Technology as integrated into institutions: expanding the list of actors affecting institutional conditions of cooperation

Abstract

This study seeks to overcome the gap between institutions and technology in the literature of the commons. It emphasises the importance of inviting and testing different technologies as actors that are of importance for resolving social dilemmas. In this study, a test is carried out to see if a certain accounting technology mediates factors that facilitate the sustainable management of commons. The technology that is tested in this study regards 'notched sticks' that were used as accounting in self-governed farming villages during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in upper Dalarna, Sweden, when organising 'new urban commons'. The findings are that the notched sticks did function as mediators, connected in a network that did affect several factors, or conditions, for sustainable management of commons. As such, the technology of sticks was an actor that served in mediating relations, decision-making and transparency. For example, as accounting technology the sticks did change situations with possible individual bounded rationality through the construction of social entities and methods for balancing rights and obligations. Considering how accounting technology can be integrated into institutions, this implies that awareness is needed when changing and implementing technological solutions.

Embracing conceptual diversity to integrate power and institutional analysis: Introducing a relational typology

“…Similarly, while scholars engaging ideas such as networks and entanglements comprised of social and natural elements have developed radical ontological platforms to account for non-human agency and its implications (Callon 1984;Latour 2005), common-pool resource theory has also concerned itself with how biophysical characteristics shape the realm of possibility of environmental governance institutions (Schlager et al 1994;Epstein et al 2015). Forsberg (2018), for example, seamlessly integrates poststructuralist Actor-Network Theory with theories of collective action based on modified rational choice theory to show how non-human actors shape institutions for collective action. Additionally, institutionalists studying multi-level and cross-scale linkages in the governance of common-pool resources (e.g.…”

“…scientists, foundations, States, symbols, and spaces) enable or legitimate particular kinds of governance institutions. Along these lines, Forsberg (2018) examined how a non-human actor (notched sticks) created information networks among groups of commoners and produced the conditions for self-governance of a variety of commons (Forsberg 2018). In other cases, studying the role of non-human elements (e.g.…”

Sobre la posible función de las pizarras ibéricas con signos numéricos

“…La Cabeza de Navasangil (Solosancho, Ávila) también se sitúa en una zona tradicional de movimiento estacional del ganado, la Sierra de la Paramera, uno de los pasos obligados de los rebaños desde el valle hacia la montaña: CABALLERO ARRIBAS y PE-ÑAS PEDRERO, 2012: 235. Lo mismo ocurre en El Cancho del Confesionario (Manzanares el Real, Madrid) y Lerilla (Zamarra, Salamanca): MARTÍN VISO, 2006: 273;2018: 325-326. 25 MARTÍN VISO, 20122013b: 11.…”

Adaptive governance in open data ecosystems: experiences and insights on the role of sociotechnical arrangements

“…In addition, technology is also an important actor for shaping governance arrangement (Forsberg, 2018), especially given that today communication and coordination are increasingly mediated through information technologies such as social media (e.g., Slack) or collaborative technologies (Teams). While actors can use these technologies for social learning and expanding networks, they can also use them to exercise varying extent of control (Wang et al, 2020).…”

“…It is important to emphasise that the governance of socioecological systems is increasingly mediated by technologies (Forsberg, 2018;Kooij et al, 2015), especially digital technologies.…”