Institutions and the performance of coupled infrastructure systems

Abstract

Institutions, the rules of the game that shape repeated human interactions, clearly play a critical role in helping groups avoid the inefficient use of shared resources such as fisheries, freshwater, and the assimilative capacity of the environment. Institutions, however, are intimately intertwined with the human, social, and biophysical context within which they operate. Scholars typically are careful to take this context into account when studying institutions and Ostrom's Institutional Design Principles are a case in point. Scholars have tested whether Ostrom's Design Principles, which specify broad relationships between institutional arrangements and context, actually support successful governance of shared resources. This article further contributes to this line of research by leveraging the notion of institutional design to outline a research trajectory focused on coupled infrastructure systems in which institutions are seen as one class of infrastructure among many that dynamically interact to produce outcomes over time.

Frontiers in socio-environmental research: components, connections, scale, and context

“…Moreover, SE systems in which technology and the built environment play prominent roles fit uncomfortably in the society-environment distinction because neither technology nor the built environment is easily categorized as uniquely social/ human or ecological/environmental (Graedel and Allenby 1993). Anderies et al (2016) sought to overcome this challenge with the introduction of coupled infrastructure systems as a unit of https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss3/art23/ Two primary components (ecosystem services and human well-being) linked by indirect and direct drivers; identify four components of ecosystem services (regulating, provisioning, cultural, and supporting) and five components of human well-being.…”

Introducing the "The Importance of Context, Scale, and Interdependencies in Understanding and Applying Ostrom's Design Principles for Successful Governance of the Commons"

“…The outcome an individual actor achieves depends on her choices as well as the choices of others in the situation (Ostrom et al 1994). As Anderies et al (2016) note, the conventional application of the IAD framework is to examine common pool resource situations at a point in time, allowing scholars to examine how a fixed configuration of biophysical and community characteristics along with rules in use structure the interactions among actors and the outcomes they achieve (Tang 1992, Schlager 1994.…”

“…The fourth manuscript in this special issue, Anderies et al (2016) "Institutions and the performance of coupled infrastructure systems" further extend and develop the Robustness Framework by conceptualizing the parts as infrastructures. Examples of infrastructures include knowledge; ecosystem processes that provide services such as water cleansing or flood control; roads and canal systems; and institutional arrangements.…”

“…In creating valued outcomes, such as productive irrigation systems, people draw on multiple infrastructures, not a single type of infrastructure. The Coupled Infrastructure Systems Framework captures the dynamics of common pool resource systems by focusing on the opportunities and possibilities, or what Anderies et al (2016) call affordances, that emerge from the interactions of infrastructures.…”

“…As such, the design principles are a form of soft, human made infrastructure. Anderies et al (2016) argue the design principles allow for the processing of information that regulates complex systems. More than anything the CIS Framework demonstrates the importance of the cooccurrence of the design principles, why they must co-occur, and why robust systems are characterized by most of the principles.…”