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9-8-08: Beneficial Complexity: A Field Experiment in Technology, Institutions, and Institutional Change in the Electric Power Industry
Professor Lynne Kiesling, Department of Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Chair: Professor James Walker, Workshop Co-Director and Professor of Economics, IUB
9-15-08: Beyond Indigenous Property Rights: The Implications of a Distinctive Connection to the Land and Environment
Dr. Eric Dannenmaier, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis
9-17-08: A Framework for Analyzing Bottom-Up Rural Development: The Application of the IAD Framework to Leader+ in Poland
Kinga Boenning, Division of External Environment for Agriculture and Policy Analysis, Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe, Halle (Saale), Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
9-22-08: What Is Game Theory? A Social Science Reply
Professor Thomas Schelling, Department of Economics and School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park
9-24-08: Governance of Rural Services in Kyrgyzstan
Wibke Crewett, Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
9-29-08: How to DNA Barcode the Tropical Wild World and Endow It as Well; the ACG Example from Northwestern Costa Rica
Professor Daniel Janzen, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
10-1-08: Institutional Resilience of East German Recreational Fisheries to Abrupt Social-Political Change after the Reunification in 1990
Katrin Daedlow, Division of Resource Economics, Humboldt University Berlin; and Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany; and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
10-6-08: Firms, Markets, and the Work Ethic
Professor Michael Rauh, Department of Business Economics & Public Policy, Kelley School of Business, IUB
10-8-08: Rural Services and Poverty Alleviation in Uganda
Nana Afranaa Kwapong, Division of Resource Economics, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Dr. Christopher Kam, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Professor David Porter, School of Management, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
10-20-08: Does Intergroup Conflict Promote Norms and Hierarchies?
Professor Stephen Benard, Department of Sociology, IUB
10-22-08: How Has Participatory Planning Legislation Affected Decision-Making over Rural Infrastructure in Guatemala?
Johanna Speer, Division of Resource Economics and Division of Cooperative Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
10-27-08: Fear and Loathing at the Tapstand: Water Insecurity, Institutions, and Emotional Distress in Urban Bolivia
Dr. Amber Wutich, Assistant Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe
10-29-08: Coordination and Cooperation in Asymmetric Commons Dilemmas in the Lab and the Field
Dr. Marco Janssen, Assistant Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Arizona State University, Tempe, and Affiliated Faculty, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
11-3-08: Captured by Evil: The Idea of Corruption in Law
Professor Laura Underkuffler, School of Law, Duke University, Durham, NC
11-5-08: Analyzing Dynamics of Complex Socio-Ecological Systems: The Case of the Coast
Professor Audun Sandberg, Faculty of Social Science, Bodø University College, Bodø, Norway
11-10-08: Smallholder Land Management, Forest Successions, and Environmental History in Southern Mexico
Professor Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Department of Geography, IUB
11-12-08: Democratic Politics and Collective Action
Professor Ashwini Chhatre, Department of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11-17-08: Forming Institutions in Fouda: The Origins of Property Rights in Palestinian Refugee Camp Sectors
Nadya Hajj Parks, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
11-19-08: Normal = Normative? The Role of Intelligent Agents in Norm Innovation
Giulia Andrighetto, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Rome, Italy
12-1-08: Developing Basic Principles for the Governance of Large-Scale Water Commons: The Great Lakes Case
Professor Mark Sproule-Jones, Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Affiliated Faculty, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
12-3-08: An Institutional Analysis of Decentralized Governance and Rural Service Delivery—Evidence from North India
Ulrike Müller, PhD Candidate, Division of Resource Economics, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
12-8-08: Innovation in America—A Polycentric Perspective
Dr. Sujai Shivakumar, Senior Program Officer, Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, National Research Council, Washington, DC
BENEFICIAL COMPLEXITY: A FIELD EXPERIMENT IN TECHNOLOGY, INSTITUTIONS, AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE IN THE ELECTRIC POWER INDUSTRY
Presented by Professor Lynne Kiesling, Department of Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (coauthor: David Chassin, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
Abstract: This paper presents and analyzes the results of a recent field experiment in which residential electricity customers in Washington State with price-responsive in-home devices could use those devices to change their electricity consumption autonomously. Doing so also required an important institutional change: the regulatory institutions had to change to allow dynamic pricing. Customers could choose a retail pricing contract from a portfolio of contracts, instead of the fixed, regulated retail rate. Here we focus on the results of the real-time contract, under which homeowners participate in a double auction with a market clearing occurring every five minutes. These customers saved money, and their peak demand (and pressure on infrastructure at peak capacity) fell by 15 percent. Moreover, this combination of technology and institutional design enabled decentralized coordination, and we use complexity science to interpret results that show that the real-time market outcomes were those of a self-organizing and scalable complex adaptive system. We also draw policy implications from these results.
BIO: Lynne Kiesling is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Northwestern University, and in the Social Enterprise at Kellogg (SEEK) program in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. At Northwestern she is also a Faculty Member in the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) and a Faculty Affiliate in the Center for the Study of Industrial Organization (CSIO). Lynne is the author or co-author of many academic journal articles, book chapters, policy studies, and public interest comments, most of which analyze electricity policy and market design issues. Her specialization is industrial organization and regulatory policy. She also teaches undergraduate courses in energy economics, environmental economics, and history of economic thought, and writes about economics as the editor/owner at the website Knowledge Problem.
As a noted expert in demand response, end-use technology, and retail competition, Lynne has been asked to speak to various academic, industrial, and regulatory groups about regulatory policy, institutional change, and experimental economic analysis of electric power market design. She has served as a peer reviewer for the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, and for academic journals including Energy Journal, Public Choice, and Review of Economics and Statistics. She has provided expert testimony in proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission, the Illinois Commerce Commission, and the New York Public Service Commission. She has also taught several economics workshops for regulators using experimental economics.
Lynne is also currently a member of the GridWise Architecture Council, a group of 13 experts volunteering their time to articulate the guiding principles for an intelligent, transactive, energy system of the future, and to guide and promote measures to transform the nation’s electricity system into a more reliable, affordable, secure network in which users collaborate with suppliers in an information- and value-rich market environment. She was also a Program Co-Chair for the 2006 meetings of the US Association of Energy Economics, and is a Conference Co-Chair for the 2007 meetings of the International Society of New Institutional Economics.
Lynne has a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Economics from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Her previous appointments include Assistant Professor, College of William and Mary, Manager, Price Waterhouse/PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Director of Economic Policy, Reason Foundation, and Research Scholar, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science at George Mason University.
ROUNDTABLE
Chaired by Professor James Walker, Workshop Co-Director and Professor of Economics, IUB
Summary: The Roundtable session will be an opportunity for our colleagues and students to become acquainted with this year's Workshop Visiting Scholars, including the research they will be conducting while in residence this year.
BEYOND INDIGENOUS PROPERTY RIGHTS: THE IMPLICATIONS OF A DISTINCTIVE CONNECTION TO THE LAND AND ENVIRONMENT
Presented by Dr. Eric Dannenmaier, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis
Abstract: Human rights law has begun to offer normative protection for what remains of indigenous lands. Yet territory now better defended from conquest and encroachment is increasingly threatened by their byproducts. Water scarcity, food security, waste deposition, climate change—in short, the multiple impacts of industrial development—pose a new territorial challenge to indigenous communities that will test the reach and capacity of the human rights regime. This presentation examines that challenge and asks whether a solution may lie in emerging human rights doctrine recognizing indigenous peoples’ land rights not as heirs to a European conception of property, but as peoples with a distinctive historical, cultural, and spiritual relationship to the land and environment. The presentation traces multiple sources of law that affirm indigenous property rights based on land-connectedness and proposes, for the sake of analysis, a “distinctive connection” doctrine. The presentation asks: (1) How has this doctrine been defined and applied in indigenous property claims based, in part, on cultural and spiritual land-relationships; and (2) Can it be effectively deployed to protect against the “new” territorial encroachment: the impact on indigenous communities’ environment? While a distinctive connection has been repeatedly advanced, its significance has not been fully deployed to address natural resource and ecological concerns of indigenous peoples. Dannenmaier thus offers an analytic framework within which the connection might be further understood, emphasizing its relevance to the environment. He looks at examples of recent indigenous environmental cases—an Inuit climate change claim, Western Shoshone concerns regarding mining practices and nuclear waste disposal on traditional lands, and remedial rights of Inuit communities affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill—to suggest that a distinctive connection doctrine may offer a means of addressing environmental impacts bound up with indigenous communities’ relationship to the land and environment. He argues that this doctrine should give rise to a property right beyond title and trespass: one that protects the deeper ecological values of this distinctive connection.
BIO: Eric Dannenmaier teaches Property, Environmental Law, and International Environmental Law at Indiana University Law School - Indianapolis. He is a graduate of Oxford University, Columbia Law School, Boston University Law School, and Drury College. Professor Dannenmaier was the Bretzfelder International Law Fellow at Columbia University in 2006-07, directed Tulane University's Institute for Environmental Law and Policy from 2001-05, and was Visiting Chair of Natural Resources Law at University of Calgary in Canada in 2001. He served as Legal Advisor for the Environment to the US Agency for International Development from 1996 to 2000, working through the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington and the University of Miami’s North-South Center. Dannenmaier’s research is focused on law and democracy, environmental rights, and citizen access to development decision-making under national and international law.
Draft Paper: Social Science Research Network
A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING BOTTOM-UP RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE APPLICATION OF THE IAD FRAMEWORK TO LEADER+ IN POLAND
Presented by Kinga Boenning, Division of External Environment for Agriculture and Policy Analysis, Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe, Halle (Saale), Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: In Europe, a ‘new rural paradigm’ is intensively discussed among main political actors. It aims at supporting the development of rural areas in a more holistic approach. One of the core-principles consists in a bottom-up approach, which implies local or regional actors developing and implementing their own development strategy, based on regional and individual assets. Not totally ‘new’ in its approach, the ‘new rural paradigm’ gains in importance in the political arena. This is reflected, for example, in the current OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) report on rural development or the mainstreaming of the program LEADER in the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. Such policy measures and their highly complex impacts, present a challenge to researchers trying to make informed policy statements. To further the analytic exploration of bottom-up rural development, the present paper reverts to the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to reflect and structure the complex development situation taking place under one major ‘representative’ policy of the new rural paradigm, namely the program LEADER.
BIO: Kinga Boenning holds a Master of Science in Political Science from Free University Berlin. She is currently employed at the Leibniz-Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO) in Halle, Germany and is a Visiting Scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis during fall term. In past years, she worked as a program coordinator for the rural development program at a German foundation in Poland and she continues her commitment as a Head of the Board of a small Polish NGO dedicated to sustainable development. In her dissertation, she wants to explore possibilities to support bottom-up rural development initiatives.
There will not be a formal paper for this session.
WHAT IS GAME THEORY? A SOCIAL SCIENCE REPLY
Presented by Professor Thomas Schelling, Department of Economics and School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park
Abstract: Game theory has often been defined, by professional game theorists, as “the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers.” For social scientists a looser definition might be, “the study of interactive behavior (or decisions) among two or more substantially rational entities—individuals, organizations, governments--not necessarily mathematical, not necessarily without occasional departures from rationality.”
Game theory, for the social scientist, is usually extremely useful in the identification of situations, less adequate in the identification of solutions. For example: two cars approach an intersection at approximately the same speed; if both continue at speed they collide (or slam on brakes), if both slow down, both lose time and the problem is still unsolved, if one slows down and the other continues, a “solution” is achieved. But who slows down? That question requires not mathematics but social science.
BIO: Thomas C. Schelling, PhD Harvard economics, 1951; was on the Faculty of Yale University 1953-57; spent 1958-59 at the RAND Corporation; 1959-90 at Harvard—Department of Economics, Center for International Affairs, and John F. Kennedy School of Government—and 1990-2005 at the University of Maryland’s Department of Economics and School of Public Policy. He was a fiscal analyst at the U.S. Bureau of the Budget 1945-46; did graduate work at Harvard 1946-48; was in the Marshall Plan Mission to Denmark 1948-49; the European Office of the Marshall Plan, Paris, 1949-50; the White House Foreign Policy Staff 1950-51; and the Executive Office of the President (foreign aid programs) 1951-53.
His main theoretical interests have been bargaining, conflict and cooperation, racial segregation, and techniques of self-management. His main policy interests have been nuclear weapons, the limitation of war, climate change, foreign aid, and nicotine. His major books are The Strategy of Conflict 1960, Strategy and Arms Control (with Morton H. Halperin) 1961, Arms and Influence 1966, Micromotives and Macrobehavior 1978, and Choice and Consequence 1984. His latest book is Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays 2006.
He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. In 2005 he received, jointly with Robert Aumann, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
Thomas Schelling lives with his wife, Alice Coleman Schelling, in Bethesda, Maryland. Between them they have six sons, six daughters-in-law, and eleven grandchildren, shortly to be twelve.
There will not be a formal paper for this session.
GOVERNANCE OF RURAL SERVICES IN KYRGYZSTAN
Presented by Wibke Crewett, Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: The small country of Kyrgyzstan has for a long time been considered the most progressive and reform-friendly state throughout the Central Asian region. Legislations on decentralization have been passed since the early 1990s. These laws and its numerous amendments have transferred political and fiscal authority to newly established local self-governments. Adopting an assumption which is widely spread among donor organizations, the Kyrgyz government expects these reforms to ensure better service provision to citizens. Not much is known about the practical implications of these reforms and the effects of the decentralization process on service delivery, particularly in remote rural areas.
The presentation will outline some findings based on data collected in June and July 2008 from representatives of central and local administrations and citizens in four different villages. I will outline some characteristics of the decentralization process under way, directions of most recent policy reforms in rural Kyrgyzstan and assumptions about its effects on rural service provision.
BIO: Wibke Crewett holds a B.Sc in Agriculture and a M.Sc. in International Agriculture with a specialization on Rural Development. After graduation from Humboldt-University, Berlin with a thesis on land rights in Ethiopia, she worked as a research fellow at the Müncheberg Center for Landscape Research (ZALF e.V.), and the Faculty of Human Geography at Goettingen-University. In 2007, she returned to Humboldt-University for her PhD research. She has worked with local and international NGOs in Indonesia and Azerbaijan. For her Master thesis she has done fieldwork in Ethiopia. After graduation Wibke was part of a small team that developed a tool for ex-ante evaluation of sustainable agricultural projects. Her dissertation research focuses on governance of rural services in Kyrgyzstan. The research is part of a cooperative project of Humboldt-University and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington which is financed by a grant from the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.
There will not be a formal paper for this session.
HOW TO DNA BARCODE THE TROPICAL WILD WORLD AND ENDOW IT AS WELL; THE ACG EXAMPLE FROM NORTHWESTERN COSTA RICA
Presented by Professor Daniel Janzen, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Abstract: If you can't read it, it is just biofuel; the only tropical wild biodiversity that is going to co-exist with humans for the next 1000 years is that which is in large blocks of protected wildlands, endowed, decentralized and thoroughly integrated with local, national and international society. And the only way to facilitate this to happen is to actually do it somewhere, and have the example spread like a virus.
BIO: Daniel Janzen is DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Technical Advisor to the Area de Conservación Gaunacaste in northwestern Costa Rica. (djanzen@sas.upenn.edu)
While initially focused on tropical animal-plant relationships (1963-1985), from 1978 to the present, Janzen has focused on an inventory of tropical caterpillars, their parasites, and their microbial biodiversity, and on the conservation of tropical biodiversity through its non-damaging development (see http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu). His 431 publications and the web site encapsulate much of this information and its associated relevance for tropical science administration and conservation biology. He and his biologist wife, Dr. Winnie Hallwachs, are among the primary architects of the Area de Conservación Gaunacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica (http://www.acguanacaste.ac.cr and http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu/saveit.html), which was decreed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Janzen received the first Crafoord Prize in biology offered by the Swedish Royal Academy of Science (1984), the Kyoto Prize in Basic Biology (1997), and the John Scott Award of the City of Philadelphia for activities good for humankind (2003). A member of the US National Academy of Sciences (1992), the Costa Rican National Academy of Sciences (2002), and long-time honorary member of the Costa Rican National Park Service, his activities have had a positive influence on society's awareness of the relevance and potential of conservation of tropical wildland biodiversity for global understanding, national sustainable development, and individual quality of life, both inside and outside the tropics. His current focus is (a) caterpillar natural history, (b) the combination of conservation and biodiversity development for large conserved tropical wildlands, (c) finding the funds to endow the entire national park system of Costa Rica, and (d) facilitating global bioliteracy through the emergence of the ability by all people to be able to identify any organism anywhere anytime through DNA barcoding.
There will not be a formal paper for this session.
INSTITUTIONAL RESILIENCE OF EAST GERMAN RECREATIONAL FISHERIES TO ABRUPT SOCIAL-POLITICAL CHANGE AFTER THE REUNIFICATION IN 1990
Presented by Katrin Daedlow, Division of Resource Economics, Humboldt University Berlin; and Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany; and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: The management of common pool resources such as fisheries is challenged by constantly arising changes and disturbances in social-ecological systems. The capacity of these systems to absorb disturbances and to re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks is defined as resilience. In this context, institutional resilience is the degree to which agents of the governance structure can manage a social-ecological system for resilience including the capacity for learning and adaptation to maintain its functioning. Our analysis using recreational fisheries as social-ecological case system aimed at understanding how humans act and make decisions in uncertain situations and to what degree this collective action supports resilience in social-ecological systems. It focuses on a time when East German recreational fisheries management was heavily disturbed during and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Based on face-to-face interviews with contemporary witnesses and content analysis of journal cover articles, the institutional resilience of the East German recreational fisheries sector was analyzed using frameworks from resilience theory (adaptive management policy cycle) and institutional economics (institutional analysis and development framework). The study revealed that many East German recreational fisheries managers implemented (i.e., retained) large parts of the former East German recreational fisheries management and governance approach in the new institutional and political environment after the German reunification. It was found that cultures, values and customs that evolved in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) structures were and still are highly appreciated in the contemporary recreational fisheries management community. This led to a firm belief in the “open” and “fair” East German recreational fisheries management approach as opposed to the more local, less open and more restricted West German recreational fisheries management system.
BIO: Katrin Daedlow is a PhD student affiliated with Humboldt University, Division of Resource Economics, and Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, Germany. In her PhD she investigates different management systems in German recreational fisheries using institutional economics theories and frameworks. This research is part of ADAPTFISH (www.adaptfish.igb-berlin.de), an interdisciplinary project about adaptive dynamics and management of coupled social-ecological systems exemplified by recreational fisheries. She holds a master’s degree in political science with majors in environmental policy and international relations from Free University Berlin. From 2002 to 2006 she was a research fellow in a project on a comparative analysis of environmental policies in OECD countries at the University of Greifswald, Germany.
There will not be a formal paper for this session.
FIRMS, MARKETS, AND THE WORK ETHIC
Presented by Professor Michael Rauh, Department of Business Economics & Public Policy, Kelley School of Business, IUB (coauthor: Abhijit Ramalingam, Department of Economics, IUB)
Abstract: In this paper, we study the formation of the work ethic in firms and markets. We show that the firm in our model is an idealized institution that operates solely on the basis of authority and the endogenous work ethic, without any monetary incentives. We say that one institution is more ethical than another if both the work ethic and the agent’s degree of internalization of it are higher in that institution. When institutions are exogenous, the market is never more ethical than the firm, although the latter is the more ethical institution for an intermediate level of perceived risk. When institutions are endogenous, we show that firms can arise due to market failures where the market generates too much risk. In that case, the firm is the efficient institution because it has a comparative advantage in the development of an effective work ethic since the multi-tasking problem precludes the use of incentives. In contrast, an efficient market has a comparative advantage in the provision of incentives, although the market would also collapse without an effective work ethic due to its own specific multi-tasking problem.
BIO: Michael Rauh is currently an Assistant Professor of Business Economics in the Kelley School of Business here at Indiana University. His research interests in organizational theory lie at the boundary between economics, psychology, sociology, and other disciplines. Before coming to Indiana, he worked at the University of North Dakota, the University of Liverpool, and Brunel University in London. He received his PhD in economics from Johns Hopkins in 1997.
RURAL SERVICES AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN UGANDA
Presented by Nana Afranaa Kwapong, Division of Resource Economics, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: This study analyses the interplay between local conditions, provided services and poverty outcomes in four different villages in Uganda. The study considers what it takes to make rural services work under particular local conditions, considering also the mechanisms by which services may contribute to poverty alleviation.
I begin with a theoretical review of development studies, poverty, public services and decentralization, followed by Ugandan country context review on poverty and rural services.
Quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches used for investigating four case villages are described. The IAD framework is used to categorize and analyze the qualitative case studies. Four categories of case villages with differing local conditions and accessibility to rural services are classified.
The study finds that: (a) different local conditions may determine the success of rural services provided in reducing poverty; (b) by means of a decentralized provision of many different rural services that match local preferences, poverty may be reduced; (c) good local governance facilitates service provision and hence reduces poverty; (d) where provided services represent the preferences of the beneficiaries, poverty may be reduced; (e) access to a particular combination of rural services (complementary services) may result in poverty reduction; (f) where there is a cooperate production of the rural service, a sense of ownership and responsibility is created and such services may be effective in reducing poverty.
The study concludes with suggestions on implication for further research.
BIO: Nana Afranaa Kwapong holds a BSc. in Agricultural Science from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Kumasi – Ghana and MSc. in Integrated Natural Resource Management from Humboldt University Berlin, where she wrote her thesis on “Rural Services and Poverty Alleviation in Uganda”. She is since September 2008 pursuing a Ph.D. degree at Humboldt University – Berlin where she writes her dissertation within a project which is jointly coordinated by the International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington and Humboldt University – Berlin. Her research focuses on how to make rural services work for the poor in Uganda considering why some rural services are failing the poor and the mechanisms by which rural services can be made to alleviate poverty.
There will not be a formal paper for this session.
PARTISANSHIP, ENFRANCHISEMENT, AND THE HISTORICAL TRANSFORMATION OF POLITICAL FINANCE IN BRITAIN
Presented by Dr. Christopher Kam, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Abstract: Party-based competition is often cast the antithesis of particularistic politics (Rose-Ackerman 1999, Sartori 2005, Schaffer 2007), a perspective that coincides with the historical argument that nineteenth century British politicians turned away from bribery and began to compete on policies as the British electorate grew larger and more party-oriented (Cox 1987). I use data on bribe prices and campaign expenditures at 338 electoral contests in Victorian Britain and Ireland to show that the extension of the franchise had only a limited impact on local campaign spending whilst the increasingly partisan orientation of the Victorian electorate actually boosted electioneering expenditures and electoral corruption.
BIO: Christopher J. Kam (Ph.D. Rochester) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He has received major research grants from the US National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and his work on political parties and parliamentary government has appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Governance. His current research includes projects on the dynamics of cabinet reshuffles and the transformation of electoral politics in nineteenth century Britain.
Co-sponsored by Political Economy of Democratic Sustainability
PowerPoint in PDF
MARKETS, VOUCHERS AND THE STUDENT/TEACHER NEXUS: IN SEARCH OF COORDINATING INSTITUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE COPRODUCTION OF EDUCATION SERVICES
Presented by Professor David Porter, School of Management, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: This paper draws on three literatures—structural contingency theory, political economics and education history/administration—as I search for coordinating institutions that may systematically improve the coproduction of K-12 education services. I emphasize improve coproduction to alert the reader this is a normative exercise. The audience for the larger project of which this is a part will be students, parents, teachers, school administrators and education policy analysts.
Structural contingency theory is currently researched and applied primarily in the sub-fields of corporate strategy and organizational behavior in business administration. Political economics is applied to many disciplines and fields but research is done primarily by scholars trained in micro-economics. I have not completed an exhaustive search of the literatures in education administration. In the literature I have covered I find a diverse and sophisticated relating to the use of vouchers to allocate education services. I have found almost no literature using structural contingency theory in education administration.
This paper is an interim report on the larger project. In this report I focus carefully on an analysis of what Elinor Ostrom and colleagues have called the Action Arena within their framework for Institutional Analysis and Development. Section I, drawing on structural contingency theory and the concept of coproduction, analyses the core technology of coproducing education services. Education services are an intensive technology, where the key elements are reciprocally interdependent and coordinated through mutual adjustment. Further, and importantly, education services are coproduced, centering around a student/teacher nexus. Section II draws more generally on political economics to analyze the core technology of education services, i.e., the student teacher nexus. The central problem confronted is whether a coproduced, intensive technology can be allocated through the institutional arrangements of a market system. The answer is no to allocation through a market system, but yes to institutional arrangements that allow market-like choices. Section III is a first attempt at specifying institutional arrangements that fit, in the sense that fit is defined in structural contingency theory, the core technology for coproducing educational services. I draw heavily on the concept of partisan mutual adjustment developed by Charles E. Lindblom.
BIO: Professor David O. Porter is Professor of Management at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a Visiting Scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University Bloomington. He received his PhD in Political Science from Syracuse University in 1970, MA in Political Science from the University of Utah in 1965, and BS in Political Science from the University of Utah in 1963. His current work includes a project on delivering education services.
DOES INTERGROUP CONFLICT PROMOTE NORMS AND HIERARCHIES?
Presented by Professor Stephen Benard, Department of Sociology, IUB
Abstract: Does conflict causes groups to develop stricter norms and more hierarchical leadership structures? Case studies and journalistic accounts, ranging from nineteenth century Corsica to contemporary Iraq, suggest that participants in conflict pressure their fellow group members to join them. Theoretically, a number of scholars have linked intergroup conflict to intragroup cohesion, and evidence from prior studies has found that conflict increases some types of cohesion. For example, conflict has been shown to increase people’s liking of ingroup members, as well as their cooperation with ingroup members. However, no study to date has systematically examined whether intergroup conflict also increases enforcement of cooperation. I test this idea by using a laboratory experiment in which small groups interact under varying levels of conflict. The results of the studies show that conflict increases punishment of non-cooperators and preferences for a leader, to the extent that the outgroup invests in conflict. The project has broader theoretical implications for the study of institutions, collective action, and group processes, as well as practical relevance for developing conflict resolution strategies.
BIO: Stephen Benard is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. His work focuses on small group dynamics, the emergence of norms, social dilemmas, and stereotyping.
HOW HAS PARTICIPATORY PLANNING LEGISLATION AFFECTED DECISION-MAKING OVER RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN GUATEMALA?
Presented by Johanna Speer, Division of Resource Economics and Division of Cooperative Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: My research intends to make a contribution to the policy debate on which reforms improve the provision of basic services to the rural poor. Focusing on Guatemala, it investigates the effects of the reform of the Law on Urban and Rural Development Councils (LURDC), on decision-making over rural infrastructure.
In 2002 the LURDC established a five tier system of development councils, ranging from the community to the national level to foster participation in the prioritization, monitoring and evaluation of basic infrastructure projects, such as drinking water systems, school buildings, and access roads. It was hoped that citizen participation would make service providers more responsive to local needs and more accountable. However, so far there is hardly any evidence on how this reform has been implemented and how it affected the decision-making process over rural infrastructure at the local level.
After a short introduction to the general debate on service governance and the situation in Guatemala, insights on the implementation of the LURDC from an exploratory fieldwork trip will be presented. In the second part of the presentation, a preliminary theoretical framework to analyze the effects of the LURDC on decision-making over service provision will be outlined.
BIO: Johanna Speer is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the international research project “Making Rural Services Work for the Poor” at Humboldt University, Berlin. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Economics from the University of Bayreuth and a M.Sc. in Global Market Economics from the London School of Economics. Before starting her Ph.D. she investigated the effect of favoritism on the business climate in Jordan and worked for an international consultancy on development cooperation projects in Central and Latin America.
FEAR AND LOATHING AT THE TAPSTAND: WATER INSECURITY, INSTITUTIONS, AND EMOTIONAL DISTRESS IN URBAN BOLIVIA
Presented by Dr. Amber Wutich, Assistant Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe (coauthor: Kathleen Ragsdale, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Research Fellow, Mississippi State University)
Abstract: Recent research suggests that insecure access to key resources is associated with negative mental health outcomes. Many of these studies focus on drought and famine in agricultural, pastoral, and foraging communities, and indicate that food insecurity mediates the link between water insecurity and emotional distress. The present study is the first to systematically examine intra-community patterns of water insecurity in an urban setting. In 2004-2005, we collected data from a random sample of 72 household heads in Villa Israel, a squatter settlement of Cochabamba, Bolivia. We examined the extent to which water-related emotional distress is linked with three dimensions of water insecurity: inadequate water supply; insufficient access to water distribution systems; and dependence on seasonal water sources, and with gender. Results indicate that access to water distribution systems and gender were significantly associated with emotional distress, while water supply and dependence on seasonal water sources were not. Economic assets, social assets, engagement in water markets, and engagement in reciprocal exchanges of water were significantly associated with emotional distress, while utilization of a common-pool water resource institution was not. Results suggest that water-related emotional distress develops as a byproduct of the social and economic negotiations people employ to gain access to water distribution systems in the absence of clear procedures or established water rights, rather than as a direct result of water scarcity.
Based on a paper entitled “Water Insecurity and Emotional Distress: Coping with Supply, Access, and Seasonal Variability of Water in a Bolivian Squatter Settlement,” by Amber Wutich and Kathleen Ragsdale, in press at Social Science & Medicine
BIO: Amber Wutich received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology in 2006 from the University of Florida. Her dissertation research examined how severe water insecurity shapes household-level vulnerability and resilience in Cochabamba, Bolivia, a city famous for an uprising known as the Water War of 2000. In 2006-2007, she held a postdoctoral research position funded jointly by NSF Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project and NSF Decision Center for a Desert City at the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Wutich is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. She is also a faculty member of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity. Amber Wutich's research examines how cultural, economic, and ecological factors shape human vulnerability and well being. Her research is based on rigorous ethnographic fieldwork conducted primarily in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Phoenix, Arizona. Her current research projects are focused on three areas: (1) urban common-pool water resource institutions in Cochabamba's squatter settlements, (2) reciprocal exchange systems among the urban poor in Cochabamba and Phoenix and (3) cultural variation in environmental knowledge and risk assessment in Arizona, Fiji, Bolivia, and New Zealand.
COORDINATION AND COOPERATION IN ASYMMETRIC COMMONS DILEMMAS IN THE LAB AND THE FIELD
Presented by Dr. Marco Janssen, Assistant Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Arizona State University, Tempe, and Affiliated Faculty, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: The factors that underlie the emergence of large-scale irrigation systems have fascinated generations of social scientists. Given the challenges of both coordinating activities in a complex network of social interactions and providing public infrastructure, the number of irrigation systems that have evolved without central coordination and have persisted so long is astonishing. Specifically, irrigation systems seem to be vulnerable to selfish rational actors that exploit inherent asymmetries such as simply being the head ender or who free ride on the public infrastructure. In this paper we will discuss laboratory and field experiments that address the problem of self-governance in an asymmetric commons dilemma. We formulate an abstract dilemma in which subjects make both a decision about investment in public good and how much to extract from the resources generated by that public good. The impact of inherent asymmetry in irrigation systems on the provision of a public good is discussed. In the laboratory experiments we recorded the text messages between the participants, and we will evaluate the communication patterns. In the field we perform experiments with actual resource users in Thailand and Colombia and we will explore the consequences of relevant experience, and expected trust in their village members on the level of cooperation.
BIO: Dr. Marco A. Janssen is Assistant Professor on formal modeling of social and social-ecological systems within the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. He is also the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity. His formal training is within the area of Operations Research and Applied Mathematics.
His current research focuses on the fit between behavioral, institutional and ecological processes. In his research he combines agent-based models with laboratory and field experiments, and case study analysis for a variety of ecosystems. He is especially interested how appropriators craft appropriate institutional rules to maintain the resilience of the social-ecological system.
CAPTURED BY EVIL: THE IDEA OF CORRUPTION IN LAW
Presented by Professor Laura Underkuffler, School of Law, Duke University, Durham, NC
Abstract: Corruption is one of the most powerful words in the English language. When it comes to the treatment of corruption by law, however, corruption is a troubled concept. With increasing recognition of the costs of corruption for economic development, democratic governance, international aid programs, and other world goals, attempts to articulate what this destructive force is have led to an avalanche of theoretical writing. In the last fifteen years, corruption has been variously defined as the violation of law, a public servant's breach of public duty, an agent's betrayal of a principal's interests, the pursuit of secrecy, the denial of equality in political influence, and other ways.
In the end, however, all of these efforts fall short. Corruption is more than law-breaking; it is more than breaching public duties. To say that A is a thief or that A has breached his duty is not to say that A is corrupt. The latter is far more powerful, far more emotional, far more essential than the others. It is more than secrecy, or the denial of equal opportunity. It is a searing indictment, somehow, not only of A's act but of A's character. It is a statement not only of what A has done, but of what A has become.
Corruption is, I argue, a far more powerful idea than these existing legal understandings have articulated: it is the idea of capture by evil, the possession of the individual by evil, in law. It is this idea of corruption, I argue, that—although unarticulated—drives our understanding of corruption in law. These book excerpts explore this deeper understanding of corruption, and its implications for the principle of the rule of law.
BIO: Professor Laura Underkuffler is Arthur Larson Professor of Law at Duke University. She has also taught as a visiting professor at Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, and the University of Maine. She has published extensively, both in the United States and abroad, in the areas of constitutional law, property theory, religion and law, and the problem of corruption in emerging and established democracies. She has also served as special counsel in the United States Senate, and has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. In January, Professor Underkuffler will join the Cornell University faculty.
Social Science Research Network
ANALYZING DYNAMICS OF COMPLEX SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS: THE CASE OF THE COAST
Presented by Professor Audun Sandberg, Faculty of Social Science, Bodø University College, Bodø, Norway
Abstract: In most of the commons literature, coastal commons have often been treated as separate CPR resources located in coastal areas. This could be common fishing grounds or lobster grounds utilized by certain villages, common beaches or harbors, common drying areas for salt-fish etc. With the penetration of state into the local level of most modern nations, whatever integrated governance there once was for such commons, they were replaced by the sectoral logic of the 19th century. Thus the fisheries, the recreational, the conservational, the cultural and the recipient aspects of the coast are now the responsibility of separate state sectors. This compartmentalization of coastal systems is to a large extent the contemporary situation in most European countries, and in many emerging economies around the world.
But increasingly the spill–over effects between sectors of various human impacts in the coastal zone are becoming apparent and in need of realistic analysis: Bio-mass fishing impact on coastal sea-birds, agricultural run-offs causing algae blooms, aquacultural growth having genetic effects on wild salmon etc. Theoretical tools for handling such increasing interactions are rapidly developing within the eco-sciences. However, the interaction between the eco-sciences and the economic and social sciences is cumbersome and the building of a new “Sustainability Science” is slow and painful. Some advances have been done within the framework of analyzing Socio-Ecological Systems at the Workshop of Political Theory and Policy Analysis and at the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Arizona State University.
This presentation is based on one large EU-project which is addressing the need for integration of ecosystem and social sciences in order to better explain and model the complex processes that takes place in the coastal zone. The SPICOSA project (2007-2011) aims at building a firmer base for institutional reforms in the European Unions’s Coastal Zone through both an integration of different sciences and the integration of knowledge into policy making . The main tool for doing this is a better integration of science use into policy decisions at all level in the union.
In developing frameworks and models that can achieve such an “ enlightenment” of policy making in complex settings it is necessary to explore some of the possibilities for applying the theoretical tools developed for institutional analysis of Common Pool Resources (IAD-framework). It is also necessary to investigate to what extent the multitude of analytical tools developed for Single Resource Commons can be applied to these kinds of larger and more complex coastal systems. As part of this endeavor, an important challenge is to attempt to further develop the concepts of Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) for analyzing also highly Complex Commons in Coastal Zones - with multiple interdependencies and complex functions as providers of ecosystem goods and services.
Key words: Complexity, Coastal Commons, Socio-Ecological Systems, ICZM
BIO: Audun Sandberg is Assoc. Professor in Social Science at the Faculty of Social Science, Bodø University College, Norway. He has previously been at University of Dar es Salaam and University of Oslo and has been a visiting scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University on several occasions. He has also been chairman of various committees in the Norwegian UNESCO Commission, in the Norwegian Research Council, in Norwegian Energy Industry and in the Norwegian Trekking Association. He has extensive research experience from the field of environment and sustainable development in Africa, Asia and in the European Union Area. He has recently been working on issues related to institutions for sustainable use of resources in Northern Areas and is now participating in an EU/IP project on Science and Policy Integration for Coastal Systems Assessment.
SMALLHOLDER LAND MANAGEMENT, FOREST SUCCESSIONS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY IN SOUTHERN MEXICO
Presented by Professor Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Department of Geography, IUB
Abstract: Several scholars have elaborated on the neoliberal transformation of the Mexican countryside, particularly of ejido lands. During and since the 1990s, formal and informal institutional structures in numerous sub-regions of Mexico have emerged/shifted to accommodate post-NAFTA national policies. These shifts have tangible impacts on farming livelihoods, land use and landscapes at regional and local scales. On the other hand, local land use patterns are often rooted in longer-term human-environment trajectories. This presentation links smallholder land/forest use in the buffer region of Calakmul, Mexico’s largest protected area, to recent liberalization policies as well as historical forest/agricultural use and social movements. Additionally, it combines social and ecological research to trace the drivers and impacts of successional forest management and conservation land uses on smallholder land parcels using archival, social and ecological survey data. While emergent networks of forest-based “sustainable” economies are found to be rooted in historical social relations and promote forest persistence/reestablishment on smallholder parcels, their role in reducing the vulnerabilities of local social and ecological systems remains complex, largely due to diverse smallholder rationales, insecure markets and variable land tenure and ecological conditions.
BIO: Rinku Roy Chowdhury is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Indiana University Bloomington. She was previously at the University of Miami’s Department of Geography & Regional Studies, during which time she was also a faculty advisor to the Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. Her research focuses on institutional, ecological and spatial dimensions of human-environment interactions in forest-agricultural mosaics (Mexico) and urbanizing ecosystems (south Florida). She is particularly interested in linking theoretical, methodological and field-based approaches from the social and ecological sciences to investigate the drivers and consequences of smallholder land management decisions, and in the interplay of institutional structures and local agency in shaping landscapes. She co-leads the Human Dimensions research group at the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project.
DEMOCRATIC POLITICS AND COLLECTIVE ACTION
Presented by Professor Ashwini Chhatre, Department of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract: This presentation explores the effects of electoral competition between political parties in India on the ability of local communities to cooperate for natural resource management. A significant number of decentralization policies in developing countries depend for their success on local collective action for the provision of public goods. At the same time, democratization generates multiple impulses in society, and investigating its effects on the prospects for local cooperation is important to understand variation in the success of decentralization policies for natural resource management.
I analyze the impact of democratic politics in Himachal Pradesh, India, on the performance of forest cooperatives covering eight election cycles during 1972-2003. The findings show that cooperatives located in highly competitive electoral districts find it significantly more difficult to cooperate due to interference from political parties. Moreover, communities that are heterogeneous along the salient issue dimension in democratic politics are the worst affected. On the other hand, better representation of sub-group interests in community affairs, prevalence of internal democratic practices, and linkages of community leaders to multiple political parties are associated with higher levels of local cooperation. In conclusion, the findings suggest that while communities can harness democracy to local ends, the impulses generated by democratic politics can constrain the ability of local communities to manage natural resources.
BIO: : Professor Chhatre is beginning the second year of his tenure as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an Indian citizen, and has been in the U.S. for seven years. Five of those were spent in Graduate School at Duke University, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in Political Science. He was the first Sustainability Science Research Fellow at Harvard University in 2006-07, before going to UIUC. Between his BA in Economics from the University of Delhi in 1990 and the start of his PhD at Duke, he spent 11 years working in different parts of India, mostly as a community organizer and social activist working on issues related to natural resources like land, forests, and water. A background in economics, graduate training in political science, and a general interest in ecology and environmental sciences ensures that his interests will never be confined to a single discipline.
His research experience started well before he joined graduate school. He has had the good fortune of collaborating with some of the best scholars in India, and has learned the importance of connecting research to policy and social issues from the beginning. Some of that research experience was published as journal articles, and also as co-author of a book on the politics of conservation and development in India based on his pre-graduate school experience. His main research interests lie in the study of intersection of democratic politics with environment and development. All his field research has been confined to India. He is also collaborating with IFRI researchers in analyzing the joint production of livelihoods and forest-related outcomes. Ongoing research projects include (1) the long-term impact of redistributive land reforms on environment and development, (2) the conceptualization of democracy as the emergent property of complex adaptive networks of public, civic, and market institutions, (3) the role of forest commons in simultaneously producing livelihoods, sequestering carbon, and conserving biodiversity in mixed-use landscapes, and (4) role of access of vulnerable groups to local institutions and cross-scale articulation between institutions in facilitating local adaptation to climate change.
FORMING INSTITUTIONS IN FOUDA: THE ORIGINS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CAMP SECTORS
Presented by Nadya Hajj Parks, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Abstract: Scholars in such disparate fields as philosophy, economics, and political science argue that a system of well-defined property rights is a key factor in economic development and subsequently political stability and security. Despite significant theoretical and empirical support for the positive effects of property rights on economic growth and stability, much less is known about the origins of property right institutions, especially among marginalized groups that live in fouda or anarchy, like Palestinian refugees. On the basis of original field data collected over the course of three years, I test the efficiency, distributional, and socio-historical explanations for institutional formation. Evidence suggests that existing institutional explanations are, alone, inadequate at explaining institutional formation. Combinations of the approaches were evident in refugee camp sectors. I discovered that hegemonic powers like Fateh can craft secure property rights despite strong distributional motives, in the presence of latent political contestation, long time horizons, and resource scarcity. In addition, intervening variables like common pool resources influence the strategic decision of actors to exploit property rights. Finally, results hold positive policy implications for marginalized groups like Palestinian refugees. Namely, marginalized groups can craft strong property rights even in the absence of a state authority.
BIO: Nadya Hajj Parks, B.A (Department of Politics and Middle Eastern Studies), University of Virginia, Charlottesville; M.A. (Political Science), Emory University; PhD candidate (Political Science), Emory University. She specializes in Comparative Politics and Qualitative methods with a regional focus on the Middle East. Her dissertation focuses on the origins of property rights among marginalized groups. In particular she examines the formation of property rights in Palestinian refugee camp sectors. She conducts her field research in Palestinian refugee camps located throughout Jordan and Lebanon. After securing a job in the academic world, she hopes to expand her examination of property right formation to property right evolution in water sectors in a variety of communities in the Middle East.
NORMAL = NORMATIVE? THE ROLE OF INTELLIGENT AGENTS IN NORM INNOVATION
Presented by Giulia Andrighetto, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Rome, Italy
Abstract: In this talk the results of several agent-based simulations, aiming to test the role of normative beliefs in the emergence and innovation of social norms, are presented and discussed. Rather than mere behavioral regularities, norms are here seen as behaviors spreading to the extent that and because the corresponding commands and beliefs do spread as well. On the grounds of such a view, the present work will endeavor to show that a sudden external constraint (e.g. a barrier preventing agents from moving among social settings) facilitates norm innovation: under such a condition, agents provided with a module for telling what a norm is can generate new (social) norms by forming new normative beliefs, irrespective of the most frequent actions.
BIO: Giulia Andrighetto obtained her doctoral degree in Philosophy of Language at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", 2007. Currently, she is a member of the Laboratory on Agent Based Social Simulation (LABSS), a highly interdisciplinary research group working at the intersection among cognitive, social and computational sciences, within the ISTC (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies) at the Italian National Research Council. Her current interest is to better understand how new conventions and norms emerge, innovate, and spread in social systems with autonomous agents.
DEVELOPING BASIC PRINCIPLES FOR THE GOVERNANCE OF LARGE-SCALE WATER COMMONS: THE GREAT LAKES CASE
Presented by Professor Mark Sproule-Jones, Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Affiliated Faculty, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: The fundamental research questions are how can society and the economy live in harmony with ecosystems and how can the institutional arrangements for governments and community organizations facilitate this task?
Current practice is predicated on removing stressors from the environment. Some economists acknowledge that the environment is a capital asset. Social scientists more generally suggest that institutional incentives are central towards an answer to the questions. We are suggesting that a new approach based on the theory of the commons can provide the basis of answers.
We develop common property theory to extend beyond social solutions (to collective dilemmas) to embrace the multidisciplinary questions of synchronicity of ecosystems with socio-economic systems and with governmental systems.
Common property theory is reconstructing studies of environmental issues. We take and extend the theory to deal with multiple human uses of the environment in the context of large scale water resource situations, like the Great Lakes of North America. Current theory largely focuses on smaller scale sites with fewer human uses and their potential conflicts.
The approach is predicated on identifying issues where ecosystems, socio-economic systems and governmental systems appear to be in harmony and other systems where they are in conflict. These cases will be developed in detail. Documentary and primary data will be reanalyzed to provide the information to develop basic principles for successful and non-successful integration.
AN INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF DECENTRALIZED GOVERNANCE AND RURAL SERVICE DELIVERY—EVIDENCE FROM NORTH INDIA
Presented by Ulrike Müller, PhD Candidate, Division of Resource Economics, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IUB
Abstract: A major concern in achieving the Millennium Development Goals is to bridge the gap between the rural poor and the services they require in order to secure their livelihoods. Effective service delivery has remained a particular challenge in India, where services are often of low quality or are not easily accessible to the majority of the rural poor. In 1992, the Government of India passed the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act which attempted to revitalize rural local bodies—the Panchayati Raj Institutions. The reforms were supposed to bring decision-making about service delivery closer to the end users. We analyze decentralization reforms in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh by employing an institution-centered approach. Our results show that there is a considerable mismatch between the ideas and implementation of decentralization policies—between de jure and de facto governance.
BIO: Ulrike Mueller is a Ph.D. candidate at the Division of Resource Economics, Humboldt University Berlin. She holds a B.Sc. in Natural Resource Management and a M.Sc. in Socio-economics of Rural Development. Previously, she has been researching on gendered biodiversity governance in India and on the poverty orientation of agricultural value chains in Ghana. Her dissertation research focuses on decentralization reforms in North India. Currently, she is a visiting scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, where she is working on the theoretical part of her dissertation.
There will not be a formal paper for this session.
INNOVATION IN AMERICA—A POLYCENTRIC PERSPECTIVE
Presented by Dr. Sujai Shivakumar, Senior Program Officer, Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, National Research Council, Washington, DC
Abstract: In Democracy in America, Tocqueville noted that “it is no good looking in the United States for perfection of administrative procedures; what one does find is a picture of power, somewhat wild perhaps, but robust, and a life liable to mishaps but full of striving and animation.” This account still captures the spirit of innovation in the United States.
Innovation involves the transformation of an idea into a marketable product or service, a new or improved manufacturing or distribution process, or even new methods of producing or provisioning public services, often through the initiative of an entrepreneur. Such transformations take place within adaptive networks shaped by a variety of federal, state and local polices as well as informal rules and social norms—forming multiple, overlapping innovation ecosystems—that influence how individuals and corporate entities create knowledge and collaborate to bring new products and services to markets.
If we define competitiveness as the ability to gain market share by adding value better than others in a globalized economic environment, the ability of researchers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and other actors to collaborate successfully within innovation ecosystems gains significance. Recognizing the link between innovation, competitiveness, and economic growth, policymakers around the world are supporting a variety of initiatives to reinforce their national innovation ecosystems. The presentation will review some of the myths and realities of current U.S. innovation policy and attempt to set out some design elements for successful innovation partnerships among universities, industry, and government.
BIO: Sujai Shivakumar is a senior policy advisor with the National Research Council’s Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy. He received his doctorate in economics from George Mason University in 1996 and, following work at the United Nations, was a visiting scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University until 2001. He is the author of The Constitution of Development—Crafting Capabilities for Self-Governance published by Palgrave-Macmillan, and co-author with Clark Gibson, Elinor Ostrom, and Krister Andersson of The Samaritan’s Dilemma—The Political Economy of Aid published by Oxford University Press.
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