual members of society; and common property refers to land/sea and natural resources owned jointly by the members of an identifiable community.
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From page 287... ...
14 In some countries the United States is a good example there is a long history of tension regarding the allocation of authority between the national government and various subnational governments. 15 Updates on the work of CAFF appear regularly in the Arctic Bulletin, published four times a year under the auspices of the World Wildlife Fund Arctic Program.
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From page 288... ...
Meyer, and V Rittberger 1997 Theories of International Regimes.
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From page 289... ...
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. National Marine Fisheries Service 1997 Bering Sea Ecosystem- A Call to Action.
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From page 290... ...
6. World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy of Alaska 1999 Ecoregion-Based Conservation in the Bering Sea.
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From page 291... ...
Ocean Development and International Law 10: 199-273. 1983 Fishing by permit: Restricted common property in practice.
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