The article overviews and elaborates the concept of polycentricity, defined as a structural feature of social systems of many decision centers having limited and autonomous prerogatives and operating under an overarching set of rules. The article starts by introducing the concept as it was advanced by Michael Polanyi and developed by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. It continues introducing possible instances of polycentricity as well as related notions, as part of an attempt to further elaborate the concept through a concept design approach that systematically applies the logic of necessary and sufficient conditions. The article concludes by arguing that the polycentricity conceptual framework is not only a robust analytical structure for the study of complex social phenomena, but is also a challenging method of drawing non-ad hoc analogies between different types of self-organizing complex social systems.

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Despite its importance and its widespread employment in policymaking practice, the theoretical and epistemic foundations of institutional mapping have not been elaborated and its legitimacy is yet to be fully granted by the academic community. This paper is a contribution to this overdue effort. The paper has two parts. First it introduces mapping as a cognitive process and explore in this context the structural similarities between maps and theories. While doing that it identifies the basic elements of mapping as a cognitive procedure and based on that it outlines the optimal features of the possible meta-theories framing policy-oriented institutional mapping. The second part goes a step further and discusses two concrete examples that may come close to illustrate the meta-theoretical ideal-type outlined at the end of the first part: the theoretical system implied in the Chicago School of sociology and the Institutional Analysis and Development framework inspired by the new institutional economics. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006Policy analysis, Stakeholder mapping, Public policy design, Institutional analysis,

Revisiting the theory of institutional hybridity and diversity developed by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom to cope with the challenge of the “neither states nor markets” institutional domain, this article reconstructs the Ostromian system along the “value heterogeneity–co-production–polycentricity” axis. It articulates the elements of a theory of value heterogeneity and of the fuzzy boundaries between private and public. It rebuilds the model of co-production, clarifying the ambiguity surrounding a key technical public choice theoretical assumption, and it demonstrates (a) why it should not be confused with the Alchian-Demsetz team production model and (b) how co-production engenders a type of market failure that has been neglected so far. In light of this analysis, the article reconsiders polycentricity, the capstone of the Ostromian system, explaining why polycentricity may be seen as a solution both to this co-production market failure problem and to the problems of social choice in conditions of deep heterogeneity. It also discusses further normative corollaries.

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