Polycentric Systems of Governance: A Theoretical Model for the Commons
By Keith M. Carlisle, Rebecca L. Gruby. 2019
528 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Polycentricity is a fundamental concept in commons scholarship that connotes a complex form of governance with multiple centers of semiautonomous decision making. If the decision-making centers take each other into account in competitive and cooperative relationships and have recourse to conflict resolution mechanisms, they may be regarded as a polycentric governance system. In the context of natural resource governance, commons scholars have ascribed a number of advantages to polycentric governance systems, most notably enhanced adaptive capacity, provision of good institutional fit for natural resource systems, and mitigation of risk on account of redundant governance actors and institutions. Despite the popularity of the concept, systematic development of polycentricity, including its posited advantages, is lacking in the commons literature. To build greater clarity and specificity around the concept, we develop a theoretical model of a polycentric governance system with a focus on the features necessary or conducive for achieving the functioning predicted by commons scholars. The model is comprised of attributes, which constitute the definitional elements, and enabling conditions, which specify additional institutional features for achieving functionality in the commons. The model we propose takes the concept a step further toward specificity without sacrificing the generality necessary for contextual application and further development.
Subfields: Building and Construction, Global and Planetary Change, Safety Research
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d8fb3494a9c623515495bc80f479759b7bc89160
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In Global and Planetary Change
In Safety Research
Citations in the corpus
- Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 (2019, unknown): “728 Jordan et al., 2018; Dorsch and Flachsland, 2017 729 Ostrom, 2010; Cole, 2015; Carlisle and Gruby, 2017.”
- The Ecology of Games as a Theory of Polycentricity: Recent Advances and Future Challenges (2019, background): “…identified by Ostrom et al. (1961, p. 831): “(i) many autonomous units formally independent of one another, (ii) choosing to act in ways that take account of others, (iii) through processes of cooperation, competition, conflict, and conflict resolution” (Ostrom 1991; cf. Carlisle & Gruby, 2017).”