The survival of the conformist: Social pressure and renewable resource management

Tavoni, Alessandro; Schlüter, Maja; Levin, Simon A.

doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.07.003

Cited by 122 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The magnitude of resource over-extraction by the norm violators, henceforth called the degree of cheating, is captured by the multiplier m in e d ¼ m Â e c . The maximum degree of cheating considered in our analysis corresponds to the resource extraction that maximizes individual benefits (the Nash equilibrium-see Tavoni et al [25] for the calculations of socially optimal and private extraction levels).…”

Section: (C) Strategy Updatingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Under constant resource conditions, cooperation and hence sustainable resource use are stable when the community of cooperators is not too small and the norm violation is not excessive (see figure 2a and [25]). In cases where the norm violation and the community of cooperators are both large, norm followers and norm violators coexist.…”

Section: Impact Of Variable or Increasing Resource Inflowsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To this end, we developed an agent-based model, henceforth termed CP-norm, of a community of norm-following and norm-violating harvesters that share a common resource. The model is inspired by the game-theoretic model presented by Tavoni et al [25], henceforth TSL, but takes an agent-based approach that models community-level outcomes as they emerge from micro-level interactions. This allows us to test the approximations of the evolutionary game-theoretic TSL model and, given a good fit between the two, provides us with a theoretically sound basis on which we gradually build to add more realism to the model, such as stochastic resource flows, within-group social dynamics and between-group ecological dynamics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Robustness of norm-driven cooperation in the commons

2016

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Sustainable use of common-pool resources such as fish, water or forests depends on the cooperation of resource users that restrain their individual extraction to socially optimal levels. Empirical evidence has shown that under certain social and biophysical conditions, self-organized cooperation in the commons can evolve. Global change, however, may drastically alter these conditions. We assess the robustness of cooperation to environmental variability in a stylized model of a community that harvests a shared resource. Community members follow a norm of socially optimal resource extraction, which is enforced through social sanctioning. Our results indicate that both resource abundance and a small increase in resource variability can lead to collapse of cooperation observed in the no-variability case, while either scarcity or large variability have the potential to stabilize it. The combined effects of changes in amount and variability can reinforce or counteract each other depending on their size and the initial level of cooperation in the community. If two socially separate groups are ecologically connected through resource leakage, cooperation in one can destabilize the other. These findings provide insights into possible effects of global change and spatial connectivity, indicating that there is no simple answer as to their effects on cooperation and sustainable resource use.

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Section: (C) Strategy Updatingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Impact Of Variable or Increasing Resource Inflowsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Robustness of norm-driven cooperation in the commons

2016

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“…It follows that if all farmers are to rush and compete for water, Os and Gs will face, on average, the same constraint on the amount of water they can obtain (≤Q=N). Several studies have examined SES dynamics in such a symmetric context (26,27). The more likely scenario for most irrigation systems is one in which water is accessed sequentially (Fig.…”

Section: Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of infrastructure design on commons dilemmas in social−ecological system dynamics

Qubbaj

Muneepeerakul

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The use of shared infrastructure to direct natural processes for the benefit of humans has been a central feature of human social organization for millennia. Today, more than ever, people interact with one another and the environment through shared human-made infrastructure (the Internet, transportation, the energy grid, etc.). However, there has been relatively little work on how the design characteristics of shared infrastructure affect the dynamics of social− ecological systems (SESs) and the capacity of groups to solve social dilemmas associated with its provision. Developing such understanding is especially important in the context of global change where design criteria must consider how specific aspects of infrastructure affect the capacity of SESs to maintain vital functions in the face of shocks. Using small-scale irrigated agriculture (the most ancient and ubiquitous example of public infrastructure systems) as a model system, we show that two design features related to scale and the structure of benefit flows can induce fundamental changes in qualitative behavior, i.e., regime shifts. By relating the required maintenance threshold (a design feature related to infrastructure scale) to the incentives facing users under different regimes, our work also provides some general guidance on determinants of robustness of SESs under globalization-related stresses.social−ecological system | infrastructure | robustness | resilience | irrigation M any modern social−ecological systems (SESs) depend heavily on shared infrastructure. How such critical infrastructure mediates social and human−environment interactions is thus central to many pressing sustainability challenges in contemporary SESs (1). For example, the robustness of urban systems to natural hazards often depends on engineered structures such as levees, roads, or buildings. Similarly, global food security depends on irrigation infrastructure through which farmers obtain water. In infrastructuremediated SESs, the very presence and the design features of infrastructure fundamentally shape the dynamics of coupled social and natural processes (2). A major puzzle for sustainability in this era of global change rests on a deep understanding of interactions among social, natural, and built components and the effects of such interactions on the robustness of SESs to unexpected shocks. How can the design of infrastructure affect the capacity of SESs to maintain vital functions in the face of shocks? What are design criteria for infrastructure for more robust SESs? This study examines these questions using a simple model of a community irrigation system-a classic case of a SES in which shared infrastructure is the key interface between social and natural processes.Community (or farmer-managed) irrigation systems are widespread in Asia and, even today, serve a significant portion of the total irrigated area (3). These systems provide an excellent testing ground for exploring how infrastructure affects SESs. Farmers need a reliable supply of water to produce food and...

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“…In particular we consider the evolution of cooperative behaviour in resource harvesting. Tavoni et al (2012) and Lade et al (2013) explored the effectiveness of social sanctioning of resource overuse in promoting sustainable extraction. Two types of agents, norm-following co-operators (C) limiting their resource use to the socially optimal amount, and defectors (D) who extract above the sustainable level, interact in a well-mixed population (i.e.…”

Section: Coevolution Of Behavior and Natural Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Network Economics and the Environment: Insights and Perspectives

2013

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Local interactions and network structures appear to be a prominent feature of many environmental problems. This paper discusses a wide range of issues and potential areas of application, including the role of relational networks in the pattern of adoption of green technologies, common pool resource problems characterized by a multiplicity of sources, the role of social networks in multi-level environmental governance, infrastructural networks in the access to and use of natural resources such as oil and natural gas, the use of networks to describe the internal structure of inter-country relations in international agreements, and the formation of bilateral "links" in the process of building up an environmental coalition. For each of these areas, we examine why and how network economics would be an effective conceptual and analytical tool, and discuss the main insights that we can foresee.

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The survival of the conformist: Social pressure and renewable resource management

Cited by 122 publications

References 28 publications

Robustness of norm-driven cooperation in the commons

Robustness of norm-driven cooperation in the commons

Effect of infrastructure design on commons dilemmas in social−ecological system dynamics

Network Economics and the Environment: Insights and Perspectives

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