Abstract
Elinor Ostrom's IAD and SES frameworks are widely used among social scientists, but each framework suffers from significant problems not shared by the other. The IAD framework lacks detail in terms of the specific social and ecological variables that influence social interactions, resulting in inconsistent applications of a supposedly common framework. The SES framework was designed specifically to resolve that problem, but has lost the dynamic character of the IAD framework. As a result it excels at identifying configurations of social, ecological and institutional factors associated with outcomes, but cannot explain the process by which these factors interact across action situations to generate those outcomes, let alone predict or prescribe changes to social-ecological conditions over time. This article seeks to remedy the problems of each framework by combining them to facilitate detailed and process-oriented studies of social-ecological systems. We then demonstrate the utility of the combined IAD-SES framework by applying it to describe the historical development of Maine's lobster fishery. Future applications of the framework have the potential to address several longstanding questions in the literature on common-pool resources regarding the role of history, power and dynamic social and ecological processes in influencing prospects for environmental sustainability.
Highlights
Elinor Ostrom played a pivotal role in developing two analytical frameworks used by many policy analysts and scholars: the IAD (Institutional Analysis and Development) and the SES (Social-Ecological Systems) frameworks
In this paper we aim to clear up these confusions and encourage users to pursue more sophisticated analyses based on an integrated framework, namely, the Combined IAD-SES Framework, or CIS for short
We suggest that analysts collect all the relevant contextual factors from different manifestations of systems, units, or actors into comprehensive lists, from which analysts focusing on any action situation can draw out a subset of those factors most directly relevant to its operation, instead of requiring that each action situation has its own associated list
Summary
Elinor Ostrom played a pivotal role in developing two analytical frameworks used by many policy analysts and scholars: the IAD (Institutional Analysis and Development) and the SES (Social-Ecological Systems) frameworks. We begin with brief summaries of the foundational components of the IAD and SES frameworks, and use elements of each framework to serve as a counterweight to problematic tendencies commonly found in applications of the other. At their core, the IAD and SES are very closely related frameworks, and our discussion highlights their fundamental similarities while attempting to overcome their separate limitations. We conclude with a brief discussion of related lines of research by scholars drawing upon other frameworks, in order to locate this CIS framework within its proper context
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