Governing common pool resources (CPR) in the face of disturbances such as globalization and climate change is challenging. The outcome of any CPR governance regime is the influenced by local combinations of social, institutional, and biophysical factors, as well as cross-scale interdependencies. In this study, we take a step towards understanding multiple-causation of CPR outcomes by analyzing (1) the co-occurrence of design principles (DPs) by activity (irrigation, fishery and forestry), and (2) the combination(s) of DPs leading to social and ecological success. We analyzed 69 cases pertaining to three different activities: irrigation, fishery, and forestry. We find that the importance of the design principles is dependent upon the natural and hard human made infrastructure (i.e. canals, equipment, vessels etc.). For example, clearly defined social boundaries are important when the natural infrastructure is highly mobile (i.e. tuna fish), while monitoring is more important when the natural infrastructure is more static (i.e. forests or water contained within an irrigation system). However, we also find that congruence between local conditions and rules and proportionality between investment and extraction are key for CPR success independent from the natural and human hard made infrastructure. We further provide new visualization techniques for co-occurrence patterns and add to qualitative comparative analysis by introducing a reliability metric to deal with a large meta-analysis dataset on secondary data where information is missing or uncertain.

Large-N comparative studies have helped common pool resource scholars gain general insights into the factors that influence collective action and governance outcomes. However, these studies are often limited by missing data, and suffer from the methodological limitation that important information is lost when we reduce textual information to quantitative data. This study was motivated by nine case studies that appeared to be inconsistent with the expectation that the presence of Ostrom's Design Principles increases the like lihood of successful common pool resource governance. These cases highlight the limitations of coding and analysing large-N case studies. We examine two issues: 1) the challenge of missing data and 2) potential approaches that rely on context (which is often lost in the coding process) to address inconsistencies between empirical observations and theoretical predictions. For the latter, we conduct a post-hoc qualitative analysis of a large-N comparative study to explore 2 types of inconsistencies: 1) cases where evidence for nearly all design principles was found, but available evidence led to the assessment that the CPR system was unsuccessful and 2) cases where the CPR system was deemed successful despite finding limited or no evidence for design principles. We describe inherent challenges to large-N comparative analysis and to coding complex and dynamically changing common pool resource systems for the presence or absence of design principles and the determination of "success". Finally, we illustrate how, in some cases, our qualitative analysis revealed that the identity of absent design principles explained inconsistencies, and hence reconciled such apparent inconsistencies with theoretical predictions. This analysis demonstrates the value of combining quantitative An iterative approach to case study analysis 469 and qualitative analysis, and using mixed-methods approaches iteratively to build comprehensive methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding common pool resource governance in a dynamically changing context.

Ongoing efforts to understand the dynamics of coupled socialecological systems and common pool resources have led to the generation of numerous datasets based on a large number of case studies. This data has facilitated the identification of important factors and fundamental principles thereby increasing our understanding of such complex systems. However, the data at our disposal are often not easily comparable, have limited scope and scale, and are based on disparate underlying frameworks which inhibit synthesis, metaanalysis, and the validation of findings. Research efforts are further hampered when case inclusion criteria, variable definitions, coding schema, and intercoder reliability testing are not made explicit in the presentation of research and shared among the research community. This paper first outlines challenges experienced by researchers engaged in a large-scale coding project; highlights valuable lessons learned; and finally discusses opportunities for future comparative case study analyses of social-ecological systems and common pool resources.

Commons and social-ecological systems research examines institutional arrangements for governing natural resources to improve social and ecological outcomes. However, no universal definition of success exists. We examine the CPR and SES synthesis literature to identify trends, gaps and challenges for examining success. We address: (1) gaps in the literature, (2) multidimensionality and tradeoffs, and (3) and the link between problem orientation and definitions of success. To do this we conduct a comprehensive review of Large-N studies, metaanalyses and systematic reviews of CPR and SES governance (n = 45). We found seven dimensions of success, corresponding to collective choice, constitutional and operational levels, temporal dimensions, and socioeconomic outcomes. Most studies did not address power and tradeoffs, or specify the social groups to whom success would apply. The majority of studies defined success in one dimension, most often demand-side provisioning (e.g., productivity or biodiversity). A regression analysis suggests that studies on rangelands or grasslands, correlative studies, and/or studies of state property systems (i.e., protected areas) were more likely to use fewer dimensions of success. Problem orientations often did not correlate with dimensions of success considered in a study, suggesting that measures of success often cannot adequately address the full suite of problems recognized in synthesis research. This presents a significant challenge for collective action among scholars who aim to develop general knowledge on SES and CPR governance. We discuss exemplary studies that measure success as multidimensional, address power and tradeoffs, and conclude with four recommendations for advancing the analysis of success.

In the study of common-pool resource (CPR) governance, frameworks provide a metatheoretical language to describe system states, dynamics, elements, and relationships. The coding manuals which accompany CPR frameworks-in addition to providing guidelines for connecting empirical case work to conceptual variables-define a vocabulary of coding questions. For empirical work, connecting variables and coding questions with framework elements contributes to conceptual advance. In the process of analysis and publication, it is tempting to offer a novel framework without also developing, applying, or modifying the foundational questions and variables of coding manuals buttressing said frameworks. However, if the scholarly community is to generate robust knowledge for the study of CPR dilemmas, we must provide the underlying work of comparing across frameworks. In this paper, we report on one way the community might conduct such comparisons. We present results and challenges of using a group consensus process to link the more than 450 coding questions derived from the original Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IADF) to the recently proposed Coupled Infrastructure Systems Framework (CISF). Despite overlap, discrepancies in the conceptual positions of the IADF and CISF suggest a need to modify or create new coding variables related to concepts of system boundaries, externalities, cross-scale interactions, multi-functionality, and technological change. We suggest that such work needs provisioning if commons scholars are to navigate the continued challenges of tailoring frameworks and coding manuals to evolving CPR governance dilemmas.