The SOSIEL Platform: Knowledge-based, cognitive, and multi-agent

The allocation of common-pool resources is an important topic in technical and socio-technical systems, and when left unmanaged, such systems often collapse to highly unequal and unsustainable outcomes. Recent work has highlighted a role for electronic institutions in managing such resources, to ensure socially-beneficial outcomes in the long term. However, open self-organising multi-agent systems often involve agents that learn behaviours in order to meet their goals. In this paper we explore the interplay between institutional features and forms of social and asocial learning employed by self-interested agents. We show that, while recent results have associated social learning with sustainability, this is sensitive to the form of social learning used. We show that more realistic models that combine social and asocial learning are more likely to lead to unsustainable institutions and anti-social outcomes. However, a key role for pardons in the sanction mechanism of the institution is identified, which allows for tolerance of a range of behaviours associated with ongoing learning, including complacency and exploration.

Seafood is one of the most internationally-traded food commodities. International markets can provide higher revenues that benefit small-scale fishing communities but can also drive a decline in fished populations. Collective action in collective organizations such as fishing cooperatives is thought to enhance the sustainability of fished populations. However, our knowledge of how collective action enables fishing cooperatives to achieve positive social-ecological outcomes is dispersed across case studies. Here, we present a quantitative, national-level analysis exploring the relationship between different levels of collective action and social-ecological outcomes. We found that strong collective action in Mexican lobster cooperatives was related to both sustaining their fisheries and benefiting from international trade. In the 15 year study period, lobster cooperatives that demonstrate characteristics associated with strong collective action captured benefits from trade through high catch volumes and revenue. Despite lower (but stable) average prices, the biomass of their lobster populations was not compromised to reap these benefits. Individual case studies previously found that fishing cooperatives can support both positive social and ecological outcomes in small-scale fisheries. Our results confirm these findings at a national level and highlight the importance of strong collective action. Thus, our work contributes to a better understanding of the governance arrangements to promote fishing communities’ welfare and benefits from international trade and, therefore, will be invaluable to advancing small-scale fisheries governance.

Human decision-making plays a critical and challenging role in the prevention and control of public bads within socio-ecological systems. Farmers daily confront dilemmas regarding public bad management, such as infectious diseases in their crops. Their decisions interplay with multiple factors and may create the risk conditions in which a public bad can occur (e.g., a disease outbreak). This article presents an experimental board game method (DySE) and its contextualized version (Musa-game) to study the effect of individual and collective human actions on creating or preventing a public bad. The DySE method and the Musa-game add emergence and spatiality (both attributes of SES) to the study of public bads and collective action problems. This methodological proposal allows us to build a contextual understanding of how individual and collective actions of various entities lead to typical system outcomes, i.e., conditions that are (un)favourable to pathogens, and individual decisions about infectious disease management. To conceptualize our method, we used the case of Banana Xanthomonas Wilt disease in Rwanda. This research is published as a diptych. Part I (this article) covers the conceptualization and design of Musa-game. Part II presents empirical findings from testing Musa-game with farmers in Rwanda and recommendations for using the method.

Erratum

Community science: A typology and its implications for governance of social-ecological systems

Protected areas are a fundamental element for the protection of ecological integrity and, in some cases, the livelihood of local communities worldwide. They are also embedded in socio-ecological systems, and their management is subject to various political, economic, and social influences. Good governance of protected areas is recognized as a decisive aspect of ecological conservation, which is at risk in institutional contexts where there is a weak scope of action alongside issues with misrecognition of key actors and their representation in procedures. In this context, the present study case aims to assess the performance of the Río Negro National Park governance system in terms of effectiveness and justice to enable the identification of strategies to improve this protected area governance system for the achievement of its desired outcomes. Using the social-ecological systems approach, this paper proposes an analytical framework for the performance assessment, including both the effectiveness and justice of the governance of socio-ecological systems, stemming from the socio-ecological justice framework. It uses mixed methods based on semi-structured in-depth interviews supplemented by a focus group discussion, participant observation, and secondary data analysis. Results show that the governance of Río Negro National Park is negatively impacted by low-capacity, a lack of human, financial, and technical resources, as well as the lack of recognition of the indigenous community of the Yshiro and the rural community as key actors, leading to a lack of representation of their interests, values, and knowledge in norm-making and decision-making processes. The findings unveil some windows for improvement through better-designed environmental policies specifically based on collective action and social learning. The results demonstrate that effectiveness and justice influence each other and, therefore, are deeply intertwined. From the assessment conducted, the paper highlights the components of the governance system that should be improved to achieve good governance of the protected area as a socio-ecological system, promoting the ecological integrity and the dignity of life (socio-ecological justice) of the individuals and communities that are part of this system.

An important outcome of social learning in the context of natural resource management is the potential for collective action—actions taken by a group of people that are the result of finding shared or common interest. Evidence of the relationship between collective action and social learning is beginning to emerge in the natural resource management literature in areas such as community forestry and participatory irrigation, but empirical evidence is sparse. Using a qualitative inquiry and research design involving a case study of the Wet’zinkw’a Community Forest Corporation, this paper presents research that examined the relationships between collective action and social learning through community forest management. Our findings show strong evidence of collective action outcomes on the part of board members responsible for the community forest, such as establishing a legacy fund, adding value to logs, protecting First Nations cultural values, and hiring locally. Our data also reveal that the actions taken by board members were encouraged through social learning that was related to acquiring (new) knowledge, developing an improved/deeper understanding, and building relationships. However, we found limited opportunities for community forest partners and the general public to learn and contribute to collective action outcomes since the actions taken and associated learning occurred mainly among board members.

To accelerate the energy transition and achieve the needed large-scale transformation to address climate change, different barriers including lock-ins and path dependencies, incumbent power structures and changing individual and collective norms, values, and behaviors around energy need to be addressed. In the face of these challenges, citizens are beginning to play a bigger role in the transformation of the energy system. For example, they are becoming prosumers (energy consumers who also produce energy) and are increasingly engaging in collective energy actions, including taking part in energy communities. In the latter instance, collective investment and consumption decisions are made together, and norms, understanding and behavior towards energy are shaped collectively. To better understand the roles that individuals and groups can play in confronting the challenges of the energy transition, we make use of and adapt Ostrom’s socio-ecological systems (SES) framework to analyze past examples of collective actions and to delve deeper into the causes and catalysts of collective actions. We show how this framework can be used to analyze collective actions across time and contexts, focusing on connecting individual and group behavior with changing societal norms and the corresponding barriers to change. By applying the adapted SES framework as a lens to analyze historical examples of collective actions that have resulted in a widespread transformation in social norms and structures, we identify similarities and differences between these case studies and the current energy transition. Confronting incumbents and the challenge of changing social norms and behaviors are among the similarities, but the specific tactics used to limit incumbents’ powers and the actions taken to influence the norms and behaviors differ. Lastly, we determine the key actors that influenced social and behavioral change, as one of the main outcomes of the analysis.

Social Dilemmas: Individual, Collective, and Dynamic Perspectives.- Social Dilemmas: Individual, Collective, and Dynamic Perspectives..- 1 Collective Perspective Provision of Resources.- Collective Risk Generation and Risk Management: Unexploited Potential of the Social Dilemmas Paradigm..- Attitudes toward Public Affairs in a Society in Transition..- Provision of Community Social Services: Role of Distributive Fairness for Willingness to Pay..- Concentration and Dispersion of Resources in Simulated Organizations Characterized by Equal or Unequal Power Relations..- 2 Individual Perspective Cooperation in Experimental Games.- Why do 'Cooperators' Cooperate?: Efficacy as a Moderator of Social Motive Effects..- Tacit Coordination and Fairness Judgments in Social Dilemmas..- Does Knowing the Jointly Rational Solution Make You Want to Pursue it? Motivational Orientation, Information, and Behavior in two Social Dilemmas..- Reduction of Environmental Risk as a Public Good..- Hostage Posting as a Mechanism for Co-operation in the Prisoner'sDilemma Game..- Effect of Threshold Level on Greed, Fear, and Cooperation in Step-level, Give-some and Take-some Dilemmas..- Does The Motivating Power of Loss Exist? An Experimental Test of the Effect of Losses on Cooperation..- 3 Dynamic Perspective Computer Simulations of Micro-macro Dynamics.- Computer Simulation of Cooperative Decision Making..- Natural Selection and Social Learning in Prisoner'sDilemma: Co-adaptation with Genetic Algorithms and Artificial Neural Networks..- Foundations of Rational Interaction in Cognitive Agents: a Computational Approach..- Computer Simulation of Social Value Orientation: Vitality, Satisfaction, and Emergent Game Structures..- Generalized Exchange Perspective on the Evolution of Altruism..- Social Dilemmas in Lineland and Flatland..- Selective Play: Social Embeddedness of Social Dilemmas..- 'self-organizing' Friendship Networks..- Evolution of Cooperation in a Simulated Inter-group Conflict.

Segregation and Neighborhood Quality: Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in the San Francisco Metropolitan Area

Knowledge of social learning about flood hazards in the literature, especially regarding its transformation into collective action for risk reduction, is very limited. This study addresses these gaps by developing an integrated framework that describes how social learning is transformed into collective action – particularly the underlying components and processes – and then applying it to empirical case studies of two communities, (namely, St. Adolphe and St. Agathe) of the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, Manitoba, Canada. Primary data were collected during the summer months of 2022 using participatory research appraisal (PRA) tools (i.e. key informant interviews and oral histories), while secondary data were collected primarily via government and NGO sources. The findings revealed that a) the flood experience and related interactions among community members and local institutions produced unique and distinct types of social learning, and b) that local and multilevel institutions had helped to create learning platforms that facilitated the formation of strategies for collective action related to flood risk reduction. These processes resulted in single – and double-loop learning at the community level. Based on the findings of this work, we recommend that learning and reflection relating to community members’ flood experiences be integrated into disaster risk reduction and management policies.

PurposeDue to the influence of complex and intersecting factors, self-governed public open spaces (POSs) (managed by local communities) are subject to collective action dilemmas such as tragedy of the commons (overexploitation), free-riding, underinvestment and mismanagement. This review paper adopts a multi-dimensional and multi-tier social-ecological system (SES) framework proposed by McGinnis and Ostrom, drawing on collective action theory to explore the key institutional-social-ecological factors that impact POS self-governance.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) was utilized to systematically screen and review the relevant literature for the period from 2000 to 2023 in three databases: Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. A total of 57 papers were chosen for in-depth analysis.FindingsThe literature review identified and categorized several variables associated with the self-organizing system of POS; consequently, an SES-based POS management framework was developed for the first time, consisting of 114 institutional-social-ecological sub-variables from different dimensions and three levels. Compared to ecological factors, among others, governance organizations, property-rights systems, socioeconomic attributes and actors' knowledge of SES have been commonly and primarily studied.Research limitations/implicationsThere is still room for the refinement of the conceptual SES-based POS collective action framework over the time (by adding in new factors), and indefinitely empirical research validating those identified factors is also worth to be undertaken, particularly testing how SES factors and interaction variables affect the POS quality (collective action).Originality/valueThe findings of this study can provide local policy insights and POS management strategies based on the identification of specific SES factors for relevant managers. Moreover, this research makes significant theoretical contributions to the integration of the SES framework and collective action theory with POS governance studies.

Managing common property in gated communities is challenging. Although numerous studies have demonstrated that there are several determinants of collective action effectiveness and performances in gated communities, empirical research drawing on a multidimensional social-ecological system (SES) framework in quantitatively exploring relationships between institutional–physical–social factors and gated community collective action remains lacking. Therefore, based on Ostrom’s social-ecological system (SES) framework, this study attempts to identify factors influencing the self-organizing system (collective action) of gated communities in China. Using stratified purposive sampling, ten gated communities with various characteristics in the Taigu district were selected, in which questionnaires were then distributed to 414 households to collect valid data within the communities. Taking the ridge regression as a more robust predictive SES model with a penalty value of k = 0.1 and regularization, R Square of 0.882, this study, among 14 factors, ultimately identified six key institutional–social–ecological factors based on the descending standardized effect size, and they are: (i) types of community; (ii) presence of leaders; (iii) exclusiveness systems of a gated community; (iv) age of gated community; (v) strict enforcement of rules; and (vi) number of households that affect residents’ collective action in terms of community security, hygiene and cleanliness, and facility quality. The research findings provide urban managers and communities novel insights to formulate strategic policies towards sustainable housing and building management.

Despite widespread recognition that social learning can potentially contribute toward enhancing community resilience to climate-induced disaster shocks, studies on this process remain few and far between. This study investigates the role of local institutions (formal, informal, and quasi-formal) in creating learning arenas and translating social learning into collective action in flash flood-prone Sunamganj communities in Bangladesh. We follow a Case Study approach using qualitative research methods. Primary data were collected through 24 key informant interviews, 10 semi-structured interviews, six focus-group discussions, and two participant observations events. Our results reveal that the diversity and flexibility of local-level institutions creates multiple learning platforms in which social interaction, problem formulation, nurturing diverse perspectives, and generating innovative knowledge for collective action can take place. Within these formal and informal learning arenas, communities’ desire and willingness to be self-reliant and to reduce their dependency on external funding and assistance is clearly evident. Social learning thus paves the way for institutional collaboration, partnership, and multi-stakeholder engagement, which facilitates social learning-based collective action. Nurturing institutional diversity and flexibility at the local level is therefore recommended for transforming social learning into active problem-solving measures and to enhance community resilience to disaster shocks.

A role-playing game as a tool to facilitate social learning and collective action towards Climate Smart Agriculture: Lessons learned from Apuí, Brazil