Intro to Cooperation Studies (7)
Institutions for Collective Action
Co-learners in my online course join it because they want to DO something about cooperation. The course takes its time getting there in order to lay an interdisciplinary foundation in the biology of complex interdependencies, the biological and cultural evolution of cooperation, the cultural exaptations that make increasingly elaborate and powerful forms of cooperative behavior possible, the social dilemmas that arise from the tension between self-interest and collective action. With Institutions for Collective Action, we arrive at the beginnings of practical knowledge. Because of the dependence of these social dilemma workarounds on "local conditions," which can be environmental, cultural, or both, there isn't an algorithm for guaranteeing cooperation. But we are beginning to see the outlines of design principles for the kind of arrangements that enable cooperation.
Garrett Hardin, (1968) "The Tragedy of the Commons," Science, 162 (1968): 1243-48
This is the foundational paper for the modern study of the commons (and modern students of the commons would say that Hardin is not referring to a commons, which is managed in some way by a community, but to an open access common pool resource). Looking ahead to the 21st century from the late 1900s, Hardin foresaw disaster in the way the human population was doubling, and more, with each succeeding generation. He referred to the way common grazing grounds have been overgrazed when individual farmers, unrestrained by regulation or property rights, added more and more animals to their flocks until the common meadows became overgrazed and unusable. Isn't global climate change a commons problem? Ostrom and other modern theorists react to Hardin. This short paper should be read by anyone who wants to understand issues of human collective action -- but no reader should stop with Hardin, whose gloomy assumptions have been shown by others to be something other than inevitable
Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (summary) and one minute video
Ostrom asked of Garrett Hardin's gloomy prophecies regarding the "tragedy of the commons" the question any scientist should ask: is it really true that humans will inevitably despoil any common resource? Looking and thousands of records, ancient and modern, of human use of shared watersheds, fishing and hunting grounds, forests and grazing lands, Ostrom found that a significant portion of communities found ways to override basic social dilemmas, by constructing systems of norms and self-policing social contracts. Ostrom is getting at something deep -- can humans learn to be more cooperative through our culturally constructed institutions than our biological heritage as competitive creatures naturally affords? Ostrom's scope is wide. She wants to know how groups of people overcome barriers to collective action and why they fail to overcome them.
Silke Helfrich via David Bollier, Eight Points of Reference for Commoning
Ostrom is essential. Her writing can also be very technical. Here is a remix of her design principles for institutions of collective action in the language of the commons.
Ostrom's Nobel Prize Speech (one hour video) (Text is available as a PDF)
Cat Johnson, Dog Parks, Humans and the Commons
Dog parks, dog owners, and dog poop are the main ingredients in commons-management experiments that take place in communities all over the globe. This report describes empirical research that tests Ostrom's design principles in a real-life situation.
Jennifer Jacquet, Christoph Hauert, Arne Traulsen, Manfred Milinski, "Shame and Honor Drive Cooperation.
Institutions for collective action are held together more often by norms that are enforced by a population through informal sanctioning than they are by laws enforced by official enforcement institutions. Shame and honor are means by which this informal enforcement is distributed through a population.
Institutions for collective action enable new forms of economic production when linked to digital media and networks, sometimes called "social production" (as in the Web, Wikipedia, open source software). The following are a few references to that aspect
"The Penguin and the Leviathan: The Triumph of Cooperation Over Self-Interest," long blog summary of Yochai Benkler's book
"Distributed Innovation and Creativity, Peer Production, and Commons in Networked Economy," 2013 short chapter by Benkler
"A different way of doing things," Economist article about co-ops - another economic institution for collective action.
"Emergent Properties of Balinese Water Temple Networks: Coadaptation on a Rugged Fitness Landscape," a summary of the work Stephen Lansing reported in his book, Perfect Order. The ways Balinese farmers evolved their water temple system is a breathtaking symphony of institutions for collective action, religion, agronomy, and ecology. Lansing summarizes in this 15 minute video.