On Institutional Diversity and Interplay in Natural Resource Governance

Abstract

Sustainable and equitable natural resource governance remains both a major societal goal and significant policy challenge, in part because it involves cross-scalar interactions between nested social and ecological systems. The social dynamics of natural resource governance have long been examined, most commonly through an analysis of the regulatory processes, organizational structures, and compliance mechanisms that enable policy actors to generate and implement institutions capable of regulating human behaviors (or not) (Armitage et al. 2019; Fukuyama 2013; Lemos and Agrawal 2006; Ostrom 2014). Focusing on the importance of institutions, Crona et al. (2011, 45) defined natural resource governance as a “broader system of formal or informal institutions in which the management actions are embedded and which provide the essential direction, resources, and structure needed to meet the overarching resource governance goals”. According to North (1991, 2008), formal institutions comprise the de jure set of codified rules that are explicit and generally enforceable through bureaucratic and hierarchical organizational structures, while informal institutions comprise the de facto rules that are often implicit, drawing on beliefs and social norms. Informal institutions are recognized as being critical to achieving sustainable resource governance, although their impact tends to be more localized (Gavin et al. 2015; Hartberg, Cox, and Villamayor-Tomas 2016; Lockwood et al. 2010; Rahman et al. 2014). Informal institutions often become habitual and integrated into everyday practice for social actors and tend to operate through more decentralized social pressures designed to subordinate individual self-interest to other socially accepted values, such as cooperation and loyalty (Ostrom, Walker, and Gardner 1994; Waylen 2014). These social pressures can manifest as gossip, hostile remarks, ostracism, or even extrajudicial violence (Helmke and Levitsky 2004; Leach, Mearns, and Scoones 1999; Waylen 2014). Gaining legitimacy or “practical authority” within informal institutions often involves an accumulation of capacity and recognition for problem solving, relational trust, and experimental successes over time (Abers and Keck 2013). Importantly, informal institutions are often implicit, making their role in natural resource management difficult to observe compared to formal institutions (Greif and Kingston 2011). While formal and informal institutional categories are often used to differentiate between the various procedures and the associated types of rule-making undergirding different natural resource governance systems, the boundaries between formal and informal institutions can often appear blurred (Helmke and Levitsky 2004; Ostrom 1990). This analytic challenge increases when examining the institutional changes that stem from the dynamics between formal and informal governance systems (Carlisle and Gruby 2017; Ostrom 2014; Ostrom and Ostrom 2014). For example, many nation states follow a pluralistic form of law that includes and supports certain informal institutions such as customary laws or religious laws (Papillon and Rodon 2017). Informal institutions that are acknowledged by formal constitutional clauses are often viewed as useful local governance mechanisms that can mediate conflicts or manage resource use behaviors as long as they do not contradict other constitutional clauses (Berkes, Colding, and Folke 2000; Berkes and Turner 2006; Ostrom,