The Drama of the Commons (2002) / Chapter Skim
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11 Emergence of Institutions for the Commons: Contexts, Situations, and Events
11 Emergence of Institutions for the Commons: Contexts, Situations, and Events
Pages 361-402
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From page 361... ...
The notion of "situated choice" frames my discussion of emergence. Although closely linked to the neo-institutionalist endeavor through the focus on choice, it is tied even more closely to a critical perspective on commons research that emphasizes the embeddedness of the individual and rational choice in larger contexts and in particular situations that can only be known through investigations into history, political dynamics and social structure, culture, and ecology.
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From page 362... ...
. Rules, law, and governance are major institutions affecting human behavior.
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From page 363... ...
The older one is the "economics of flexibility" or "response process" approach developed and used mostly during the 1970s. The newer one is "political ecology." I then discuss the broader set of historical, social constructionist, and "embeddedness" perspectives that underpin many critiques of common-pool resource studies and the importance of being specific and critical about key concepts, in this case "community." The third section brings together social constructionism and "event ecology," emphasizing the methodological points shared by otherwise seemingly strange bedfellows.
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From page 364... ...
The idea of "situation" and "situated rational choice" applies to the "stages" or decision-points, which may or may not be part of a predictable process (cf. Vayda et al., 1991~.
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From page 365... ...
The Step-Wise Model of Situated Rational Choice The emergence of institutions for governance of common-pool resources will depend on several step-wise conditions. To begin, is a problem calling for institutional change actually recognized by the people involved, particularly the people with the resources and power required to make changes?
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From page 366... ...
, resource-dependent local communities, and extraction companies, but actual situations are likely to be even more complex and nuanced (for example, elite members of a local community making special deals with either the NGOs or the companies) (Sawyer, 1996~.
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From page 367... ...
shows this for Ponam Islanders of Papua New Guinea, who believed that God, not people, caused change in fish, shellfish, and turtles, and thus were unwilling to accept the need to change their harvesting practices being promulgated by people concerned about major declines in some of these resources. Similarly, many New England fishermen have resisted changes in fishery management because they were convinced that chaotic-like processes in nature had long resulted in cycles of abundance and decline, and thus that restrictions on their catches would do little good (Smith, 1990; see Wilson, this volume:Chapter 10~.
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From page 368... ...
, this approach nonetheless highlights the importance of culture. It is also another reminder of the evolving multidisciplinary area of research on risk perception and behavior, which articulates with the common property research tradition at several points.
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From page 369... ...
analysis of user participation in fishery management in the Pacific coast of the United States showed the difficulties of sustaining cooperation where the natural resource had declined sharply. In sum, institutions for common-pool resource management may or may not arise depending on whether people accept that human behavior is a cause of problems, agree on whether some kind of regulation or other institutional change is called for, and believe the situation is not too far gone to do something about it.
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From page 370... ...
Building on Existing Institutions From a rational choice perspective, the existence of institutions that can be adapted for new purposes may be extremely important to the emergence of selfgovernance of common-pool resources (Ostrom, 1990~. They can lower transaction costs, providing the decision-making structures, enforcement powers, experiences, and cultural expectations that otherwise might have to be created anew and at great economic and political expense.
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From page 371... ...
Many cases of indigenous groups trying to create institutions for the commons are also good reminders of the danger of assuming that "conservation" or protecting the "sustainability" of local resources is always or properly the goal. As shown in many parts of Latin America, struggles to claim or gain recognition for common property by indigenous groups are often struggles for territory and for cultural identity vis-a-vis other claimants (Bruce, 1999:53~.
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From page 372... ...
External resources and actors can play an extremely important role, interacting with internal and local ones, in creating civic arenas or forums, social and political spaces for deliberation. Broadening the analytic scope to include much larger vertical and horizontal linkages among social entities, one sees that forces external to local communities of common-pool resource users play an extremely important role in institutional change.
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From page 373... ...
In some poor rural regions of developing countries, there are fewer local organizations and other features of civic society than in wealthier areas (Esman and Uphoff, 1984~. Consequently, the emergence of institutions often means involving insiders and outsiders, resource users and development workers or resource managers.
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From page 374... ...
Muddling Through When common-pool resource users are faced with the need to invest time, energy, money, and other resources in developing or changing self-governing institutions, the rational choice of free-rider strategies can overwhelm the effort. A "privileged group" may be able to counteract free riding by investing enough to provide benefits and eventually cajole others into contributing or change the rules in ways that further marginalize or exclude most of the free riders.
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From page 375... ...
OLD AND NEW DIRECTIONS IN COMMON-POOL RESOURCE STUDIES The previous discussion is influenced heavily by mainstream and also by less well-known and emerging traditions in studies of common property and, more generally, human ecology. My goal in the rest of the chapter is to highlight the less familiar and newer traditions that have influenced my own thoughts and are of potential interest to other scholars and practitioners.
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From page 376... ...
For instance, if simple adjustments in technology compensate for decline in common resources, there is little reason to bother with the task of creating and changing regulatory institutions, particularly as that task can divert resources from other important issues such as finding food and shelter for one's family. On the other hand, if those technological changes do not work, or if the environmental problem worsens or expands its scope, "deeper" or more costly changes are more likely to take effect, such as those implied in personal decisions to create or join social movements or social agreements to create, implement, and enforce regulations.
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From page 377... ...
In other words, those investing in the larger vessels appeared to have been moving too rapidly and too inappropriately, given the situation and what one might predict from any theory that emphasizes cautiousness in the face of uncertain environmental change. Exploring why that happened led to appreciation of the role of various social entities and economic and political actors outside the local community in decisions made about the future of the community.
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From page 378... ...
People ecology was intended to suggest the value of leaving open the possibility that the significant units may be individuals, households, or various other social entities, ranging from voluntary associations and transient networks to political units such as municipalities and nations. These change in relation to changes in environmental and social situations or contexts, including the local culture and the larger political economy.
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From page 379... ...
Approaches that foreground relationships of power and authority, domination and resistance, and so forth often are subsumed under the label "political ecology." Stepping back to the step-wise model for situated rational choice, one can see limitations of the health psychology model because it is limited mainly to the study of voluntary individual action which is also the focus of much work in common-pool resource studies, for example, on free-rider disincentives to cooperative action on the part of individuals or individual entities. To properly account for how people respond to common-pool resource challenges, we need to know more about institutions and the deliberative processes that lead to their emergence and change.
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From page 380... ...
The ideas of community, plus ideas of territory, customary law, and locality, are central to common property studies and the community-based resource management movement. A major difference is between conservationists and development organizations, the one emphasizing protecting biodiversity and habitat integrity, the other local participation.
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From page 381... ...
. Embeddedness Much of what goes under the label of "political ecology" is influenced strongly not only by Marxist and other political economy approaches in the social sciences but also by theoretical developments that emphasize the social embeddedness and cultural construction of seemingly individual, economic, and natural phenomena.
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From page 382... ...
In a somewhat different sense (Giddens, 1990) , the notion of embeddedness is used to distinguish local communities in terms of the extent to which particular activities for example, fish harvesting and processing are embedded in or disembedded from the larger local community due to the globalization of production and marketing and other processes (Apostle et al., 1998~.
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From page 383... ...
Talking, discursive behavior, and the meanings construed from talk and action as shaped by identity and power these are the stuff of social relations and culture. Discourse analysis and research on the social and cultural dimensions of communication are thus part of common-pool resource studies.
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From page 384... ...
, if all participants are situated or embedded in similar cultures, social structures, and experiences, they are more likely to be able to engage in rational communication. If not, money, power, or influence "talk." This sociological approach to communication and decision making has ecological meaning as well.
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From page 385... ...
Both attributes are essential conditions for the mutual monitoring and sanctioning that are widely acknowledged to be critical endogenous factors for managing local common resources. The explanatory link to solving the collective action problem is transaction costs in the models of Singleton and Taylor (1992:316)
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From page 386... ...
It has become an icon in common property studies for the idea that local communities can manage common resources by themselves (as well as Netting's specific argument that variation in ecology and land use accounts for variation in property rights)
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From page 387... ...
"Community" and its relationship to common-pool resource management is meaningless without further specification, without clearly positioning particular places and peoples within their environments, their histories, their cultures, as well as regional, national, and global relations of wealth and power. QUESTION-DRIVEN RESEARCH: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM AND EVENT ECOLOGY Theoretical perspectives emphasizing embeddedness are closely tied to those emphasizing the "social construction of reality." The constructivist tradition in sociology and anthropology, triggered by a treatise on the sociology of science (Berger and Luckmann, 1966)
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From page 388... ...
The process of collective action itself will reshape the networks, meanings, perceptions, and social experience that affect stakeholders' choices (Steins and Edwards, 1999:544~. In closely related work, Selsky and Memon applied social constructionism to examine the emergence of institutions for dealing with port development issues in New Zealand (Memon and Selsky, 1998; Selsky and Memon, 2000~.
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From page 389... ...
Like the social constructionism of Steins and Edwards (1999) , the methodology of event ecology leads to a critique of the use of common-pool resource thinking as "question-begging," or overly "theory-driven," rather than explanatory and question driven.
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From page 390... ...
In that case, the investigator would put less effort into examining local institutions than in looking for causal connections with whichever of these other factors seems important. Both social constructionism and event ecology emphasize the search for spe
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From page 391... ...
. In a particular situation, institutions affecting access or the distribution of rights to fish may or may not have played a role in causing or preventing resource decline.
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From page 392... ...
Closely related is the set of approaches loosely called political ecology, which insert the macro-structural forces emphasized in political economy into studies of human-environmental relations, and which also emphasize the roles of discourse and power in the social construction of environmental and social realities and in the construction and use of key terms, including "the commons" and "community." Context is much more than group size, the nature of communication, and group history, especially if the ques
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From page 393... ...
It requires documenting the events that lead to and follow from particular human-environmental interactions and trying to explain causes and consequences. Depending on what appears significant to explaining such events and interactions, it may require investigating the social entities that represent them and that they help reproduce and alter (families, households, voluntary associations, ad hoc coalitions and action groups, professional societies, political parties, government agencies)
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From page 394... ...
Bates, D., and T.K. Rudel 2000 The political economy of conserving tropical rain forests: A cross-national analysis.
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From page 395... ...
Bruce, J.W. 1999 Legal Bases for the Management of Forest Resources as Common Property.
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From page 396... ...
1954 The economic theory of a common property resource: The fishery. Journal of Political Economy 62:124-142.
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From page 397... ...
Inc. 2000a Post-modernism and the management of natural and common resources, Presidential address to the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Part I
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From page 398... ...
1997 The symbolic making of a common property resource: History, ecology and locality in a tank-irrigated landscape in South India. Development and Change 28:467-504.
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From page 399... ...
:343-351. 1998 A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of collective action, presidential address, American Political Science Association, 1987.
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From page 400... ...
Unpublished paper presented at 8th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP) , Bloomington, IN, June 1-4.
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From page 401... ...
1987 'The river would run red with blood': Community and common property in an Irish fishing settlement.
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From page 402... ...
McCay 1999 Embeddedness and Governance Mechanisms: An Approach to the Study of Institutions. Unpublished manuscript, August.
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