Wednesday, June 18, 2025 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM Integrative Learning Center ILCN255
Quantifying the Diversity of Formal Rules to Compare Governance Systems of common-pool Resources
in-person
Ismael Lare1, Diego Arahuetes1, Alicia Tenza1, Laura Moreno1, Andrea Martín1, Javier Lacosta1, Rike Stotten2, Thea Wiesli2, Hassen Abdelhafidh3, Aymen Frija4, and Irene Pérez1
1Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain, 2Institute of Sociology, University of Innsbruck, Austria, 3Department of Rural Economics and Management at Higher School of Agriculture of Mograne, University of Carthage, Tunisia, 4ICARDA, Science for Resilient Livelihoods in Dry Areas, Morocco
Effective governance of common-pool resources relies on well-defined institutions that guide the proper management of shared natural resources. Decision-making processes in response to collective action dilemmas are influenced by the diversity of rules, norms and strategies, which enable multiple responses for communities facing uncertainties across diverse socio-economic, environmental, and political contexts. Our study examines four common-pool resources governance systems (forestry, fishery, pastoralism, and irrigation) from Europe, Africa, and South America. For each case, we applied the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework’s rules typology, a novel taxonomy of rules, and the Institutional Grammar to decompose the institutional arrangements and classify them in rules, norms and strategies. We measured institutional diversity through the calculation of the alpha and beta diversity, tools borrowed from the life sciences to quantify the richness of rules and to compare the diversity of rules within and across governance systems. Results revealed significant differences in institutional configurations, highlighting dissimilarities in the number and type of rules, taxonomies and the grammatical elements among the case studies. Beta diversity reflected two key processes that shaped the institutional configurations in the case studies: the replacement of rules that are absent in one case but present in another (turnover), and the presence of specific rules that are absent in other case studies, without being replaced by additional rules (nestedness). The partitioning of beta diversity enabled us to identify the mechanisms that modulate institutional diversity by influencing the equivalences and divergences of rules, norms and strategies amidst diverse governance systems. Furthermore, the linkages and connections of different types of rules underscored the complexity of these systems at the management of the shared natural resources. These results highlight the importance of recognizing institutional diversity when developing adaptive management strategies for the governance of common-pool resources.
