Governance of social-ecological systems is a major policy problem of the contemporary era. Field studies of fisheries, forests, and pastoral and water resources have identified many variables that influence the outcomes of governance efforts. We introduce an experimental environment that involves spatial and temporal resource dynamics in order to capture these two critical variables identified in field research. Previous behavioral experiments of commons dilemmas have found that people are willing to engage in costly punishment, frequently generating increases in gross benefits, contrary to game-theoretical predictions based on a static pay-off function. Results in our experimental environment find that costly punishment is again used but lacks a gross positive effect on resource harvesting unless combined with communication. These findings illustrate the importance of careful generalization from the laboratory to the world of policy.

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In order to understand the impact of individual communities on global sustainability, we need a community sustainability assessment system (CSAS). While many sustainability assessment systems exist, they prove inadequate to the task. This article presents the results of a systematic review of the literature on existing sustainability assessment systems; offers a definition of a sustainable community; provides a multi-scale, systems approach to thinking about community; and makes recommendations from the field of performance measurement for the construction of a CSAS.

Collective action dilemmas (hereafter collective dilemmas) occur when the joint decisions of two or more individuals result in socially undesirable outcomes. Collective dilemmas emerge from interdependence-the payoffs to one individual depend on the decisions of others. Solving collective dilemmas requires changing individual decisions through governance arrangements that alter individual payoffs and result in a joint outcome that leaves at least one individual better off without harming any other individuals. Therefore, there is a normative aspect to collective dilemmas, because researchers and practitioners try to find ways to improve social welfare. Some researchers use the term "cooperation" or "coordination" to describe the situation when individuals make decisions that produce more socially desirable outcomes. In game theoretic terms, the goal is often to move from inefficient but stable Nash equilibrium outcomes to mutually beneficial outcomes termed "Pareto-superior." Collective dilemmas are at the heart of most real-world governance challenges, including environmental, health, education, foreign aid, and other policy domains. Hence basic theoretical and empirical research in collective action has important applied implications for the study of governance, and seeks to develop policy recommendations that move toward solutions.The general definition above applies to many specific types of collective dilemmas. Political economists focus heavily on problems like public goods provision (e.g. Olson [1965Olson [ ] 1971 and common pool resource management (e.g. Ostrom, E. 1990). A number of canonical game theoretical models also represent collective dilemmas (e.g. Axelrod and Hamilton 1981). Field studies and experiments examine attributes of individuals, institutions, and communities that make collective action more or less likely to occur (e.g. Ostrom, E. et al. 1994;Gibson et al. 2005). Social network analysis investigates how the degree of interpersonal connectedness among participants to a collective dilemma affects their ability to solve the dilemma (Lubell et al. 2010).From the collective action perspective, then, governance attempts to solve these different types of dilemmas by creating institutional arrangements that redefine the payoffs from individual behavior and incentivize cooperation through top-down mandates or encourage bottom-up self-organizing. Governance is a multi-level process that creates monitoring mechanisms, punishes defection, rewards cooperation, provides information, fosters trust-based reciprocity, and otherwise attempts to create the conditions that make collective action likely to occur (Ostrom, E. 2005). Effective governance requires an institutional framework that both positively alters the payoffs to individuals from cooperation and facilitates effective monitoring and enforcement of the rules if and when someone chooses to defect.Of interest for the current chapter are two collective dilemmas that commonly affect public policy: the efficient production and effective management...

Abstract:Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Forest Enhancement (REDD+) has become a central focus of global climate change mitigation efforts. Even though the international demand for forest-based carbon sequestration is the key driver of REDD+, forest protection strategies must be implemented on the ground. This cross-scale nature of REDD+ explains why scholars and policy makers increasingly favor nested governance arrangements over either fully centralized or fully decentralized REDD+ governance. The focus of the literature on nested REDD+ governance has mostly been on monitoring, reporting, and verification of carbon emission reductions across sub-national, national, and international levels. We build on Ostrom's principle of 'nested enterprises' to argue that REDD+ must be designed to systematically and formally link national policy reforms with the organization and execution of sub-national (regional and local) forest conservation efforts led by forest users. We also contribute new insights on the political dimensions of nestedness in REDD+, with important roles for intercommunity forestry associations and forest rights movements.

Abstract:Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Forest Enhancement (REDD+) has become a central focus of global climate change mitigation efforts. Even though the international demand for forest-based carbon sequestration is the key driver of REDD+, forest protection strategies must be implemented on the ground. This cross-scale nature of REDD+ explains why scholars and policy makers increasingly favor nested governance arrangements over either fully centralized or fully decentralized REDD+ governance. The focus of the literature on nested REDD+ governance has mostly been on monitoring, reporting, and verification of carbon emission reductions across sub-national, national, and international levels. We build on Ostrom's principle of 'nested enterprises' to argue that REDD+ must be designed to systematically and formally link national policy reforms with the organization and execution of sub-national (regional and local) forest conservation efforts led by forest users. We also contribute new insights on the political dimensions of nestedness in REDD+, with important roles for intercommunity forestry associations and forest rights movements.

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