Review: (Anderies and Janssen 2013) Robustness of Social-Ecological Systems: Implications for Public Policy

Key Terms
Regime shift = when the key drivers in a system fundamentally change

"problem of fit" = interplay between institutional arrangements and ecological dynamics (Folke, Pritchard, Berkes, Colding & Svedin, 2007; Young 2002)

What are the main objective(s) of the paper?

- key contribution of this article: prove ideas, language and tools to move from conception of the policy process that links policy change to evolving policy context through the dynamic biophysical system

- " There are two key questions that arise in this regard: 

(i) Can the policy process, which often plays out on the order of decades, possibly function when the policy context changes rapidly?

(ii)When the policy process and policy context involving a dynamic biophysical system co-evolve as a coupled feedback system depicted in Figure 1B, under what circumstances does infrastructure (socio-technical structures) emerge that makes the system flexible and robust versus rigid and vulnerable in the face of novel change?" (p. 517)

- will discuss approaches to navigate trade-offs between performance and robustness and choices between different vulnerabilities

- " explore how particular models of the policy process perform when coupled with particular classes of biophysical dynamics and uncertainties" (p. 522)

     -  "not to explain  the policy process but, rather, to explore how different possible policy processes might function in a dynamic policy context."

-  discuss two elements of SESs that are critical to governing changing, deeply uncertain systems:

(i) the notion of “fit”; and 

(ii) fundamental properties of feedback systems. Following that we reflect on the associated set of design principles for such systems.

What are the important results and conclusions?

- " Studies of SES, and feedback systems more generally, suggest that multilevel, polycentric

governance regimes are essential to match institutions to challenges at the right temporal and organizational scale."
     - "The long-term goal for scholars of sustainability science is to recognize which combination of variables tends to lead to relatively sustainable and productive use of particular resource systems operating at specific spatial and temporal scales and which combination tends to lead to resource collapses and high costs for humanity.... The key is assessing which variables at multiple tiers across the biophysical and social domains affect human behavior and social–ecological outcomes over time." (Ostrom 2007)

-  What distinguishes the SES Framework from the Robustness Framework is that it provides a more systematic articulation of framework elements with relationships 1–8  in the Robustness Framework.(p. 522)

- how to operationalize" governance, a.k.a. translate de jure rules into rules-in-use

     - elements that allow translation: monitoring, sanctioning and managing conflict (maintaining fairness)

- " linkages between the governance system and the resource being governed, will not be predicated on measuring harvest amounts—typically because this is too costly to monitor" (p. 525)

-  "Rules on who, where, when, and how to harvest are easier to monitor and enforce than a quota, and if there is more confidence that people are following the rules, others will follow them too."

- " Policies with “good fits,” rather, tend to rely on more practical principles where measurement equates to common-sense, easily observable attributes of the biophysical context that are simple enough to not be debatable" (p. 525)

-  "A governance regime that begins to rely on complex models and precise data that is costly to obtain is likely a “poor fit” in almost any context." (p. 525)

-  we need to learn to govern systems we can never fully understand (p. 526)

     - " navigating such performance-robustness, robustness-fragility trade-offs through policy design and policy processes involving learning and exploration are an essential element of public policy." (p. 528)

- System characteristics that enhance robustness and adaptive capacity:

     - Diversity (a multiplicity of different types of regulatory feedback mechanisms), diversity of agents and connections important for the creation of a diverse portfolio of knowledge or shared organizational mental models (Staber & Sydow 2002)

     - Redundancy (many regulatory mechanisms perform similar functions), ability to function when some modules fail, concurrent use of informal and formal rules for resource mngmt

     - Modularity (some regulatory feedback mechanisms are allowed only limited connectivity with others) (p. 529)

-  "Developing policies to increase robustness of SESs requires an explicit decision about robustness of what  system properties and aspects of performance to what types of exogenous shocks. Once the choice about which vulnerabilities are to be addressed, building robustness requires navigating trade-offs between short-term efficiency and long-term robustness."

- " we need to shift thinking away from coalitions advocating for the “right” policy to policy processes that stimulate experimentation, adaptation, and learning" (p. 532)

Experimental design, statistical analyses or analytical approaches? Flaws?

-  "Policies should therefore be seen as experiments that require systematic, ongoing monitoring and evaluation as elements of regulatory feedback networks. Decentralized experimentation would allow for innovation and increase the probability of achieving a fit between policies and local conditions (modularity and diversity). Governance at higher levels may stimulate a process of information exchange to facilitate learning from local-level experimentation." (p. 532)

-  the "main lesson from studies of robustness is that successes from the past do not guarantee success in the future' (p. 532)

Assumptions made with models? Reasonable?

- '"fixed policy context' may involve considerable variation as long as that variation exhibits a stable structure." Public policy has done so through defining "risk."

     - public policy has been a code or constraint that limits types of contracts allowed for spreading risk, reducing conflict and promoting social stability

- "discourse on societal collapse tends to focus on interaction of the inner policy feedback (decadal time scale) and the outer biophysical context feedback (centennial time scale)" (p. 516)

     - complexity of system collapses under its own weight, possibly triggered by decisions occurring in the inner feedback loop

     - must think seven generations ahead

- " it is not possible to design public policy for a given ecological (environmental) context—i.e., achieve a fit between policies and the biophysical context so that the SES is robust to all possible shocks. Thus, one aspect of the public policy process is effectively navigating trade-offs between performance and robustness and choices between different vulnerabilities." (p. 517)

- "Ostrom’s argument against (what C.S. Holling's defined as :command and control pahyology of natural resource management (Holling & Metcalfe 1996)) was very powerful: Small groups of people can effectively manage complex resource systems without top-down governance structures." (p. 518)

-  "What distinguishes the SES Framework from the Robustness Framework is that it provides a more systematic articulation of framework elements the relationships 1–8." (p. 522)

Main conclusions supported by data? Why or why not?

Good References?

Meet stated objectives?

Number of times cited?

Impact on field?

Opinion

Review: (Anderies, Janssen and Ostrom 2004) A Framework to Analyze the Robustness of Social-ecological Systems from an Institutional Perspective

Key Terms
Robustness (engineering) = "the maintenance of system performance either when subjected to external, unpredictable perturbations, or when there is uncertainty about the values of internal design parameters" (Carlson and Doyle 2002) (p. 1)

Resilience = "measures the amount of change or disruption that is required to transform the maintenance of a system from one set of mutually reinforcing processes and structures to a different set of processes and structures" (Holling 1973) (p. 1)

SES = "subset of social systems in which some of the interdependent relationships among humans are mediated through interactions with biophysical and non-human biological units (p. 3)

Social Capital = rules used by those governing, managing and using the system and those factors that reduce the transaction costs associated with monitoring and enforcement of rules (Ostrom and Ahn 2003) 

External disturbances = 1) biophysical disruptions (affect resource and public infrastructure) & 2) socioeconomic changes (affect resource user and public infrastructure provider)

Internal disturbance = rapid reorganization of ecological or social system induced by ecological or social subsystems

Robustness = "the maintenance of some desired system characteristics despite flucturations in the behavior of its component parts or its environment" (Carson and Doyle 2002)

What are the main objective(s) of the paper?

- What makes SESs robust? 

- examine institutional configurations that affect interactions among resources, resource users, public infrastructure providers and public infrastructure

     - identify potential vulnerabilities of SES to disturbances
     - illustrate problems caused by disruption in link
- relate findings to design principles developed for robust CPR institutions, "good starting point for development of design principles for more general SESs"
- innovative because proposes framework to address: 1) Resource, 2) Governance System, 3) Associated Infrastructure as a coupled system

What are the important results and conclusions?

- link between resource users and public infrastructure providers is a key variable affecting the robustness of SESs that has frequently been ignored in the past

Experimental design, statistical analyses or analytical approaches? Flaws?

- develop framework to study robustness of SES and posit broad design principles for robust SES

- Framework criteria

1) cooperation and potential for collective action must be maintained within the social system
2) ecological systems are dynamic, as are the rules of the games that agents play amongst themselves
3) ecological systems can occupy multiple stable states and move rapidly between them

Paper outline:
- define area of interest and characterize "robustness" 
- use framework to discuss several general themes
- apply it to specific cases
- suggest initial directions for future research

- To examine robustness you must ask ...
1) What is the relevant system?
2) What are the desired system characteristics?
3) When does the collapse of one part of a SES imply that the entire system loses robustness?

Assumptions made with models? Reasonable?

- "one approach to enhance the robustness of a SES would be to focus on governance that enhances the resilience of an ecosystem configuration that produces a desirable bundle of goods and services. The important point is to recognize both the designed and self-organizing components of a SES and to study how they interact." (p. 2)
- Key drivers:
1) strategic interactions between agents
2) rules that constrain actions of agents
3) collective-choice process to generate rules
- "Link 6 is rarely even addressed in most analyses of SESs because many analysts have ignored the active co-production of resource users themselves in the day-to-day operation and maintenance of a public infrastructure (but see Evans 1997)."  Promotion of co-management
      - operation and collective-choice levels must be analyzed together in order to assess robustness of SESs
- Both the social and ecological system must collapse before an SES is considered collapse
     - an SES is robust if it prevents ecological systems from moving into "a new domain of attraction that cannot support a human population/cause long-term human suffering" by just switching to another resource to exploit
- "Just the introduction of money as a medium of exchange can, by itself, be an important disturbance" Kawika
     - "When labor is primary medium of exchange, investment in public infrastructure is easy to monitor"

Main conclusions supported by data? Why or why not?

Good References?

Meet stated objectives?

Number of times cited?

Impact on field?

Opinion