Crafting of cognitive institutions for overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Pablo Paniagua and Veeshan Rayamajhee (2021) propose an Ostromian polycentric view on coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) preventative measures co-produced by the state and citizens. I argue that we should also use another Ostromian approach – ‘crafting of institutions.’ Focusing on the crafting of cognitive institutions allows us to understand the co-production of virus containment in all its complexity. Combining the ‘crafting cognitive institutions’ and ‘boosting’ approaches will allow for the creation of institutionally and behaviorally informed anti-COVID policy interventions in line with polycentric pandemic governance.

Coproduction and the crafting of cognitive institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Thus, an important implication of the coproductive feature of cognitive institutions is that citizens can and often do actively coproduce pernicious belief systems such as pandemic denialism and antivaccination theories. As Frolov (2022: 2) puts it, they create imperfect, poorly coherent, and internally contradictory shared mental models, assembled and reassembled from multiple sources and without explicit performance criteria. This has been true since the dawn of human civilization but has become truer with the proliferation of anonymous online platforms with minimal or no accountability measures.…”

“…While it may be comforting to believe that government strategies such as providing reliable facts and detailed and lucid explanations will persuade citizens to adopt better cognitive rules, the assumption is naive. Frolov (2022) is correct to note that the problem is not the quality of information or the dissemination strategy but lack of trust in our basic political and scientific institutions. Additionally, there is a deeper challenge of modifying human cognition and the fundamental social institutions humans built to overcome historical challenges.…”

“…In response to the proposed polycentric framework, Frolov (2022) presented the compelling case that the proposed approach is incomplete because it does not sufficiently address the cognitive dimension of institutions. The author contends that although the concept of coproduction is a useful tool with which to understand pandemic response, our analysis (focused on the production of preventive measures) does not adequately explain situations in which people adopt destructive social norms, beliefs, and practices such as conspiracy theories and participation in antivaccine campaigns.…”

“…Indeed, extending the notion of coproduction to the analysis of cognitive institutions is a valuable line of inquiry that allows one to shed light on the dark side of coproduction and highlight the multifaceted challenges of pandemic governance. As Frolov (2022) points out, shared norms and mental models that underlie behavior and practices during a pandemic must be coproduced too 3 . In other words, the case for a polycentric approach to pandemic governance can be strengthened by applying Ostrom's (1992) crafting-of-institutions approach to the cognitive institutions underlying social behavior 4…”

“…In other words, the concept of coproduction can help explain why competing, often-contradictory shared mental models coexist and why pernicious models persist despite governmental and nongovernmental efforts to counter them. This novel extension of the theory of coproduction (Parks et al ., 1981) to cognitive institutions highlights two crucial points: first, cognitive institutions are coproduced by citizens, communities, and organizations (governmental and nongovernmental); second, the crafting of cognitive institutions is a decentralized and competitive process in which cognitive and behavioral norms are coproduced by multiple actors ‘with differing interests, values, and worldviews’ (Frolov, 2022: 3). Thus, citizens are continually involved in the production, modification, contestation, and deterioration of different shared mental models.…”