A diagnostic approach for going beyond panaceas

Elinor Ostrom*

Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, Indiana University, 408 North Indiana Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408; Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, 513 North Park, Bloomington, IN 47408; and Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-2402

Edited by B. L. Turner II, Clark University, Worcester, MA, and approved July 11, 2007 (received for review March 12, 2007)

Abstract

The articles in this special feature challenge the presumption that scholars can make simple, predictive models of social–ecological systems (SESs) and deduce universal solutions, panaceas, to problems of overuse or destruction of resources. Moving beyond panaceas to develop cumulative capacities to diagnose the problems and potentialities of linked SESs requires serious study of complex, multivariable, nonlinear, cross-scale, and changing systems. Many variables have been identified by researchers as affecting the patterns of interactions and outcomes observed in empirical studies of SESs. A step toward developing a diagnostic method is taken by organizing these variables in a nested, multitier framework. The framework enables scholars to organize analyses of how attributes of (i) a resource system (e.g., fishery, lake, grazing area), (ii) the resource units generated by that system (e.g., fish, water, fodder), (iii) the users of that system, and (iv) the governance system jointly affect and are indirectly affected by interactions and resulting outcomes achieved at a particular time and place. The framework also enables us to organize how these attributes may affect and be affected by larger socioeconomic, political, and ecological settings in which they are embedded, as well as smaller ones. The framework is intended to be a step toward building a strong interdisciplinary science of complex, multilevel systems that will enable future diagnosticians to match governance arrangements to specific problems embedded in a social–ecological context.

Footnotes

*E-mail: ostrom{at}indiana.edu
Author contributions: E.O. contributed new reagents/analytic tools, analyzed data, and wrote the article.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
↵ ^†This framework further elaborates the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework developed by scholars at Indiana University (32) and the framework developed by Anderies et al. (33) for examining the robustness of SESs. See Meinzen-Dick (34) for a further elucidation of the general variables presented in the above framework (Table 1) for analyzing irrigation institutions and the greatly expanded and general version of this framework contained in the supporting information of Brock and Carpenter (35).
↵ ^‡The task of identifying which variations are subcategories of a more general variable is not to identify the relative importance of a variable in a particular setting. Some crucial variables used in the design of successful governance systems are third- and fourth-tier variables that are important in these, but not in all, SESs.
↵ ^§Events in the rest of the ecosystem have turned the lobster fishery into more of a monoculture that exposes it to the threat of an epidemic among the lobsters that could generate an unexpected collapse at some future date. These problems cannot be addressed by the evolved lobster governance system alone (S. Carpenter, personal communication, August 1, 2006; and J. Wilson, personal communication, June 15, 2007).
↵ ^¶Carlsson and Berkes (ref. 88, p. 65) outline a series of steps for conducting policy analysis of comanagement systems: “This kind of research approach might employ the steps of (1) defining the social-ecological system under focus; (2) mapping the essential management tasks and problems to be solved; (3) clarifying the participants in the problem-solving processes; (4) analyzing linkages in the system, in particular across levels of organization and across geographical space; (5) evaluating capacity-building needs for enhancing the skills and capabilities of people and institutions at various levels; and (6) prescribing ways to improve policy making and problem solving.”
Abbreviations:

GS,

governance system;

RS,

resource system;

RU,

resource user;

SES,

social–ecological system;

U,

user.