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Transferring Williamson's discriminating alignment to the analysis of environmental governance of social-ecological interdependence

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  • Thiel, Andreas
  • Schleyer, Christian
  • Hinkel, Jochen
  • Schlüter, Maja
  • Hagedorn, Konrad
  • Bisaro, Sandy
  • Bobojonov, Ihtiyor
  • Hamidov, Ahmad

Abstract

Institutional fit is operationalized by transferring transaction costs economics (TCE) to the analysis of instances of social-ecological interdependence. We carefully spell out the differences with conventional TCE and outline analytical steps based on discriminating alignment that enable a TCE analysis of environmental governance of “nature-related transactions”. We illustrate the approach through the example of wildlife management in Germany. Here we find hierarchical governance (a prohibition) of killing of wolves embedded into a polycentric hybrid monitoring arrangement. In applying TCE to nature-related transactions, we argue that characteristics of nature-related transactions can be subsumed under the core categories of jointness, uncertainty, asset specificity, frequency, rivalry, excludability and social-relational distance. Benefits of this approach include its generating a narrow list of descriptors of instances of biophysically mediated interdependence related to one evaluation criterion: cost-effectiveness. The TCE of nature-related transactions thus identifies sets of stylized contextual factors and aspects related to the governance of hazards of ex-post opportunistic behavior that cut across scales. They can be used as composite descriptors that facilitate analysis of complex multi-scalar arrangements of natural resource governance. We propose the concept of ‘governance challenge’, derived from TCE, as being useful for building research on environmental governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Thiel, Andreas & Schleyer, Christian & Hinkel, Jochen & Schlüter, Maja & Hagedorn, Konrad & Bisaro, Sandy & Bobojonov, Ihtiyor & Hamidov, Ahmad, 2016. "Transferring Williamson's discriminating alignment to the analysis of environmental governance of social-ecological interdependence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 159-168.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:128:y:2016:i:c:p:159-168
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.04.018
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    Cited by:

    1. Rongyu Wang & Rong Tan, 2018. "Rural Renewal of China in the Context of Rural-Urban Integration: Governance Fit and Performance Differences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Oliver Maaß & Philipp Grundmann, 2018. "Governing Transactions and Interdependences between Linked Value Chains in a Circular Economy: The Case of Wastewater Reuse in Braunschweig (Germany)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-29, April.
    3. Elena Andriollo & Alberto Caimo & Laura Secco & Elena Pisani, 2021. "Collaborations in Environmental Initiatives for an Effective “Adaptive Governance” of Social–Ecological Systems: What Existing Literature Suggests," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-29, July.
    4. Ulan Kasymov & Ahmad Hamidov, 2017. "Comparative Analysis of Nature-Related Transactions and Governance Structures in Pasture Use and Irrigation Water in Central Asia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-18, September.
    5. Bartosz Bartkowski & Bernd Hansjürgens & Stefan Möckel & Stephan Bartke, 2018. "Institutional Economics of Agricultural Soil Ecosystem Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-14, July.

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