Matching Items (6)
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- All Subjects: Sustainability
- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
- Creators: Anderies, John M
Description
Energy is a central concern of sustainability because how we produce and consume energy affects society, economy, and the environment. Sustainability scientists are interested in energy transitions away from fossil fuels because they are nonrenewable, increasingly expensive, have adverse health effects, and may be the main driver of climate change. They see an opportunity for developing countries to avoid the negative consequences fossil-fuel-based energy systems, and also to increase resilience, by leap-frogging-over the centralized energy grid systems that dominate the developed world. Energy transitions pose both challenges and opportunities. Obstacles to transitions include 1) an existing, centralized, complex energy-grid system, whose function is invisible to most users, 2) coordination and collective-action problems that are path dependent, and 3) difficulty in scaling up RE technologies. Because energy transitions rely on technological and social innovations, I am interested in how institutional factors can be leveraged to surmount these obstacles. The overarching question that underlies my research is: What constellation of institutional, biophysical, and social factors are essential for an energy transition? My objective is to derive a set of "design principles," that I term institutional drivers, for energy transitions analogous to Ostrom's institutional design principles. My dissertation research will analyze energy transitions using two approaches: applying the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and a comparative case study analysis comprised of both primary and secondary sources. This dissertation includes: 1) an analysis of the world's energy portfolio; 2) a case study analysis of five countries; 3) a description of the institutional factors likely to promote a transition to renewable-energy use; and 4) an in-depth case study of Thailand's progress in replacing nonrenewable energy sources with renewable energy sources. My research will contribute to our understanding of how energy transitions at different scales can be accomplished in developing countries and what it takes for innovation to spread in a society.
ContributorsKoster, Auriane Magdalena (Author) / Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor) / Aggarwal, Rimjhim (Committee member) / Van Der Leeuw, Sander (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Sustainability depends in part on our capacity to resolve dilemmas of the commons in Coupled Infrastructure Systems (CIS). Thus, we need to know more about how to incentivize individuals to take collective action to manage shared resources. Moreover, given that we will experience new and more extreme weather events due to climate change, we need to learn how to increase the robustness of CIS to those shocks. This dissertation studies irrigation systems to contribute to the development of an empirically based theory of commons governance for robust systems. I first studied the eight institutional design principles (DPs) for long enduring systems of shared resources that the Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom proposed in 1990. I performed a critical literature review of 64 studies that looked at the institutional configuration of CIS, and based on my findings I propose some modifications of their definitions and application in research and policy making. I then studied how the revisited design principles, when analyzed conjointly with biophysical and ethnographic characteristics of CISs, perform to avoid over-appropriation, poverty and critical conflicts among users of an irrigation system. After carrying out a meta-analysis of 28 cases around the world, I found that particular combinations of those variables related to population size, countries corruption, the condition of water storage, monitoring of users behavior, and involving users in the decision making process for the commons governance, were sufficient to obtain the desired outcomes. The two last studies were based on the Peruvian Piura Basin, a CIS that has been exposed to environmental shocks for decades. I used secondary and primary data to carry out a longitudinal study using as guidance the robustness framework, and different hypothesis from prominent collapse theories to draw potential explanations. I then developed a dynamic model that shows how at the current situation it is more effective to invest in rules enforcement than in the improvement of the physical infrastructure (e.g. reservoir). Finally, I explored different strategies to increase the robustness of the system, through enabling collective action in the Basin.
ContributorsRubinos, Cathy (Author) / Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor) / Abbott, Joshua K (Committee member) / Janssen, Marcus A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Nature-based recreation is a popular way for people to interact with the environment that also confers numerous economic and health benefits. It is important that the social-ecological systems (SES) that host nature-based recreation be managed effectively, both to preserve the benefits of this important human-environment interaction, and to avoid the potential negative outcomes of recreational commons. The SES that host nature-based recreation are characterized by complex and dynamic feedbacks that complicate their management. Managing these systems is made more complex by the suite of external, multi-scalar, and anthropogenic forces (e.g., climate change, trans-boundary pollution) that plague them with increasing frequency. This dissertation investigates the importance of accounting for this full range of system feedbacks when managing for nature-based recreation. I begin with a broad discussion of the types of dilemmas faced by managers of nature-based recreation. I create a systems-thinking typology of management dilemmas that apply across different recreation modes and system contexts, and which are characterized as feedbacks within the broader recreational system. My findings in this chapter have important implications for understanding and anticipating how different exogenous and endogenous shocks (including management interventions, themselves) may work through or change the processes in SES that host nature-based recreation. In the following two chapters, I narrow my focus to examine case studies of specific dilemma archetypes and proposed management interventions. First, I perform an ex ante analysis of a prospective policy response to a regulatory spiral of excess recreational fishing effort and abridged fishing seasons in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. I estimate behavioral models of fishers’ responses to a prospective incentive-based intervention, and find evidence that such a policy could improve multiple fishery outcomes. Second, I perform an ex post program evaluation of an invasive species bounty program. My results suggest that the program underperformed because it failed to overcome countervailing incentives. Together, my case study analyses reveal the value of modeling for designing policy for these complex SES and show the importance of accounting for the full set of system feedbacks (including the incentives that drive recreator behaviors and the impacts of those behaviors) when managing nature-based recreation.
ContributorsJungers, Brenna (Author) / Abbott, Joshua K (Thesis advisor) / Leonard, Bryan (Committee member) / Anderies, John M (Committee member) / Bair, Lucas S (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Three dilemmas plague governance of scientific research and technological
innovation: the dilemma of orientation, the dilemma of legitimacy, and the dilemma of control. The dilemma of orientation risks innovation heedless of long-term implications. The dilemma of legitimacy grapples with delegation of authority in democracies, often at the expense of broader public interest. The dilemma of control poses that the undesirable implications of new technologies are hard to grasp, yet once grasped, all too difficult to remedy. That humanity has innovated itself into the sustainability crisis is a prime manifestation of these dilemmas.
Responsible innovation (RI), with foci on anticipation, inclusion, reflection, coordination, and adaptation, aims to mitigate dilemmas of orientation, legitimacy, and control. The aspiration of RI is to bend the processes of technology development toward more just, sustainable, and societally desirable outcomes. Despite the potential for fruitful interaction across RI’s constitutive domains—sustainability science and social studies of science and technology—most sustainability scientists under-theorize the sociopolitical dimensions of technological systems and most science and technology scholars hesitate to take a normative, solutions-oriented stance. Efforts to advance RI, although notable, entail one-off projects that do not lend themselves to comparative analysis for learning.
In this dissertation, I offer an intervention research framework to aid systematic study of intentional programs of change to advance responsible innovation. Two empirical studies demonstrate the framework in application. An evaluation of Science Outside the Lab presents a program to help early-career scientists and engineers understand the complexities of science policy. An evaluation of a Community Engagement Workshop presents a program to help engineers better look beyond technology, listen to and learn from people, and empower communities. Each program is efficacious in helping scientists and engineers more thoughtfully engage with mediators of science and technology governance dilemmas: Science Outside the Lab in revealing the dilemmas of orientation and legitimacy; Community Engagement Workshop in offering reflexive and inclusive approaches to control. As part of a larger intervention research portfolio, these and other projects hold promise for aiding governance of science and technology through responsible innovation.
ContributorsBernstein, Michael J. (Author) / Wiek, Arnim (Thesis advisor) / Wetmore, Jameson M. (Thesis advisor) / Grimm, Nancy (Committee member) / Anderies, John M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
In many social-ecological systems, shared resources play a critical role in supporting the livelihoods of rural populations. Physical infrastructure enables resource access and reduces the variability of resource supply. In order for the infrastructure to remain functional, institutions must incentivize individuals to engage in provision and maintenance. The objective of my dissertation is to understand key formal and informal institutions that affect provision of shared infrastructure and the policy tools that may improve infrastructure provision. I examine these questions in the context of irrigation systems in India because infrastructure maintenance is a persistent challenge and system function is critical for global food production.
My first study investigates how the presence of private infrastructure, such as groundwater pumps, affects the provision of shared infrastructure, such as shared tanks or surface reservoirs. I examine whether formal institutions, such as water pricing instruments, may prevent under-provision of the shared tanks. My findings suggest that in the absence of rules that coordinate tank maintenance, the presence of private pumps will have a detrimental effect on system productivity and equality. On the other hand, the combination of a fixed groundwater fee and a location-based maintenance fee for tank users can improve system productivity and equality.
The second study examines the effect of power asymmetries between farmers, caused by informal institutions such as caste, on the persistence of political institutions that govern infrastructure provision. I examined the effect of policy tools, such as non-farm wage employment and informational interventions, on the persistence of two types of political institutions: self-governed and nested. Results suggest that critical regime shifts in political institutions can be generated by either intervening in formal institutions, such as non-farm wage employment, or informal institutions, such as knowledge transmission or learning mechanisms.
The third study investigates how bureaucratic and political corruption affect public good provision. I examine how institutional and environmental factors affect the likelihood of corruption and infrastructure provision. I demonstrate that cracking down on corruption is only beneficial when infrastructure provision is poor. I also show that bureaucratic wages play an important role in curbing extralegal transactions and improving infrastructure provision.
My first study investigates how the presence of private infrastructure, such as groundwater pumps, affects the provision of shared infrastructure, such as shared tanks or surface reservoirs. I examine whether formal institutions, such as water pricing instruments, may prevent under-provision of the shared tanks. My findings suggest that in the absence of rules that coordinate tank maintenance, the presence of private pumps will have a detrimental effect on system productivity and equality. On the other hand, the combination of a fixed groundwater fee and a location-based maintenance fee for tank users can improve system productivity and equality.
The second study examines the effect of power asymmetries between farmers, caused by informal institutions such as caste, on the persistence of political institutions that govern infrastructure provision. I examined the effect of policy tools, such as non-farm wage employment and informational interventions, on the persistence of two types of political institutions: self-governed and nested. Results suggest that critical regime shifts in political institutions can be generated by either intervening in formal institutions, such as non-farm wage employment, or informal institutions, such as knowledge transmission or learning mechanisms.
The third study investigates how bureaucratic and political corruption affect public good provision. I examine how institutional and environmental factors affect the likelihood of corruption and infrastructure provision. I demonstrate that cracking down on corruption is only beneficial when infrastructure provision is poor. I also show that bureaucratic wages play an important role in curbing extralegal transactions and improving infrastructure provision.
ContributorsVallury, Sechindra (Author) / Abbott, Joshua K (Thesis advisor) / Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor) / Leonard, Bryan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
My research is motivated by a rule of thumb that no matter how well a system is designed, some actors fail to fulfill the behavior which is needed to sustain the system. Examples of misbehavior are shirking, rule infraction, and free riding. With a focus on social-ecological systems, this thesis explored the effectiveness of social feedback mechanisms driven by the two available individual options: the exit option is defined as any response to escape from an objectionable state of affairs; and the voice option as any attempt to stay put and improve the state. Using a stylized dynamic model, the first study investigates how the coexistence of participatory and groundwater market institutions affects government-managed irrigation systems. My findings suggest that patterns of bureaucratic reactions to exit (using private tubewells) and voice (putting pressure on irrigation bureaus) are critical to shaping system dynamics. I also found that the silence option – neither exit nor voice – can impede a further improvement in public infrastructure, but in some cases, can improve public infrastructure dramatically. Using a qualitative comparative analysis of 30 self-governing fishing groups in South Korea, the second study examines how resource mobility, group size, and Ostrom’s Design Principles for rule enforcement can co-determine the effectiveness of the voice option in self-controlling rule infractions. Results suggest that the informal mechanism for conflict resolution is a necessary condition for successful self-governance of local fisheries and that even if rules for monitoring and graduated sanctions are not in use, groups can be successful when they harvest only stationary resources. Using an agent-based model of public good provision, the third study explores under what socioeconomic conditions the exit option – neither producing nor consuming collective benefits – can work effectively to enhance levels of cooperation. The model results suggest that the exit option contributes to the spread of cooperators in mid- and large-size groups at the moderate level of exit payoff, given that group interaction occurs to increase the number of cooperators.
ContributorsShin, Hoon Cheol (Author) / Anderies, John M (Thesis advisor) / Abbott, Joshua K (Committee member) / Janssen, Marcus A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020