IDGEC Progress Report March 2004

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IDGEC Project on the Institutional Dimensions
of Global Environmental Change Professor Oran R.
Young Former Chair, IDGEC SSC Chair, IHDP SC
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• Welcome to the IDGEC
• Synthesis Conference

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Our Common Agenda

• An introduction to IDGEC
• The Goals of the Synthesis Conference
• Charge to Participants
• Overarching or Meta Contributions of IDGEC
• IDGEC Research Foci
• IDGEC Analytic Themes
• Future Directions and Policy Relevance
• Synthesis Products

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What is IDGEC?

• a long-term international research project
• developed during the 1990s under the auspices of
  the International Human Dimensions Programme on
  Global Environmental Change (IHDP)
• currently operating as one of IHDP's core
  projects.

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• IDGEC in Context
• One of several interlinked international
  research projects focusing on
  key aspects related to global environmental change

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• To sponsor and coordinate research on the roles
  that institutions play as determinants of the
  course of human / environment interactions with
  respect to global environmental change.
• To generate knowledge about social institutions
  and, at the same time, to build and disseminate
  the intellectual capital needed to devise
  policies to mitigate or adapt to global
  environmental changes.

IDGEC AIMS
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• Focus on Institutions
• Institutions are clusters of rights, rules, and
  decision-making procedures (e.g. local regimes
  for fisheries, national regimes for forestry or
  clean air, international regimes for ocean
  resources or climate)
• - Institutions give rise to social practices.
• - Institutions assign roles to participants in
  these practices.
• - Institutions govern interactions among
  occupants of those roles.

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IDGEC Next Steps
SYNTHESIS

• To harvest IDGECs principal scientific
  findings
• To explore the policy relevance of these
  findings
• To identify key themes suitable for emphasis
  during the next phase of work in this field.

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Overarching or Meta Contributions

• Shifting the paradigm we use in thinking about
  governance
• Governance as a social function centered on
  steering societies away from bad things and
  toward good things
• The role of institutions in supplying governance
• Governance without government
• Increasing the sophistication of our thinking
  about institutional design
• Great variation in situations giving rise to a
  demand for governance
• One size does not fit all limits of design
  principles
• Institutional diagnostics and the role of
  diagnostic skills in crafting institutions for
  individual situations

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IDGEC Research Foci

• How has IDGEC research contributed to our general
  knowledge of institutions?
• Broader context the new institutionalism in
  the social sciences (Young et al. 1999/2005)
• Criterion of evaluation what do we know now that
  we did not know when the project began?

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Institutions Their Effects on Global
Environmental Change A Framework for Study
local, regional, national, international,
global INSTITUTIONS


examples property rights, electoral systems,
regulatory regimes
INSTITUTIONAL CAUSES
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES
examples altering systems of property rights,
adopting environmental regulations
examples weak incentives to conserve, no
penalties for harmful side
effects
HUMAN ACTIVITIES
ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
examples over-harvesting of fish, clearing land
for agriculture, producing CFCs
examples forest degradation, long range air
pollution, loss of species

OTHER CAUSES
examples socio-economic, bio-geophysical
causal flow
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The Primary Focus of the IDGEC Project
OTHER CAUSES
causal flow, IDGEC project focus
examples socio-economic, bio-geophysical


ENVIRONMENTAL/RESOURCEREGIMES
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
examples local irrigation regimes, national
fisheries regimes, the global climate regime
examples climate change, depletion of atmospheric
ozone, loss of biological diversity


OTHER INSTITUTIONS
examples trade regimes, election systems
other causal flow
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FOCUS 1 CAUSALITY
How much of the variance in human/environment
relations is attributable to institutions?
FOCUS 2 PERFORMANCE
Why are some institutional responses to
environmental problems more successful than
others?
FOCUS 3 DESIGN
How can we structure institutions to maximize
their performance?
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Causality

• Environmental and resource regimes do matter
  They can explain a significant proportion of the
  variance in outcomes of human-environment
  interactions (Young ed. 1999 Miles, Underdal et
  al. 2002 Underdal and Young eds. 2004
  Breitmeier et al. 2006)
• Complex causality But institutions are
  typically elements in interactive causal clusters
  whose individual components are hard to
  disentangle (Young 2002)
• Methodological implications (Young, Lambin et al.
  2006)
• Limits to mainstream techniques of analysis
• Complex systems Nonlinear dynamics, tipping
  points and thresholds, emergent properties

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Performance

• Collective-action vs. social-practice
  perspectives
• Incentives and problem solving vs. identity and
  norm-governed behavior (March and Olsen 1998
  Young 2001)
• Mainstream approaches
• Outputs and outcomes (Young ed. 1999 Raustiala
  2000 Zurn and Joerges 2005 Zaelke et al. eds.
  2005 Mitchell 2007)
• Problem solving (Young 1999 Barrett 2002 Ebbin
  et al 2005 Breitmeier et al. 2006)
• New approaches
• Counterfactuals and social optima (Underdal
  1992 Helm and Spring 1999 Sprinz and Helm 2000
  Young 2001 Hovi et al. 2004 Bernauer
  forthcoming)

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Design

• The diagnostic method as an alternative to the
  conventional idea of design principles (Ostrom et
  al. 1999 Young 2002 Dietz et al. 2003)
• One size does not fit all (Ostrom 2005)
• Crafting institutions to fit the main features of
  specific situations (Young 2002)

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IDGEC Analytic Themes

• What specific themes has IDGEC highlighted?
• Fit
• Interplay
• Scale

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The Problem of Fit

• Types of mismatches (Pritchard et al. 1998)
• Spatial and temporal
• System type connectivity vs. fragmentation
  (Crowder et al. 2006 Young et al. 2006)
• Stickiness of mismatches (Young 2002)
• Politics/rent seeking
• Institutional arthritis
• Institutional reform as a public good

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The Problem of Interplay

• Horizontal interplay (von Moltke 1997 Stokke
  2001 Gehring and Oberthur 2006 Chambers et al.
  forthcoming)
• Positive (sometimes synergistic) vs. conflictual
  interactions (Gehring and Oberthur 2006)
• Vertical interplay (Stokke 2000 Sydnes 2001
  Berkes 2002 Young 2002 Fogel 2004 Karlsson
  2004 Lebel 2005 Cash et al. 2006)
• Limits to (de)centralization (Pasong and Lebel
  2000 Contreras 2003)

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The Problem of Scale

• Scaling up/down across levels of social
  organization (Ahn, Gibson, and Ostrom 1999)
• Micro/macro similarities (Young 2005)
• Contrast with meso scale
• The politics of scale (Gupta and Huitema eds.
  forthcoming)
• Scalar lenses
• Scale shopping

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THE SYNTHESIS CONFERENCE

• A Multi-Purpose Event
• Capturing and disseminating the scientific legacy
  of the project
• Exploring the policy relevance of IDGEC findings
• Moving forward to identify cutting-edge concerns
  for the next phase of work in this field of study

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Program Design

• We have structured the program with these
  objectives in mind
• Start with the synthesis itself
• Move forward to consideration of future
  directions
• Role of knowledge brokers throughout

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Synthesis Products

• An edited volume designed to distill and capture
  the overall legacy of IDGEC science
• Additional publications
• Volumes and papers on interplay, scale, etc.
• A recommended blueprint for the next phase of
  work in this field
• Improved links to the policy world interested in
  institutional issues

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• Thank you
• and
• Best wishes for a
• successful conference!

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IDGEC Project on Institutional Dimensions
of Global Environmental Change A core project
of IHDP International Human Dimensions of
Global Change Programme For more
information visit http//www2.bren.ucsb.edu/idge
c/ email idgec_at_bren.ucsb.edu visit
http//www.ihdp.uni-bonn.de/html/about/about-ihdp.
html