Explaining path-dependent rigidity traps: increasing returns, power, discourses, and entrepreneurship intertwined in social-ecological systems

Abstract

The current, unprecedented rate of human development is causing major damages to Earth's life-support systems. Therefore, the need for transitions toward sustainability in the use of natural resources and ecosystems has been extensively advocated. To be successful, such transitions must be guided by a sound understanding of the architecture of the policy and institutional designs of both the process of change and the target outcome. Here, we contribute to current research on the institutional conditions necessary for successful transitions toward sustainability in social-ecological systems, addressing two interrelated theoretic-analytical questions through an in-depth case study focused in the Doñana region (Guadalquivir estuary, southwest Spain). First, we focus on the need for enhanced historical causal explanations of social-ecological systems stuck in maladaptive rigidity traps at present. Second, we focus on the explanatory potential of several factors for shaping maladaptive outcomes, at two different levels of analysis: political-economic interests, prevailing discourses and power, at a contextual level, and institutional entrepreneurship, at an endogenous level. In particular, we address that explanatory potential when the core logic of path dependence fails to predict maladaptive outcomes in a historical, evolutionary perspective. When this occurs, such outcomes are often qualified as unexpected, hence subject to contingency, because of their divergence from purported superior, optimal alternatives. We argue that contingency can be modulated away from randomness and better characterized as unpredictability, through the systematic inclusion of the mentioned factors into analysis. This would, in turn, increase our capacity to inform future policy and institutional transitional designs toward sustainability.

An Institutional Analysis and Reconfiguration Framework for Sustainability Research on Post-Transition Forestry—A Focus on Ukraine

“…Within this approach, one way of exploring institutional changes is to consider them as having been caused by the responses of actors to shifts in relative prices and preferences; and a second way explains institutional reconfiguration as caused by conflicting interests. Inefficient institutions exist because of 'path dependency', but new institutions are continuously created [47,48]. Social movements [49] and collective actions [50] are recognized as drivers of institutional changes.…”

Blue uncertainty: Warding off systemic risks in the Anthropocene—Lessons from COVID-19

“…Between them, a continuum of predictability unfolds, with randomness equating a high level of unpredictability and contingency a property that can be modulated ( Méndez et al 2019 ).

Figure 2 Epistemological tension between two senses of contingency (based on Mahoney 2000 , Eagle 2005 , Méndez et al 2019 ).

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“… Epistemological tension between two senses of contingency (based on Mahoney 2000 , Eagle 2005 , Méndez et al 2019 ). …”

“…1 ) to refer to a type of randomness inherent in the world that perhaps we will be never able to eliminate from our causal theories, predictions and models (based on Mahoney 2000 ).

Figure 3 Adaptive inference protocol (based on Holling and Allen 2002 , Méndez et al 2019 ). Context-driven and place-based, to appropriately address the surrounding social-ecological circumstances, governance levels and spatiotemporal scales.

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“… Adaptive inference protocol (based on Holling and Allen 2002 , Méndez et al 2019 ). Context-driven and place-based, to appropriately address the surrounding social-ecological circumstances, governance levels and spatiotemporal scales.…”