Evaluating an instrument for institutional crafting: How Ostrom's social–ecological systems framework is applied

Abstract

Institutional crafting requires purposeful communication between features of social and ecological systems. This paper evaluates the application of a specific research tool – Ostrom's social–ecological systems framework (SESF), which seeks to provide a basis for institutional crafting in the context of social–ecological systems (SES). We evaluate the application of the framework to empirical analysis against the background of some of its own ambitions and a set of conventional criteria for evaluating research. We found 20 publications that have applied the SESF. The SESF proved useful in articles that use it for explanation, though they often played down the question of how they selected explanatory variables. Across cases, application of the SESF fared poorly in terms of consistency of use and measurement of categories. Moreover, generalization on an analytical level is similarly compromised by lack of confidence among authors concerning how to apply the set-theoretic principles that underlie the nested structure of the framework. In sum, much work remains in order to realize the ambitions for research that the SESF has laid out and to fully use its associated, path-breaking, interdisciplinary, and policy-relevant innovations. Notwithstanding these critical remarks, recent work in this area seems highly promising, not least for policy practice and institutional crafting.