Topic 2: To what extent can the lessons learned from studying small-scale systems be applied to larger regional and global scales?

Virtually all the work on CPRs has occurred at relatively small-scales (i.e local), where resource users tend to have direct interactions with others; to what extent, if at all, can the lessons learned from studying such small-scale systems be applied to larger regional and global scales, where resource users cannot interact and cross-scale influences complicate matters?

To Alicia's question: I thought the "design principles" put forth by Professor Ostrom were helpful, and I would argue that most findings can be at least externally useful when contextualized?  To me, and maybe I am thinking about this incorrectly, but for systems with in similar management concerns, the management concerns could be designed to induce  the attributes of the users and the attributes of the system that were  listed in the chapter?  (e.g., train users, build in autonomy, etc.)  When those attributes were achieved, then their success can be externally considered another "data point" for designing other CPR systems (i.e., either validating, rejecting, or modifying this working list?).

From an ecological perspective, I don't have any good evidence on how well results from one area translate to another..

Previously Alicia Harley wrote:

I would like to add to the above question a second similar question. That is:

To what extent can findings from one CPR study apply to another CPR study with similar ecological and management concerns. Or conversely, to what extent is each situation so unique that the external validity of findings from one study are not robust enough for extrapolating to other similar situations? Is this problem exacerbated by the fact that part of the system we are studying in a CPR is comprised of human actors who behave in ways that are hard to construct generally applicable theory to explain actions/predict outcomes? 

 

 

Like Liz, I also found the list of user and resource attributes in the chapter very helpful, and I think they are general enough and embedded enough in both theory and empirics to be somewhat applicable both to other local-level CPRs and also to global systems.

My concern is that in applying these lessons to the global system, they may raise more questions than they answer. The characteristics that, at a local level, are believed to encourage cooperation (small population, excludability, face-to-face communication, mutual vulnerability) tend to fail at the global scale. The attributes of "reliable and valid indicators," predictability and spatial extent also seem very troublesome at this expanded level (though the problems of indicators and predictability may be mitigated with more successful research in Sustainability Science!). 

Another issue is that the "users" engaged in global interactions such as climate change negotiations are not individuals, but rather aggregated political institutions in which other incentives are at play beyond the self-interest of individual users -- politicians with upcoming elections are even more likely to use an insufficiently low discount rate than individuals, even when modeled as rational egoists.

On the "autonomy" characteristic -- there is no external authority to contend with when we consider the global community. (International organizations and agreements have been shown to be ineffective at reigning in the most powerful economic states, because there is no credible threat that can be lodged at them.) Though this 'autonomy' of the users is considered positive at the local level, it seems likely to be problematic at the global scale, given that there is extreme heterogeneity among the actors (in this case, nation-states) -- in other words, the distribution of interests attribute fails.

Despite these problems, I do think that lessons learned at the local level can be useful in finding global solutions. However, in order for it to be truly applicable for problem-oriented sustainability science research, the local level studies need to move beyond simply identifying characteristics that may contribute to self-organization and begin to ask how we may actually influence those characteristics or others -- what variables can we, as policy-makers, researchers or active citizens, actually manipulate to help a community with unfavorable characteristics to change things so that they can self-organize despite those initial limitations. Or, to make the analogy to the global case more realistic, how can individual users within those systems, who recognize the lack of self-organization as a problem, mobilize their peers in spite of unfavorable conditions to achieve self-organization?

Previously Marci Baranski wrote:

Virtually all the work on CPRs has occurred at relatively small-scales (i.e local), where resource users tend to have direct interactions with others; to what extent, if at all, can the lessons learned from studying such small-scale systems be applied to larger regional and global scales, where resource users cannot interact and cross-scale influences complicate matters?

In her presentation , she says that the following would ensure co-operation in a common-property resource situation (i.e. avoid the tragedy of the commons):

- Boundaries of users & resource are clear
- Congruence between benefits & costs
- Users had procedures for making own rules
- Regular monitoring of users and resource conditions
- Graduated sanctions
- Conflict resolution mechanisms
- Minimal recognition of rights by Government
- Nested enterprises

At the micro-situational level of analysis, she lists the factors that affect cooperation in CPRs as follows:

- Communication among participants
- Reputation of participants known
- High marginal return
- Entry & exit capability
- Longer time horizon
- Agreed upon sanctioning mechanism

While most of the above parameteres are in the nature of economic variables, she concludes that "all factors that increase likelihood that participants gain trust in others and reduce the probability of being a sucker (i.e. free-rider)" affect cooperation. TRUST is however an informal institution and a social variable - forming a part of the social capital of a community or society. Hence, can we just have one condition that if the social capital of a community is high, co-operation should take place. But then there is nothing new in this? And we also do know that even if the social capital is high, it does not automatically engender co-operation. What about other variable such as the size of the community, homogeneity of the community, level of education, level of gender equality in the community and the power equations in the community? And most importantly, do you need a champion or a covenor - an agency within the community that would pull together actors and resources and their individual social capital to ensure co-operation?

At the same time, I do not know whether a group or a community of highly economically driven individuals, say real estate developers, in possession of a piece of land, would ever self monitor not to over exploit ground water or the land's holding capcity itself. At least whatever I have seen of these groups, they would organize themselves to devise rules to exploit the ground water more and more instead of conserving it or designing appropriate water re-charge systems. In this case, of course, one argument could be that they are not the actual owners of the land as they would sell it to owners. Hence, lack of ownership makes them co-operate for resource disuse. But I find that at all leves - local to global - the knowledge (both scientific and social) of eco-system dysfunctionality due to over-use or wrong use remains extraordinarily poor or inadequate, particualrly in developing countries. There  is a feeling that let the disaster occur, we will see what is to be done - an indicator of tremendous confidence on the resilience of the human system and the power of technology to handle this. As a result, there is little emphasis or policy or institutional mechanisms to strengthen collective action for prevention of such disaster, compared to post-disaster mitigating action. I think a lot of work is required to be done in this area. 

I also found Tara's point to be particularly insightful and I think that is the key to many of the issues in sustainability science.  It is not that we are unable to identify the issues or potential solutions, but rather the concern is providing the framework necessary to foster cooperation to trouble shoot and problem solve at whatever scale, be it local, national or global.  One particular part of yesterday's presentation touched upon the response to "elite" policy makers.  I found the example that Ostrom made about the communities in Mexico that had to come to unanimous consensus fascinating.  The local community knew that if there was even one dissenter in the decision making process, they ran the risk of being "found out."  This may be a unique example, but it speaks to the point that to some extent local communities are making decisions in spite of the policy makers in the field. 

I would also like to respond to Alicia's point about  increasing educational opportunities in "organizational cooperation." I absolutely agree.  Unfortunately, often the education takes places once all the players are at the decision making table.  I would argue that these skills should be taught much earlier.   There is a growing body of literature particularly in Western Europe where several universities are instituting or grappling with the notion of creating an atmosphere and culture of sustainability.  Generally the concept falls under the umbrella of civic rather than environmental education, but obviously one lends itself to the other.  As I have been looking through the research, I have been surprised by the lack of research there is in primary and secondary education on these issues of sustainability.  One particularly interesting article I came across was the comparison of four model secondary schools in the US and Caribbean who are well known for "promoting both learning about sustainability and adoption of sustainable behaviors.(Higgs and McMillan 2006)"  There were differences in structure and attitude that clearly impact the way the institutions are run and perceived by the students and faculty.  Unfortunately, these places are the exception rather than the rule.

I would be interested to see if anyone has come across an particularly effective examples or programs where policies have been enacted that specifically promote the types of educational awareness that is necessary for community empowerment.

Previously Alicia Harley wrote:

I fully agree both with Tara and Liz and found Tara's analysis esspecially helpful. I was most interested by Tara's last paragraph and question: "However, in order for it to be truly applicable for problem-oriented sustainability science research, the local level studies need to move beyond simply identifying characteristics that may contribute to self-organization and begin to ask how we may actually influence those characteristics or others -- what variables can we... actually manipulate to help a community with unfavorable characteristics to change things so that they can self-organize despite those initial limitations."

While this is a great point and almost certainly true, it is also at tension with much of the findings of research into institutions, which (at least from my read) often finds that user's autonomy from outside regulations is essential for successfully managing CPRs at the local level:  "Autonomy: Users are able to determine access and harvesting rules without external authorities countermanding them" (Dasgupta et al. Draft Chapter 4). Thus, the challenge for policy makers seems to be how we can influence outcomes so that cooperation is enhanced without actually decreasing the autonomy of the users. From my read this is a huge challenge--and in the field esspecially hard to accomplish. When "educated" and "elite"  policy makers enter the field, outcomes are almost always biased towards their views. How can we set up processes so this is not the case? 

 

An important tangent coming out of the above and Ostrom's last point in the section 11.5.2 "Attributes of the Users": "Prior organizational experience: Users have learned at least minimal skills of organization through participation in other local associations or learning about ways that neighboring groups have organized."  She has a footnote that this point could be cut or extended to explain why these factors do affect likelihood of self-organization. I think that the point should almost certainly be kept and extended. One of the few ways I can see for policy-makers to influence outcomes without decreasing autonomy is to increase educational opportunities in "organizational cooperation" as an avenue for empowerment. Perhaps this is an important direction for environmental education research to go, grounded theoretically in the findings of institutions research. 

 

 

I also think Tara has really hit on an important question: "what variables can we actually manipulate"?. (It's similar to the point I tried to make in class, to the Cambridge group, though much more eloquently posed.) How, for instance, can we--using Tara's "we"--make local villagers on the edge of an Indonesian rainforest more trusting of one another, when so much of Indonesian society at the higher levels operates through corruption? You can't remove the local from its larger contexts.

Ostrom's characteristics make sense on a theoretical level, but I worry about their practical application--particularly since that is a main concern of sustainability science. If there is no way to put her ideas into practice in the service of sustainability, then they are of much less value to this particular field. And I'm by no means saying they can't be put into practice. I just worry about the layers of complexity, because what's required is building the right sort of institutions at multiple levels of society. 

Just a thought, but perhaps it would be useful to offer some thoughts on this topic at the end of Ostrom's chapter?

Previously Alicia Harley wrote:

I fully agree both with Tara and Liz and found Tara's analysis esspecially helpful. I was most interested by Tara's last paragraph and question: "However, in order for it to be truly applicable for problem-oriented sustainability science research, the local level studies need to move beyond simply identifying characteristics that may contribute to self-organization and begin to ask how we may actually influence those characteristics or others -- what variables can we... actually manipulate to help a community with unfavorable characteristics to change things so that they can self-organize despite those initial limitations."

While this is a great point and almost certainly true, it is also at tension with much of the findings of research into institutions, which (at least from my read) often finds that user's autonomy from outside regulations is essential for successfully managing CPRs at the local level:  "Autonomy: Users are able to determine access and harvesting rules without external authorities countermanding them" (Dasgupta et al. Draft Chapter 4). Thus, the challenge for policy makers seems to be how we can influence outcomes so that cooperation is enhanced without actually decreasing the autonomy of the users. From my read this is a huge challenge--and in the field esspecially hard to accomplish. When "educated" and "elite"  policy makers enter the field, outcomes are almost always biased towards their views. How can we set up processes so this is not the case? 

 

An important tangent coming out of the above and Ostrom's last point in the section 11.5.2 "Attributes of the Users": "Prior organizational experience: Users have learned at least minimal skills of organization through participation in other local associations or learning about ways that neighboring groups have organized."  She has a footnote that this point could be cut or extended to explain why these factors do affect likelihood of self-organization. I think that the point should almost certainly be kept and extended. One of the few ways I can see for policy-makers to influence outcomes without decreasing autonomy is to increase educational opportunities in "organizational cooperation" as an avenue for empowerment. Perhaps this is an important direction for environmental education research to go, grounded theoretically in the findings of institutions research.