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Land use change (LUC) alters habitat quality and the provision of ecosystem services that affect economic activities, such as beekeeping. For beekeeping, landscapes reveal individual decisions that determine its productive potential, thus, landscapes can be considered a common pool resource. To understand how land use preferences shape scenarios that suggest the aggregated effects of decisions on beekeeping in agricultural landscapes, a participatory valuation and an economic choice game were conducted in field workshops in Veracruz, México. We found that, although participants valued land use benefits differently, they integrated common benefits to create scenarios that sustained beekeeping, but these decisions were sensitive to external factors that disincentivize collective action. In addition, characteristics positively associated with collective action at the individual and group levels differ, suggesting emerging group identities. Exercises like these allow the exploration of CPR in complex scenarios such as landscapes, to understand the dynamics of individual and group preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of communities, local institutions, conservation organizations and government agencies in the governance of large-scale common-pool resources (CPR) at the Gulf of Mottama Ramsar wetland, Myanmar before and one year after the 2021 coup d'état. The research employed a mixed method approach in two villages in the GOM on common alluvial land, waterbirds, and fisheries CPRs. The robustness of CPR governance is evaluated with Ostrom's eight design principles. We found that pre-coup the formation of local user associations, livelihood incentive strategies, and co-management approaches were increasingly effective to conserve fisheries and waterbirds CPRs, while land conflicts over new common alluvial land persisted. One year following the coup, offshore fisheries especially faced challenges from illegal practices by outsiders, due to significantly weakened co-management practices and accountability of local authorities and large-scale commercial fishers to the fishing communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Agriculture is one of the most culturally and economically important livelihood activities of the Ganges River Delta. In recent years, coastal communities have experienced longer dry seasons and salinity intrusion, which is exacerbated by registration errors in land tenure that have led to increasing encroachment by external interests in the Dacope sub-district of Bangladesh. These challenges threaten to undermine the sustainability of smallholder access to canals that are collectively managed as common-pool resources (CPR). This paper explores how identity and collective action may empower farmers to secure irrigation access in the face of external pressures. Drawing primarily on qualitative data collected through focus group discussions with farmers in Dacope, our findings reveal that identity serves as a powerful force driving collective action and the sustainability of the agricultural community. A shared occupational identity fosters a sense of belonging and collective responsibility among farmers to maintain water flow through construction, annual dredging, and temporary dry-season protections. However, despite a strong commitment to maintaining their irrigation system, challenges remain in farmers' ability to combat the powerful interests of wealthier members of the community that threaten to undermine the viability of the irrigation commons. Thus, formal support through policy and legislative avenues is also necessary to safeguard common property rights against the threat of privatization and illegal occupation of canals. These findings further underscore the need for more research on how collective identity may strengthen collective action, livelihoods, and sustainability in the absence of strong institutional arrangements that uphold community rights and access to common-pool resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract There is a need to synthesize the vast amount of empirical case study research on social‐ecological systems (SES) to advance theory. Innovative methods are needed to identify patterns of system interactions and outcomes at different levels of abstraction. Many identifiable patterns may only be relevant to small sets of cases, a sector or regional context, and some more broadly. Theory needs to match these levels while still retaining enough details to inform context‐specific governance. Archetype analysis offers concepts and methods for synthesizing and explaining patterns of interactions across cases. At the most basic level, there is a need to identify two and three independent variable groupings (i.e. dyads and triads) as a starting point for archetype identification (i.e. as theoretical building blocks). The causal explanations of dyads and triads are easier to understand than larger models, and once identified, can be used as building blocks to construct or explain larger theoretical models. We analyse the recurrence of independent variable interactions across 71 quantitative SES models generated from qualitative case study research applying Ostrom's SES framework and examine their relationships to specific outcomes (positive or negative, social or ecological). We use hierarchical clustering, principal component analysis and network analysis tools to identify the frequency and recurrence of dyads and triads across models of different sizes and outcome groups. We also measure the novelty of model composition as models get larger. We support our quantitative model findings with illustrative visual and narrative examples in four case study boxes covering deforestation in Indonesia, pollution in the Rhine River, fisheries management in Chile and renewable wind energy management in Belgium. Findings indicate which pairs of two (dyads) and three (triads) variables are most frequently linked to either positive or negative, social or ecological outcomes. We show which pairs account for most of the variation of interactions across all the models (i.e. the optimal suite). Both the most frequent and optimal suite sets are good starting points for assessing how dyads and triads can fulfil the role of explanatory archetype candidates. We further discuss challenges and opportunities for future SES modelling and synthesis research using archetype analysis. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

The ability to strengthen governance institutions and fisheries restrictions and laws is needed to improve conservation and management of common‐pool resources. We evaluated the potential for stimulating change with modest interventions by studying fishing village households before and after a 27‐month intervention period in a high‐priority coral reef conservation area. Interventions included training in catch monitoring, stock assessment, mapping fishing grounds, microcredit, gender inclusion, theatrical skills, fuel efficient stoves, and participation in the planning of a conservation proposal. There was a background increase in reported formal education, household size, group membership, and household wealth but a decrease in fish consumption and public services. Of conservation importance, the perceived strength of 13 governance institutions and benefits of 6 fisheries restrictions increased over the intervention period. Finally, correspondence between knowledge of and agreement with recent national fisheries laws was moderate to high and positively correlated. The intervention period was stronger than demographic factors that often influence perceptions, such as village, government services, gender, household size, membership in community groups, and age responses. In general, perceptions of strengths of governance and benefits of restrictions increased more among women and youth than adult men respondents. The largest changes in perceptions of increased benefits were among strict restrictions initially ranked low, specifically fisheries closures, parks, and species restrictions. Consequently, capacity building overrode demographic factors common to poor people with limited employment capacity that can have negative perceptions of strict conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the place of game theory in Elinor Ostrom's groundbreaking studies of nonmarket institutions for managing common-pool resources (CPRs) from the 1980s onward. While game theory had been associated with the study of CPRs since at least the later 1960s, the precise way scholars used the theory varied, depending not only on their home discipline but on the locally specific research program they hoped to develop. Ostrom's use of game theory ultimately looked quite different from that of laboratory psychologists studying "commons dilemmas," political scientists theorizing about constitutional choice, or economists building formal models of sparse markets, bearing perhaps the closest resemblance to the economist Reinhard Selten's skeptical and heterodox applications of game theory to the study of industrial organization. This account of Ostrom's local adaptation of game theory potentially helps us evaluate critiques of her work that focus on her use of rational choice models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need to synthesize the vast amount of empirical case study research on social‐ecological systems (SES) to advance theory. Innovative methods are needed to identify patterns of system interactions and outcomes at different levels of abstraction. Many identifiable patterns may only be relevant to small sets of cases, a sector or regional context, and some more broadly. Theory needs to match these levels while still retaining enough details to inform context‐specific governance. Archetype analysis offers concepts and methods for synthesizing and explaining patterns of interactions across cases. At the most basic level, there is a need to identify two and three independent variable groupings (i.e. dyads and triads) as a starting point for archetype identification (i.e. as theoretical building blocks). The causal explanations of dyads and triads are easier to understand than larger models, and once identified, can be used as building blocks to construct or explain larger theoretical models.We analyse the recurrence of independent variable interactions across 71 quantitative SES models generated from qualitative case study research applying Ostrom's SES framework and examine their relationships to specific outcomes (positive or negative, social or ecological). We use hierarchical clustering, principal component analysis and network analysis tools to identify the frequency and recurrence of dyads and triads across models of different sizes and outcome groups. We also measure the novelty of model composition as models get larger. We support our quantitative model findings with illustrative visual and narrative examples in four case study boxes covering deforestation in Indonesia, pollution in the Rhine River, fisheries management in Chile and renewable wind energy management in Belgium.Findings indicate which pairs of two (dyads) and three (triads) variables are most frequently linked to either positive or negative, social or ecological outcomes. We show which pairs account for most of the variation of interactions across all the models (i.e. the optimal suite). Both the most frequent and optimal suite sets are good starting points for assessing how dyads and triads can fulfil the role of explanatory archetype candidates. We further discuss challenges and opportunities for future SES modelling and synthesis research using archetype analysis. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act reconfigured political representation in English towns from a 'franchise' system (based on rights of corporate freedom) to a property-based ratepaying electorate. This shift also undermined the rights of freemen to urban common lands and resources, which were linked to pre-existing forms of representation. This issue links directly to debates in economic history about use-rights and the preservation of common-pool resources (CPRs). Supporters of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom argue that such common resources could be preserved because this was the most rational economic choice facing their users. Critics have asserted that the fate of such economic resources was dictated by the historically contingent social, economic and political forces within them, not abstract economic rationality. This article assesses these arguments through a micro-study of the commons in the Yorkshire borough of Beverley between 1835 and 1870. New legislation ensured that these lands were managed in line with Ostrom's principles of transparency and accountability. Despite this, they became entangled in wholesale, organised political corruption, exposed by a detailed Parliamentary enquiry in 1868. The article investigates this contradiction to explore how far 'institutions' could remain autonomous within a highly contested political 'space'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commons' problems and solutions have the elements of local, proximate, and large‐scale distal processes. Solutions, therefore, require accessing, implementing, and coordinating information and actions at multiple scales. Restoring commons, such as fisheries, will require a better understanding of how stakeholders access and use information at various scales to resolve governance and restrictions problems. In 179 household interviews, perceptions of fisheries conflicts and their causes were identified, and 16 management committee key informants described their methods for mediating hypothetical small‐scale fisheries problems in Kenya. The 6 studied sites varied in human development and demographic contexts but had notable similarities that reflected a respondent's focus on localized, direct, and proximate fishing conflicts. The most cited problems included limited space, disagreement about gears, poor resource conditions, and locally inadequate benefits. The most cited sources of information were local households and the community, and there was considerably less acknowledgment of distal problems and solutions. Key informants selected a limited number of local community‐focused solutions. For example, informants chose to mediate conflicts between neighbors with local community meetings rather than through formal national institutions. Therefore, distal solutions were likely to be perceived as ineffectual, possibly due to the challenges of polycentric governance coordination. However, widespread overfishing arises from overarching distal processes not fully amenable to local solutions. Therefore, a focus on local action is expected to limit the ability to address distal problems. These include conflicting values, demographic changes, supportive governance frameworks, emerging technologies, resolving conflicting local rules, fair between‐group enforcement, responding to temporary shortages of fish, and intercommunity border and rule disputes. Improved coordination and integration of information and institutions to simultaneously address both proximate and distal common's problems are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows that variations in violence across communities in Africa can be traced back to the proportion of common-pool resources (CPRs) in historical ethnic homelands, which determines current levels of trust in local chiefs or neighbors. Combining individual-level trust survey data with historical data of the ethnic homeland's geographical features, this study finds that higher levels of CPRs-driven communal trust raises the number of militias' battle casualties against external groups but reduces violence against in-group civilians. Evidence from diverse identification strategies suggests that the relationships are causal. Moreover, this study shows that the penetration of state power to local communities alleviates the offensive nature of communal trust. These findings not only highlight the contrasting causal effect of in-group trust on communal violence, which is internally pacifying yet externally combative, but also reveal its relational nature, whose attributes are determined by the community's connectivity with the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of Global China or the rapid expansion of Chinese influence abroad has had a commensurate impact on transnational trade and related commercial pressure in the governance of natural resources in Africa. Rosewood with its direct link to China's cultural renaissance has had a boost in extractivism in tropical regions. Taking inspiration from common property theory and based on empirical research conducted in Ghana in 2022, we analyze the effect of the Ghana-China rosewood trade on the governance of rosewood as a ‘common-pool’ resource in rural Ghana. Our research broadly responds to the question of how the Ghana-China rosewood trade changes formal and informal governance arrangements in rural Ghana. In a constructive light, the study demonstrates how one community created rules to access rosewood on community lands. The results also show that more challenging influences of rosewood trade on land boundary disputes resulting from violent protests of existing rules and norms, including customary rights, contestation of rural authorities, rural leadership manoeuvrings, and corruption are increasingly prevalent since the boom in the rosewood trade at the local level. This study contributes to the debate on common-pool resources, demonstrating that with the right information and communication network, rural people can self-govern common-pool resources to their advantage despite the alarming influences that external factors pose. From a China-Africa relations perspective, this work contributes to the politics of natural resources in the context of the increasing global influence of China in Africa.

Traditional mixed crop-livestock systems face increased social and environmental uncertainties that arise from both endogenous (i.e., socio-demographics) and exogenous drivers of change (i.e., policy interventions). Adaptations are thus needed for their long-term continuity. The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework’s rules typology and the Institutional Grammar are used here to analyze institutional diversity in relation to the use of natural resources and temporal changes in institutions. We used data obtained from qualitative interviews with local farmers within communities in a semiarid area in Spain. Our objective was to analyze the institutional arrangements used over the last few decades relative to sharing common resources (pastures and water) and maintaining public infrastructures. Results show great diversity in institutional arrangements in the farming communities studied, associated mainly with the type of property rights of pastures (communal, public, private) and the level of collective actions needed in response to endogenous and exogenous drivers of change. This study allows us to propose a robust methodological approach to qualitatively analyze institutional arrangements associated with the use of natural resources in farming systems, and to discuss how institutions adapt to policy changes and to new social and environmental realities.

Commons—resources used or governed by groups of heterogeneous users through agreed-upon institutional arrangements—are the subject of one of the more successful research programs in the social-environmental sciences. This review assesses research on the commons to accomplish three tasks. First, it surveys the theoretical, substantive, and methods-focused achievements of the field, illustrating how commons research has also influenced natural resource policy making. Second, it examines the changing trajectories of commons research, emphasizing the growing interest of commons researchers in new methods and the application of insights to new social contexts. Third, the review suggests that research on the commons can find continuing relevance by addressing contemporary and future social-environmental challenges. It highlights three directions in particular: (a) strengthening the focus on issues of power and equity, (b) applying insights about effective commons governance to collaborative attempts to craft commons in new societal spaces, and (c) advancing an emerging emphasis on causal analysis and taking advantage of novel streams of large-scale public datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconciling variable between-community and neighboring country goals is the focus of the United Nations partnership goals (Sustainable Development Goal 17) because of the challenges of managing shared common-pool resources, such as fisheries. Our objective was to better understand and suggest management that accounts for this variability among fishing villages along the Kenya-Tanzania national boundary. We asked stakeholders to scale their dependency on fish, objective knowledge of fisheries, governance effectiveness, management preferences, and future fisheries provisioning scenarios among villages economically aligned with international trade or national park conservation. We found high dependency on fish (90% daily consumption), modest objective knowledge about fisheries and their status (62% correct answers) but a broad agreement on the need for community engagement (>90% agreement). The perceived weakest governance principles were fisheries monitoring and the resolution of conflicts with neighbors. Considerable variability in opinions about how to provide more fish reflected the international boundary trade and conservation contexts. Rural households further from the border favored community management and local or national fisheries closure management whereas stakeholder preferences with more urban and public were associated with greater support for offshore fishing and port and aquaculture infrastructure developments. Previously measured losses of fisheries catch production in most villages was hidden from stakeholders by a lack of catch monitoring and production potential estimates. Lost fisheries production and sustainability could be recovered by increased knowledge of resource production capacity, monitoring, and governance engagement that increases compliance. Village level economics and transnational contexts require multilevel governance and good coordination to manage the diverse capacities, preferences, and management needs.

Orbital space enables many essential services, such as weather forecasting, global communication, navigation, Earth observation for environmental and agricultural management, and national security applications. Orbit use is increasingly defined by firms launching coordinated fleets—“constellations”—of satellites into low-Earth orbit. These firms operate in markets with few or no competitors, such as the market for broadband internet provision to rural areas. How will oligopolistic competition shape the allocation of orbital space? We analyze orbital-use patterns and economic welfare when two profit-maximizing firms operate satellite constellations with sophisticated collision avoidance systems. We compare this duopoly equilibrium to public utility constellations designed and regulated to maximize economic welfare from orbit use. We show that imperfect competition reduces economic welfare from orbit use by up to 12%—$1.1 billion USD—per year and distorts the allocation of orbital space. The nature of the distortion depends on the magnitude of constellation-related environmental damages. When damages are low, economic welfare is maximized by larger-than-equilibrium constellations. When damages are high, economic welfare is maximized by smaller-than-equilibrium constellations. Between the growing commercial and national interests in outer space and the importance of low-Earth orbit to space exploration, orbit-use management is likely to be a fruitful and policy-relevant area for economic research. We conclude with a discussion of future research directions in orbit-use management relevant to policymakers around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bocas del Toro, Panama, tourists are shuffled on panga boats between Dolphin Bay, Starfish Beach, and Sloth Island in hopes of seeing and photographing those species specifically – one at a time. The aim of this research was to explore the governance of the wildlife tourism industry by gauging tourist satisfaction and assessing the relationship between industry operations and tourist demand. A mixed method approach utilized semi-structured interviews with tour operators (n = 21) and surveys with wildlife tourists (n = 101). Empirical evidence demonstrates that a collectivist organization with de facto ownership/control of wildlife tourism sites has not been effective at self-governing towards a sustainable industry capable of ensuring the well-being of target species and conservation. Communication issues between tourists and guides are also shown to be behind the creation of the de-territorialized and reductionist (and consequentially detrimental) wildlife tourism attraction map. This, along with survey results demonstrating unaddressed demand for providing more education, better wildlife treatment and conservation, together poke holes in the assumption that industry governance might be best steered by global efforts to shift consciousness to include demand for wildlife equity. Findings instead place priority on the need to interrogate the financial incentives that drive industry governance and towards understanding how the profitability of wildlife equity and conservation could be empirically demonstrated to those who control industry operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of wormwood, Artemisia cina , once grew abundantly in the Syr-Darya province of Russian Turkestan. Santonin, a drug derived from it, was in high demand. Flowers harvested by Kazakhs were handed over to intermediaries to be processed in Europe, but from the 1880s entrepreneurs from different parts of the Russian empire established their own chemical plants in Chimkent and Tashkent. They pressured the Russian imperial government to restrict the rights of the Kazakhs on land where Artemisia cina grew, and grant them the exclusive right to exploit this resource. These entrepreneurs used conservationist arguments and advocated a 'cultured' approach to the management of natural resources located on supposedly 'State land'. These attempts collided with the usage rights of the Kazakhs, as defined by Turkestan's governing Statute. By shifting the argument to the political, rather than legal, level, the industrialists eventually gained a monopoly to the exclusion of local entrepreneurs and even assumed State-like functions. This article reconstructs this controversy and allows a glimpse into the evolving claims to natural resources in the 'periphery' by both Tsarist colonial power and the Kazakhs themselves. The article also explores the features of autochthonous and Russian entrepreneurship and situates Turkestan in a web of trade connections to the global pharmaceutical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of formal collective property rights to forest lands appears to have improved both environmental and economic outcomes, but there is limited evidence on how these reforms affect cooperative behavior among local resource users. We propose that when national governments issue collective land rights, they strengthen the collective psychological ownership among coowners and produce increased levels of cooperative behavior. Analyzing data from 213 forest user groups in 10 countries, and a framed field experiment in a subset of sites, we find that collective land titling is associated with significantly higher levels of cooperative behavior including increased levels of trust, more frequent interpersonal interactions related to both forestry and nonforestry activities, more self‐governing institutions, and greater equality in resource extraction patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study analyzes the problem of implementing the green economy to improve the regional level of product competitiveness and examines business models for achieving sustainable development. When analyzing modern business models, a model of a “green” economy is proposed that allows resource efficiency in the economic space of the region. The activity of an enterprise planning the implementation of a green economy model is considered, and it focuses on certain areas of action that can increase the level of competitiveness of its products. The study analyzes areas of resource optimization, one of which is the existence of common pool resources. Citizens of different countries were surveyed on their attitudes toward common pool resources’ state and quality. It is concluded that there are not enough resources to finance the green sector, and there is a problem with monitoring the common-pool resources. At the same time, most respondents wish to privately own common-pool resources, which indicates the particularities of national culture, distrust of government, and efficient use of resources in private ownership, namely the desire to serve certain enterprises alone or their households to obtain individual utility rather than optimize the available resources. It concluded that it is necessary to develop environmental awareness and responsibility in the population, which can positively affect the regional level of competitiveness of products and increase the level of education of citizens, to adopt non-formal education in the country, optimize all existing systems that would be based on innovations, and reduce the negative environmental footprint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) are significant for poverty alleviation, but are threatened by over-exploitation and climate change effects such as drastic drops in regrowth rates. How will fishers adapt? To shed light on this, we ran a common-pool resource experiment with SSF fishers in Thailand. Our results show that groups confronted with a potential abrupt drop in the regrowth rate are more likely to form cooperative agreements compared to groups not confronted with such a drop, which theory cannot predict. However, groups that form cooperative agreements do not necessarily manage the resource efficiently; many groups under-exploit. Over-exploitation is driven by individual characteristics, e.g., if individuals can diversify income, and if they are born outside the village. We conclude that more systematic exploration of the role of socio-economic factors, and how these factors interact with ecological conditions facing fishers, are needed. Our work can be seen as one step in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the behavioural responses of natural common-pool resource users to three policy interventions—sanctioned quotas, information provisioning, and a combination of both. We focus on situations in which users find utility in multiple resources (pastures and wild animal stocks) that all stem from the same ecosystem with complex dynamics, and management could trigger a regime shift, drastically altering resource regrowth. We performed a framed field experiment with 384 villagers from communities managing common-pool wildlife in Zimbabwe. We find that user groups are likely to manage these natural resources more efficiently when facing a policy intervention (either a sanctioned quota, receiving information about a drastic drop in the stocks' regrowth below a threshold, or a combination of both), compared to groups facing no intervention. A sanctioned quota is likely to perform better than providing information about the existence of a threshold. However, having information about the threshold also leads to higher efficiency and fewer depletion cases, compared to a situation without any intervention. The main contribution of this study is to provide insights that can inform policymakers and development practitioners about the performance of concrete and feasible policy interventions for community wildlife conservation in Southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-tested commons characterize by having instituted sanctioning mechanisms that are sensitive to the circumstances and motivations of non-compliers. As a proposed Global Antimicrobial Commons cannot cost-effectively develop sanctioning mechanisms that are consistently sensitive to the circumstances of the global poor, I suggest concentrating on establishing a wider set of incentives that encourages both compliance and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is leading to an increased scarcity of resources such as freshwater, energy, arable land and wildlife. This is perceived as a major security threat. However, the literature remains unclear on whether scarcity mitigates or exacerbates conflict. We design a novel laboratory experiment to investigate hostile behavior under scarcity. Participants interact repeatedly in a dynamic common-pool resource (CPR) and a joy-of-destruction game. The experiment distinguishes between two types of scarcity: Endogenous scarcity in the form of a deliberate human choice to overexploit resources and exogenous scarcity in the form of adverse environmental conditions. Our results show that endogenous scarcity exacerbates hostility. We trace this to participants being guided by negative reciprocity while finding no support for inequality aversion. The results indicate that to avoid hostility, policy makers will have to reduce human-induced scarcity. However, our results also show that exogenous scarcity mitigates hostility. This is in line with a vast body of literature from psychology, anthropology and biology finding increased levels of cooperation for all forms of life under environmental distress. It suggests that managing perceptions around increasing scarcities could be a second potential avenue for policy action. [Display omitted] • Human-induced scarcity increases hostility between resource users. • This can be attributed to negative reciprocity. • Environmental scarcity reduces hostility between resource users. • This can be attributed to a social norm of cooperation. • Cause of scarcity is decisive for its effect on conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the complex challenge of global antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a pandemic treaty should include mechanisms that 1) equitably address the access gap for antimicrobials, diagnostic technologies, and alternative therapies; 2) equitably conserve antimicrobials to sustain effectiveness and access across time and space; 3) equitably finance the investment, discovery, development, and distribution of new technologies; and 4) equitably finance and establish greater upstream and midstream infection prevention measures globally. Biodiversity, climate, and nuclear governance offer lessons for addressing these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas are managed for multiple, often competing, goals including biodiversity conservation, community livelihoods, and tourism. However, there is a lack of clear evidence on which governance approaches are more effective in governing protected areas to achieve these goals. This paper sheds light on the effectiveness of different protected area governance approaches using Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. The research was conducted in three protected areas of Nepal: Chitwan National Park, the Annapurna Conservation Area, and the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, which represent state-community, NGO, and community-managed protected areas, respectively. Data were collected through interviews, supplemented by published and unpublished documents, and field observations. Results revealed that the outcomes vary across the protected areas primarily because of their governance approaches and local contexts. Due to rigid monocentric and simple polycentric approaches, the PAs failed to adapt to the changing social-ecological systems. Based on the findings, a multi-layered polycentric adaptive co-management approach has been proposed. The study also developed a multi-goal IAD model to assess PA governance. Additional theoretical, methodological, and managerial implications with respect to protected areas governance are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study regarding the behavior of Pacific-Colombian fishers in a Common Pool Resource game. Results show that decision-making depends on human capital accumulation and the learning process. Specifically, through trial and error, those players with more human capital adjust their decisions on the basis of a cooperative-collusive solution by following the feedback of their own most successful strategies in past rounds. Notably, fishers with the higher levels of formal schooling tend to harvest less because they have a better understanding of dilemma-type games and the higher benefits involved when they cooperate.

We test whether the decisions in a common-pool resource game are better modeled game-theoretically as strategic substitutes or complements using an individual-level dataset of groundwater usage that accounts for 3% of US irrigated agriculture. Based on a regression framework with instrumental variables, we find support for strategic complements, suggesting that reciprocity– and/or race-to-depletion–like dynamics are key to understanding groundwater usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commons governance theory is central to identifying and managing conflicts arising from natural and cultural resources traps. Scholars – using game theory and economic analysis of law – have proposed alternative models, consisting of a set of mitigated scenarios, multiple players, and new equilibria in commons governance. Likewise, novel legal innovations of the commons have also been designed. Reinterpreting the commons in light of political economy, ecology, and pluralistic approaches, a critical review of existing scholarship, economic analysis of law, and case study investigations are performed. Examining an array of views – including governance of water in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Italy – a research and policy agenda is put forward to offer original interpretations and novel holistic perspectives. Germane environmental policy implications deriving from SDGs, resilient governance, and polycentric perspectives are thus extrapolated. Finally, pluralistic frameworks drafted by mitigation and adaptation are measured by improved sustainable development performance in commons, resource, and water governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes bottom-up institution-building processes in a region considered deforestation and environmental degradation hotspot. Utilizing the constitutionality approach developed by Haller, Acciaioli, and Rist (2016), we examine two recent cases of bottom-up institution-building in the department of Rivadavia, Chaco Salteño, Argentina. We highlight the similarities and differences between both constitutionality processes and identify various weaknesses in the two cases. We argue that constitutionality, understood as a process, has occurred to different (incomplete) degrees in each case. Finally, we show that external catalyzing agents play a decisive role in enabling or hampering the constitutionality process. Our study contributes to the literature on common-pool resource governance by highlighting how collective action can lead to participatory-development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We analyse peer punishment patterns in a cross-country framed field experiment. • First-order cooperation is associated to prosocial punishment. • Excessive forest use (free riding) is associated to antisocial punishment. • Prosocial punishment reduces free riding; antisocial punishment increases it. • Indonesian participants punish twice as often as those from Brazil and Peru. The conservation of common-pool resources (CPRs), such as tropical forests, is a key challenge of development and environmental policies. Peer sanctioning of excessive resource use increases the cost of free riding and may be an effective way to ensure sustainable management of CPRs, but it entails individual costs to punishers. This paper examines peer punishment patterns and impacts in a cross-country framed field experiment (FFE) with homogeneous and heterogenous agents. The FFE is conducted with 720 forest users in Brazil, Indonesia, and Peru. We first examine the relationship between the appropriation of the common-pool resource (first order cooperation) and peer punishment choices (second order cooperation), distinguishing between prosocial and antisocial punishment. A small share (18.2%) of the participants behaves as self-interested payoff maximisers (homo economicus) , while the largest group (26.1%) cooperates in both the appropriation and punishment decisions (homo reciprocans). Across countries, receiving prosocial punishment, defined as punishment of free riders, increases cooperation, while receiving antisocial punishment reduces cooperation. There are, however, important inter-country variations. In Indonesia, the marginal costs of non-cooperation are higher than in the Brazilian and Peruvian sites, and agent heterogeneity significantly increases peer punishment frequency. We conjecture that the higher punishment frequency in Indonesia is linked to stronger equality norms and a willingness to enforce them. Although peer punishment boosts cooperation across all our study sites, the research highlights how peer punishment patterns and impacts are linked to the institutional and cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain the dynamics of resource depletion in North Korea's fishery. We utilize insights from the common-pool resource (CPR) literature and show how theories from comparative politics that explain why states sometimes do not formalize property rights but prefer their informal exercise can be fruitfully applied to North Korea's fishery. Utilizing a process tracing methodology, we demonstrate that the North Korean state possesses the necessary capacity to limit resource depletion, but has largely failed to do so. We argue that broad access to the commons maintains relations of enmeshed dependence between the dictator and those utilizing the fishery, balancing regime social control concerns with the party-state's need for revenue. Further, in recent times, foreign actors have been allowed into the sector, providing a lucrative source of revenue without creating issues for internal control. We consider the alternative explanation that the North Korean state lacks the capacity to prevent CPR depletion, but demonstrate its implausibility given the preponderance of available evidence, not least the response of the regime in Pyongyang to the COVID-19 pandemic, where it has demonstrated considerable capacity to control the country's fishing fleet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voltage sag mitigation utilizing dynamic voltage restorers (DVRs) can be classified as a common-pool resource (CPR) good. However, the ability of DVRs in improving voltage sag performance of only downstream customers provides the ability to exclude the non-contributors selectively. Therefore, unlike traditional CPR goods, the DVR allocation problem can give rise to partial excludability. Here, the non-collocated customers have been divided into feasible clusters through suitable positioning of DVRs using the proposed graph-partitioning principle. In the absence of trustworthiness, especially with the participation of electricity supply companies, the participants may ask an external agent and share their willingness-to-pay information to design the optimal set of clusters. Alternatively, the customers, including electricity supply companies, can also share internal information as an open system. Strategies for sharing internal information to avoid free-riding are also discussed. The utility distribution would ensure the viability of contribution group formation. Here, the results from three different utility-distributing solution concepts, such as an alternative definition of the core, the nucleous, and Shapley value, are compared. The simulation results are numerically verified for a small scale system and validated utilizing a large scale system. The proposed methodology can be used for any real-world system that follows similar properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Ecosystem services (ES) provide a range of benefits to people, but landowners that produce ES are often separate from those receiving benefits. As a result, landowners bear the costs of managing ecosystems, but often share the benefits with others. Accounting for these private and external costs and benefits would improve the effectiveness of payments for ES management. We develop a spatially explicit ES modelling approach to evaluate the alignment of private and external benefits resulting from habitat enhancement for pollinators. After testing the model on synthetic landscapes, we applied it to Yolo County, California, using information on crop type, value per acre and dependence on pollination. Detailed data on parcel ownership allowed us to distinguish private and external costs and benefits of enhancing habitat on any parcel. We found that around 13% of the landowners would generate private benefits that exceed private costs, 47% would generate external benefits greater than private costs, and the remaining 40% would generate neither private nor external benefits greater than private costs. Landowners generating private net benefits had larger fields, more valuable crops and more pollinator‐dependent crops than the other owners. These results reveal mis‐alignments between private and external incentives. Just over half of the Yolo County landowners' pollinator enhancements would produce external benefits, but only 25% of these would have private incentives to do so. We estimated that enhancements by those acting privately could increase the private net present value of crops by $495,309 and provide a total external benefit of $1,193,345. The remaining 47% of landowners’ enhancements generated $1,409,247 in additional net external benefits. Accounting for heterogeneity in enhancement benefits due to ownership and crop characteristics allows one to distinguish contexts where enhancements should be managed by groups as a common‐pool resource or by individuals. Rather than fund a PES program to pay for enhancements, effort could be directed towards communicating with landowners about potential private benefits and facilitating common‐pool resource management. Overall, this analysis reveals the importance of partitioning private and external benefits of actions designed to provide ES. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Among the Indigenous polities of precolonial Mesoamerica, the Aztec empire, headed by a confederation of three city-states, was the largest recorded and remains the best understood, due to its chronicling in Spanish and Nahuatl texts following the Spanish-Aztec war and colonial transformation to New Spain. Yet its political organization is routinely mischaracterized in popular media, and lesser-known contemporaries and predecessors in central Mexico exhibit variability in governing strategies over time and space of interest to comparatively oriented scholars of premodern polities. Common themes in governance tended to draw from certain socio-technological realities and shared ontologies of religion and governing ideologies. Points of divergence can be seen in the particular entanglements between political economies and the settings and scales of collective action. In this paper, I review how governance varied synchronically and diachronically in central Mexico across these axes, and especially in relation to resource dilemmas, fiscal financing, the relative strength of corporate groups versus patron-client networks, and how rulership was legitimated.