Social ecology: new perspectives for community and society in 21 st century

1. Social ecology:new perspectives for community and society in 21stcentury Karl Bruckmeier 14 February 2013 at Club “Economy of Merits”, Moscow

2. Social ecology is … • … an interdisciplinary science of the interaction between society and nature • Theme: distribution,use and management of natural resources (local to global levels) • Aim: producing knowledge to avoid overuse of resources or destruction of the environment • Example: the research of ElinorOstrom 2

3. Elinor Ostrom Politicalscientist (1933-2012) University ofIndiana at Bloomington, USA Workshop in PoliticalTheory and Policy Analysis (”Bloomington School”) Nobel prize(economics) in 2009 Interdisciplinary research aboutuseof common pool resources and resulting problems (tradition ofcriticalinstitutionaleconomics)

4. Ostroms research ”in a nutshell” Themes: • ”Communities (ofplace)”: localgroups or communities (e.g., fo-rest users, farmers, fishermen, recreationalresourceusers) • ”Common pool resources”:e.g., fish, wildlife, water • Access and propertyrights: institutions, rules, regulations for naturalresourceuse • Problems ofcollectiveresourceuse: dilemmas or conflictsbetweenusers, howtoavoidthese and overuseofresources Results: • ”Learning tocooperate”: overuseofresourcescan be avoidedthroughcooperation (adequaterules and institutions required) • ”No institutionalmonoculture”: general, standardized, universal solutions toresourceuse problems (”panacea”, ”cure-all”) inefficient: necessityoflocally and culturallyspecificrules and multi-scale mana-gement systems 4

5. Ostrom - twomain research problems:(1) Analysisofrational action • … starts from the assumptionof ”boundedrationality” (Herbert Simon): human rationality is limited in manifoldways, limits needto be found from empirical research • Ostrom: howtointegrate 2 contrasting forms ofrationality in joint resourceuse, • individualrationality or the ”pursuitofselfinterest” and • collectiverationality or the capabilitytocooperate? • Actorsneedtocommunicate, negotiatewitheachother - transfor-mingcompetition and conflict in cooperation (learningtocooperate) • 5

6. (2) Social dilemmas ofresourceuse, e.g.:Garrett Hardin: ”Tragedyof the commons” (1968) • Hardin:whennaturalresourcesareused in common property the consequence is overuseofresources(temptation of individualusersto make an extra gain by overusing the common resource - it is not their private property and they do not have to bear the immediateconsequences of thatoveruse) • Hardins´ proposal: transform ofcommonsto ”modern property” (stateproperty or private property): natureto be managedthroughexclusiveproperty rights • Hardins´ difficulty: the unclearconcept of commons (he under-stoodcommons in the sense of ”open access” or ”lack ofownershiprights” – butcommons is a specific form ofpropertyrights 6

7. Terminology: ”commons” and ”common pool resources” • ”Commons” as a form ofproperty • ”Common pool resources”/CPR: certain kinds ofresour-ces as theyexist in nature (e.g., a fish stock) • Ostrom & Becker (1995) describe CPR withtwo terms: • ”difficultyofexclusion” (of a user from the useof a resource – similarto public goods) • ”subtractabilityof benefits”: the part of the resourceused by oneresourceuser is no longeravailable for others (certain public goods or resourcesare non-subtractable: e.g., the sunshine/sunset, knowledge) 7

8. Is the institutionalizationofpropertyrights the solution toresourceuse problems? • Naturalresourcesareused by humans under different forms ofpropertyrights – all require management/coordinationofuse: (1) no property/free access (”res nullius”) (2) collectiveproperty (localcommons) (3) stateproperty (4) private property • Ostrom (and other social ecologists): no form ofpropertyrightssufficient for regulatingresourceuse • Property rights need to be supplemented by further (social, cultural, political) institutions, rules and regulations to prevent “overuse (of resources) and collapse (of society)” 8

9. Critiqueof Hardins´ analysis • Private or statepropertycannotpreventoveruseofresourcesand destructionof the environment(as suggested by Hardin) - all forms ofpropertycanhave positive or negative consequences for the environment • WithOstroms´ empirical studies oflocalresourcemanage-ment systems in manycountries and cultures (similar as Bonnie McCay for fisheries management): • Hardins´ conclusionrejected: commonsregimesoftensucceededtomaintainresources for long time • Preconditions for sustainablelocalresource management – see Becker & Ostrom 1995: design principles for successfulcooperation 9

10. Ostroms research - mainresults: (1) List of ”design principles” - sustainable/long-enduringlocalresource management systems 1. Clearlydefinedboundaries 2. Monitoring 3. Costs and benefits should be proportional and fairly distributed betweenusers 4. Creating rights (toorganize) 5. Power ofresourceusers for rulemaking (”collective choice arrangements”) 6. Graduatedsanctions 7. Mechanisms for conflict resolution (8. Nestedenterprises – for largerresourceuse systems) (Becker & Ostrom 1995, p. 119) 10

11. (2) Second list: variables for selectionof norms, rules, propertyrightsthatreduceexternalities 1. Information about the resource system available at lowcosts 2. Homogeneousgroupofparticipants (similarpreferences) 3. Participantshavesimilarviewsof benefits and risks ofspecific management options 4. Social capital (trust and reciprocity) 5. Small and stablegroupsizeofresourceusers 6 Participantscan make theirownrulesthatare supported by authorities 7. Not/little ”discounting the future” 8. Adequatecollective choice rules 9. Lowcostmonitoring and sanction arrangements (Becker & Ostrom 1995, p. 124f) 11

12. Summary: resultsofOstrom´s research Sustainablelocalresource management systems: - Create social capital (trust) and culturalcapital (strengthentraditio-nal forms ofcommunity-basedresourceuse) - Improverights, power, capacitiesofresourceusers - Create access to markets, capital, investment for localusers - Improve risk management, limit risks (precaution) Potential strengths: localknowledge, trustworthyparticipants, adap-tedrules, lowerenforcementcosts Potential weaknesses:local elitism, someresourceusers do not organise/cooperate, access toscientific information limited, conflictsmayarise, large common pool resourcescannot be managedlocally General ideas for solutions of CPR-problems: resourcemanage-ment in decentral, networked, ”polycentric systems”; ”adaptive mana-gement” (policy as experiments); cooperation/participation ofusers 12

13. Later research of Ostrom: social-ecological systems (SES), “multi-tier framework, complex systems(1) The multitier-framework – a new form of (grounded ) theory? .

14. (2) Social-ecologicalsystems … • … arecoupled social and ecological systems: social systems cannotfunctionwithoutecosystems as theirresourcebase, and ecosystemsinclude social systems of humans • The couplingof SES canchange: it canbecomemorelose or close, functional or dysfunctional/”maladaptive” - butaccordingto social ecologytherecan never be a complete separation of social and ecological systems • SES-analysis: searchingbetter (sustainable) forms of integration of social and ecological systems • HereendsOstroms´research: withoutsufficientanalysisofcomplex global systems – for these systems information from other social-ecological research required: 14

15. The ”physicaleconomy”: statistics of global resourceuse (Marina Fischer-Kowalski et al.)

16. Presently unresolved resource use problems are enormous:Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 – Direct drivers growing in intensity • Most direct drivers of degradation in ecosystem services remain constant or are growing in intensity in most ecosystems

17. Conclusion (1) Strengths and weaknesses of Ostroms research Strengths: Ideas for improving resource governance/”good government”: • Local systems are nested in larger systems, local processes are embedded in large-scale processes • Widening the perspectives in policy analysis: complexity, trans-sectoral strategies, integrated resource management • Multi-scale management/linking of different levels of policy processes (local, regional, national, international, global) • Participation of new actors in policy processes/decision-making (non-governmental actors, local actors, citizen – “civil society action”) • Creating new legitimation and consensus in political decisions and collective action 17

18. … Weaknesses: Ostromdevelops no strong theory, difficultto understand withherframeworkcomplex systems • Simple diagnosis of a “scaling-up problem”: larger numbers of resource users, larger resource systems increase difficulties of organizing, rule finding and rule enforcement • Insufficient analysisofthe globalizingeconomy and societyand their”systemicnature” (e.g., phenomenaofunequalexchange, powerasymmetries, institutionalmechanismsdirecting the distribution/redistributonofresources) and of • the natureofecological distribution conflicts(Martinez-Alier) • Difficultto understand the structures and functionsofsocieties as systems ofhistoricallyspecifickind, the historicalspecificityof the modern world system 18

19. Conclusion (2) “New perspectives for community and society in 21stcentury” • 1. Why should the discussion about ecology of humans start with the notion of community? – Solutions need to be found at local/community levels; the complexity of global systems (ecological earth system, economic world system) managed through coordina-tion of local systems • 2. What are the social-ecological ideas for a community-based organization of the economy? – “Polycentric systems”, “nested systems”, “embedded processes”, “circular economy” • 3. How are views of nature, knowledge about resource use and relations between men connecting with each other? – Historically seen not always well connected: dysfunctional connec-tions in modern society - “Dominant Western Worldview” or “Human Exce(m)ptionalism paradigm” (Catton & Dunlap) 19

20. End of the presentationThank you for your interest!

21. References • Acheson, James M.: Institutional Failure in Resource Management (Annual Review of Anthropology, 2006, 35, pp.117–34) • Becker, C. Dustin; Ostrom, Elinor: Human Ecology and Resource Sustainability: The Importance of Institutional Diversity (Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1995, 26, pp. 113-133) • Liu, Jianguo, et al.: Coupled Human and Natural Systems (Ambio, 2007, 36, 8, pp. 639-649) • Ostrom, Elinor, An agenda for the study of institutions (Public Choice, 1986, 48, 3, pp. 3-25) • Ostrom, Elinor: A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action (American Political Science Review, 1998, 92, 1, pp. 1-22) • Ostrom, Elinor: Coping with Tragedies of Commons (Annual Review of Political Science, 1999, 2, pp. 493-535) • Ostrom, Elinor: Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems: An Impossibility” (Paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Science and Technology for Sustainable Well-Being,” 15–19 February in San Francisco, 28pp)

22. Slides in Russian • The following slides summarize main points of the presentation in Russian

23. Элинор Остром – кто она? Политолог (1933-2012), Workshop в политической теории иполи-тическом анализе в Университете Индиана, США (”Bloomington Школа”), Нобелевский лауреат по экономике 2009 Междисциплинарные исследования в области использования при-родных ресурсов, проблем и конфликтов в этом процессе (в кри-тическойтрадиции институциональной экономики) Решение проблем типа «трагедия общего» (= переиспользованиересурсов, которые используются сообща),решение через разви-тиеили усиление режимов управления локальными пользова-телями ресурсов, в т.ч. ресурсов общего доступа/ ”common pool resources” (например, рыбные ресурсы, дикие животные, воды)

24. Дискуссия о развитии и конструировании проблем окружающей среды • более конкретные описания– т.е. на историческом, социальном, культурном, экологическом уровнях: для структуризации исследований окружающей среды и использования природных ресурсов: • Трагедия ресурсов общего пользования /”tragedyof the commons” (G. Hardin) • «Трагедия огораживания (общинных земель)» /”tragedyofenclosures” (J. Martinez-Alier) • Дилемма заключенных/”prisoners dilemma” • Кооперация/отсутствие кооперации (cooperation/non-cooperation) – проблемы «халявщиков»/”freerider” • Дилемма информация/оценка (information/valuation-dilemmas) – например, через использование ресурсов

25. Использование человеком ресурсов: формы и проблемы • Главным фактором, определяющим использование природных ресурсов и их распределение между людьми, являются различные формы права собственности: • Отсутствие собственности на ресурсы или свободный доступ к ресурсам / no propertyrights, free access • Коллективная (общинная) собственность /collectiveproperty (locally) • Государственная собственность/stateproperty • Частная собственность/ private property • Классификацию прав собственности можно расширить, включив в нее такие виды прав в отношении природных ресурсов, как доступ к ресурсам, их добыча и переработка, торговля ресурсами. Остром сформулировала системную классификацию для всех видов апроприации

26. … • Вопрос о дефиците/границах многих институтов порождает конфликтную полемику и противоречивые предложения о путях решения проблем окружающей среды. Возникает дилемма: - решение проблем окружающей среды через рынок и право частной собственности - решение проблем окружающей среды через регулятивные институты, коллективную собственность, кооперацию пользователей • Для большей части проблем, связанных с использованием природных ресурсов большим количеством пользователей: эмпирические иссле-дования до сих пор не подтвердили, что рынок и частная собст-венность могут способствовать их удовлетворительному решению • Остром и многие другие исследователи окружающей среды выдвигают аргументы в пользу поиска иных решений. По их мнению, следует, как минимум, дополнить экономические институты институтами полити-ческими и социокультурными институтами, чтобы регулировать использование ресурсов

27. Becker и Ostrom (1995) • не дают общего предложения для решения проблем использова-ния ресурсов. Они отвечают на более специфический вопрос: • При каких условиях локальное управление ресурсами со стороны локальных пользователей может оказаться успешным решением дилеммы использования ресурсов? • Ответ представлен в той же манере, в которой Остром сформу-лировала свою стратегию исследования: • искать не общее или стандартизированное решение для всех случаев, а специфические условия, в которых локальное управ-ление может решить проблемы такого рода • (это включает следующий вопрос: для каких видов проблем локальное управление может стать решением?)

28. Definitions & explanations • (Only for discussion)

29. Social ecology - variousapproaches 1. An environmnentalist tradition – ecoanarchism, USA: Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) and the ”Institute for Social Ecology” Bookchin: ”we are likely to findstructures of dominationwithinsocieties that lack economicclasses and the bureaucratic nation-state. … physicaldomination and power are not the onlymeans of social control. Hierarchy `is also a state of consciousness´ as well as a social condition. People can be oppressed by theirconsciousness, theirunderstandings and be-liefs, as much as by externalforces. ThusBookchinspeaks of people who `internalize´ social structures of hierarchy” and learn to accept guilt and sacrifice (Desjardins, p. 235)

30. 2. Scientific traditions in social ecology India: RhadakamalMukerjee; RamachandraGuha (in ”Social Ecology”, 1994, p. 5) – 5 componentsinteracting: culture, polity, social structure, economy, ecologicalinfrastructure (= soil, water, forests etc.) USA: Social psychology (UrieBronfenbrenner, 1917-2005): psychologist, childdevelopment – spatial relations between man/environment USA and Europe: E. Ostrom et al: analysisof social-ecological systems Europe: New social ecology – global resourceuse problems • ”Institute for Social-Ecological Research”, ISOE, Frankfurt/M, Germany (E. Becker et al.) • Social ecology, University ofVienna and Klagenfurt, • Austria (M. Fischer-Kowalski et al.)

31. Rationality • See working group “Adaptive Behavior and Cognition”, Max Planck InstitutfürBildungsforschung, Berlin (Gigerenzer et al): • Rationality is a multi-semantic, varying and changing concept, used in many disciplines, with many “models of sound judgment, inference and decision making. These models evolve over time, just as the idea of rationality has a history, a present and a future.” (Gigerenzer & Selten, 2001, p. 1) • “Bounded rationality” was in an early version defined by John Locke: humans should be aware of the capacities of their under-standing and knowledge “and the horizon found which sets the bounds between the enlightened and the dark parts of things, between what is and what is not comprehensible by us” (J. Locke, 1998 (1619), p. 16f)

32. The ”prisoners´ dilemma” – no optimal solution • The ”prisoners dilemma” is a formalizedmodel from game theoryof a problem thatcan be appliedtoresourceuse problems – toanswer the questions: Under whichconditionscanresourceuserscoopera-te? (When) canthey trust eachother? • W. Poundstone, (1992, Prisoner's Dilemma, Doubleday, New York) describes the PD as follows: Two members of a criminal gang are imprisoned, they have no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other. The police don't have enough evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They plan to sentence both to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the police offer each prisoner a bargain: if he testifies against his partner, he will go free while the partner will get three years in prison on the main charge. If both prisoners testify against each other, both will be sentenced to two years in jail.

33. Structuralvariables (for non-repeated and repeated interaction) 1. the number of participants involved; 2. whether benefits are subtractive or fully shared (i.e., public goods vs common-pool resources); 3. the heterogeneity of participants; 4. face-to-face communication; 5. the shape of the production function. Then, we will focus on situations where repetition of the situation ma-kes possible the impact of additional structural variables including: 6. information about past actions; 7. how individuals are linked; 8. whether individuals can enter or exit voluntarily. (Ostrom 2007, p. 4)

34. (How) can the institutionalizationofpropertyrightshelptosolveresourceuse problems? • J. Acheson (2006, p. 121): “economists see private property as ha-ving many advantages, they have long advocatedsolvingresource-management problems by effecting private-property rights or by si-mulating such rights with mechanisms such as licensing or quotas”, but in practice the possibilities of privatization are limited: • “If privatization is going to solveresource-management problems, propertyrights have to be complete and well defined, efficient markets for those resources have to exist, and enforcement of property rights must be possible at low cost. In the real world, some important resources, such as migratory species of fish, cannot be privatized. Moreover, market inefficiency and market failure are common …. There is no market for some resources such as air.”

35. Achesons´ proposal (2006, p. 129) • “Management will be effective only if resources are matched with governance structures and management techniques. A governancestructure using a technique on one resource might succeed, whereas the same governance organization using the same technique might fail miserably when applied to anotherresource. For example, tradableenvironmentalallowances have worked well in controlling air pollution …, but such programs (e.g., ITQs) have generally not done well in managing fisheries because they have motivated fishermen to high grade (discard all fish except the most desi-rable) …, have led to a concentration in control by a small elite …., and in many cases have not conserved the fish stocks” • Rather than searching one solution in form of community-based, state-based or market-based resource management: combinations of all these

36. Social capital … “… is the shared knowledge, understandings, norms, rules, and expectations about patterns of interactions that groups of individuals bring to a recurrent activity …. In the establishment of any coordinated activity, participants accomplish far more per unit of time devoted to a joint activity if they draw on capital resources to reduce the level of current inputs needed to produce a joint outcome. They are more productive with whatever physical and human capital they draw on, if they agree on the way that they will coordinate activities and credibly commit themselves to a sequence of future actions.” (Ostrom 1999, p. 176)

37. Coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) or SES • “… a new paradigm that emphasizes hierarchical couplings of natural and human systems across organizational, spatial, and temporal scales. The approach is not simply larger-scale analysis, as with previous global modeling efforts (e.g., World Dynamics …, Limits to Growth …). Rather it stresses the nesting of local systems in regional and global systems, the cumulative effects of local processes on global processes, the differential coupling of human and natural systems at each scale, the embedding of smaller-scale processes in larger scale processes, and the influences of larger-scale processes on smaller-scale processes.” (Liu et al., 2007, p. 645)

38. Ostrom 2007: with the conceptof SES in searchof a science ofcomplex systems • Abstract: “Given rapid changes in large-scale human and biophy-sical processes - carbon emissions, population increase and mi-grations, overharvesting and pollution leading to loss of species – scien-tists are worried that many of the social-ecological sys-tems existing today may collapse by the end of the 21st centu-ry. Is this an exaggerated worry? …. More important than simply worry-ing, however, is the development of a strong diagnostic method for ana-lyzing the diversity of processes and the multiplicity of potential social and bio-physical solutions that are needed to cope effectively with these varied processes. …. Our need today is building a strong interdis-ciplinary science of complex, multilevel systems that will enable over time a matching of potential solutions to a careful diagno-sis of specific problems embedded in a social-ecological con-text.”

39. ”Reboundeffect” (or ”Jevons paradox”) • Non-intended consequences of improved technical and economic efficiency of production in modern market economies (demateria-lized production, cheaper products): • more of the products/resources are used, annihilating efforts of resource saving by some people (Sorell, S. & Dimitropoulos, J._ The rebound effect: Micro-economic definitions, limitations and extensions. EcologicalEconomics 2008, 65, 3, 636-649) Forms and consequences of naturalresource use are more complexthantheyappear in individualawareness and behaviour - notonlynaturallaws, also social structuresregulateindividualbehaviour

40. The concepts ‘‘resilience’’, ‘‘robustness’’, and ‘‘vulnerability’’ “… can only be understood in relation to one another …. All three are properties of a combined SES. Robustness is the most recent of these terms …. Its intrinsic meanings are still under (sometimes heated) discussion …. In the present context, it seems to refer to the structural and other properties of a system that allow it to withstand the influence of disturbances without changing structure or dynamics (Anderies et al., 2004). Current levels of robustness may be based on past adaptations. If these were highly specific, the system may need to adapt upon encountering new types of disturbances …. As defined by Holling (1973), by contrast, resilience refers to ‘‘the capacity of a system to absorb and utilize or even benefit from perturbations and changes that attain it, and so to persist without a qualitative change in the system’s structure.’’ (Young et al., 2006, p. 305) 19

41. Rockström et al., ”planetaryboundaries” • “We have identified nine planetary boundaries and, drawing upon current scientific understanding, we propose quantifications for seven of them. These seven are climate change (CO2 concentration in the atmosphere <350 ppm and/or a maximum change of +1 W m-2 in radiative forcing); ocean acidification (mean surface seawater saturation state with respect to aragonite ³ 80% of pre-industrial levels); stratospheric ozone (<5% reduction in O3 concentration from pre-industrial level of 290 Dobson Units); biogeochemical nitrogen (N) cycle (limit industrial and agricultural fixation of N2 to 35 Tg N yr-1) and phosphorus (P) cycle (annual P inflow to oceans not to exceed 10 times the natural background weathering of P); global freshwater use (<4000 km3 yr-1 of consumptive use of runoff resources); land system change (<15% of the ice-free land surface under cropland); and the rate at which biological diversity is lost (annual rate of <10 extinctions per million species). The two additional planetary boundaries for which we have not yet been able to determine a boundary level are chemical pollution and atmospheric aerosol loading. We estimate that humanity has already transgressed three planetary boundaries: for climate change, rate of biodiversity loss, and changes to the global nitrogen cycle.”

42. Exponentialgrowthphenomena at global levels Steffen et al. 2004