Working on learning: how the institutional rules of environmental governance matter

Heikkila, Tanya; Gerlak, Andrea K.

doi:10.1080/09640568.2018.1473244

Cited by 66 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Up to this point, EGT scholarship has paid less attention to the other crucial functions of polycentric governance systems, learning and resource distribution. Cooperation requires learning about the causal processes driving environmental problems and potential consequences of different policy agreements (Gerlak & Heikkila, 2011;Heikkila & Gerlak, 2018). Resource distribution is required to establish the distributional fairness of the system, which is ultimately linked to legitimacy, institutional stability, and collaborative behavior (Berardo, 2013;Leach & Sabatier, 2005;Lubell, 2003).…”

Section: Functional Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ecology of Games as a Theory of Polycentricity: Recent Advances and Future Challenges

Berardo

Lubell

2019

Policy Studies Journal

112

100

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The Ecology of Games approach to examining complex governance systems in democratic societies has been recently refurbished to infuse renewed vitality in the analysis of institutions and collective action in polycentric governance systems. This opening article to the special issue on the Ecology of Games Theory (EGT) will discuss the main component elements of the theory, as well as recently produced empirical advances that test and extend it. The article is structured in three sections. The first section describes the EGT as a theory of polycentricity and explains why it is critical to study both the structure and function of polycentric governance systems, including collaboration among policy stakeholders, learning about problems, and equitably distributing the resources generated by policy interactions. The second section reviews empirical evidence that examine structure and function in polycentric systems, including their coevolution. Finally, the third section will provide insights on future research needs to strengthen this newly developed theory of polycentricity.

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Section: Functional Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ecology of Games as a Theory of Polycentricity: Recent Advances and Future Challenges

Berardo

Lubell

2019

Policy Studies Journal

112

100

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“…Resources can promote organizational capacity in alliances that support research or policy that could not be maintained alone (Huntsinger et al 2014), to gain access to professional competence , to extend the range of tactics or activities available to an actor (Phinney 2017), or to streamline permitting processes (Huntsinger et al 2014). Finally, resources can serve informational or educational purposes, such as creating access to information or information pools (Wondolleck andYaffee 2000, Heikkila andGerlak 2019) or promoting learning Gerlak 2019, Koebele 2019a).…”

Section: Why Ally With Diverse Partners?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These exchanges can be more impactful when more diverse actors are connected in an unlikely alliance (Gerlak and Heikkila 2011) and are often most pronounced when actors have different belief systems (Siddiki et al 2017). Indeed, transformational ideas may arise from a mix of ideas and sectors that occur within an unlikely alliance (Heikkila and Gerlak 2019). In our cases, the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition created new narratives around conservation that recognized the health of California rangelands and the diversity of species they support as largely due to grazing and other land stewardship practices employed by the ranchers that own and manage these lands.…”

Section: What Are the Outcomes Of Unlikely Alliances?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unlikely alliances and their implications for resource management in the American West

Hillis

Berry

Swette

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Collaborative, or participatory governance is an increasingly common means of addressing natural resource issues, especially in the American West where patchworks of public, private, and tribal interests characterize the region's resources. In this context, unlikely alliances, or partnerships among diverse actors who have historically been at odds, have a growing potential to shape social and ecological outcomes, for better or worse. While these unlikely alliances have received greater attention in recent years, relatively little research has worked to synthesize the concept across diverse contexts and disciplines. Based on a review of the literature on unlikely alliances in natural resource governance, we develop a framework that synthesizes the individual motivations and contextual factors that influence their formation, as well as the social and ecological outcomes that they create. We use this framework to analyze six illustrative cases of unlikely alliances. Our analysis of these cases suggests that unlikely alliances in the American West are likely to arise in the presence of a crisis, when appropriate leadership is present, when some of the actors have interacted effectively in the past, and when actors need to pool resources. The cases also illustrate some common outcomes, including environmental improvement, transformation of social networks, policy change, and shifts in power relationships. We discuss the implications of unlikely alliances for the social-ecological future of the American West. Our paper highlights the role of unlikely alliances in shaping patterns of natural resource governance, and provides a focus for further research in this realm.

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“…Learning is an important pathway toward adaptation and responsiveness to changing environmental and social conditions. Rules structuring an environmental governance process can enable or constrain the institutional work of learning, and serve as a critical pathway toward institutional change (Heikkila and Gerlak, 2018). Heikkila and Gerlak (2018)'s recent work suggests that openness in boundary, scope, information, and choice rules may support learning across a variety of contexts and institutional arrangements, but attention is needed to the different issue contexts and types of learning when thinking about specific design features.…”

Section: Autopoietic Cohesionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining and Measuring Social-Ecological Pathways: The Case of Global Changes and Water Security

Bolognesi¹,

Gerlak²,

Giuliani³

2018

Preprint

Self Cite

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The Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework serves as a valuable framework to explore and understand social and ecological interactions, and pathways in water governance. Yet, it lacks a robust understanding of change. We argue an analytical and methodological approach to engaging global changes in SES is critical to strengthening the scope and relevance of the SES framework. Relying on SES and resilience thinking, we propose an institutional and cognitive model of change that institutions and natural resources systems co-evolve to provide a dynamic understanding of SES that stands on three causal mechanisms: institutional complexity trap, rigidity trap, and learning processes. We illustrate how Data Cube technology could overcome current limitations and offer reliable avenues to test hypothesis about the dynamics of social-ecological systems and water security by offering to combine spatial and time data with no major technical requirements for users.

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Working on learning: how the institutional rules of environmental governance matter

Cited by 66 publications

References 75 publications

The Ecology of Games as a Theory of Polycentricity: Recent Advances and Future Challenges

The Ecology of Games as a Theory of Polycentricity: Recent Advances and Future Challenges

Unlikely alliances and their implications for resource management in the American West

Explaining and Measuring Social-Ecological Pathways: The Case of Global Changes and Water Security

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