Scientific Uncertainty, Complex Systems and the Design of Common-Pool Institutions James Wilson 2002

Drama of the Commons Committe on the Human Dimensions of Global Change Ostrom, Dietz, Dolsak, Stern, Stonich, Weber, Editors. Scientific Uncertainty, Complex Systems and the Design of Common-Pool Institutions James Wilson 2002 This paper applied ideas out of Holland's complex adaptive systems to fisheries management, with some history of international fisheries management. Previous approaches are simultaneously characterized as highly mathematical/technical and over simplifying with what seems to be the most interesting over simplification the modeling of individual species without interaction.

One maor thesis, that I was happy with, was the observation of old and new ways of seeing uncertainty. There is an inclination, understandable if not advised, for not including data that can't be measured. This can be translated as ignoring uncertainty. An argument from complex system has more focus on uncertainty. Uncertainty is inevitable and can be managed, in this article, through institutional design. Example below.

Simon is cited and there are strong signs of Forrester (system dynamics). Also Pattee and Gel-Mann. Everyones invited. There are some fluffy parts and, especially after getting one one paragraph example, i felt a strong need for more.

The way Simon is used is actually to argue for hierarchy, which, it occurred to me, should have been thought out a bit more. When Simon argues for it it sounds great, and in many cases is preferable to the holistic integrated non-decomposable unit because it is understandable by humans, but until you've recognized the scheme as entirely synonymous with "bureaucracy, in all its glory, you haven't fully considered the pros and cons of the argument.

The example: " For example , in 1994 a large part of Georges Bank was closed for the purpose of restoring cod stocks. Surveys in 1999 revealed little recovery of cod but a bonanza of scallop growth (Murawski et al., 2000). Holders of rights to fish cod might be very skeptical of additional proposals to close areas because they realize they might never or only occasionally be on the winning end. Holders of rights to other fisheries, those that benefited in this instance, on relction might come to the same conclusion because of cod or dogfish or something entirely unexpected might bloom the next time. If, on the other hand, these fishermen had held rights that allowed them to exploit the systemwide benefits of closures (i.e., multiple-species rights), they would have had strong economic incentives to accept closures, and the experience of the closure on Georges Bank would have reinforced that incentive even more."

This is a policy prescription that provides an excellent example of designing institutions to be flexible in just those aspects that are uncertain. This is an example of managing uncertainty which unfortunately, more generally,i still can't define properly.

quotes

• on 330, in reference to paradigms, he cites Kuhn in a pretty flaky way.
• p341 "This second aspect is related most closely to an institutional attribute that OSstrom (1990) calls congruence"
• p 343. I would have loved if this were cited: "An important benefit of this form of organization is that the scale of operation of each component of the organization can always be chosen (for efficiency or other reasons) so that it matchesthe scale of the actibity in question, that is, the scale at which the impacts from a an activity generate consequences (costs and benefits).