Synthesis, part of a special feature on State-Reinforced Transformative and Adaptive Governance of Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems

INTRODUCTION

The vital social-ecological systems (SES) that underpin human civilization and earth’s precious biospheres are under threat due to exploitation and poor governance (Liu et al. 2007). In contrast to more traditionally recognized dilemmas that consist of a singular social and/or environmental threat unfolding within a fairly circumscribed system (e.g., singular community and common-pool resource; see Dawes 1980, Gardner et al. 1990, Ostrom 1998, Parks et al. 2013 for review), many of the dilemmas modern societies face are immensely complex and multi-scalar. These dilemmas involve numerous actors, social-ecological sub-systems, processes, and dynamics operating and interacting across multiple spatial, jurisdictional, and temporal scales, as well as sectors (e.g., Larson et al. 2013). Such problems may be better conceptualized as social-ecological dilemmas: multi-scale dilemmas with multiple action situations (cf. McGinnis 2011) and interlocking social (e.g., public good), infrastructural, and environmental (e.g., common-pool resource) sub-dilemmas that create complex, nested social-ecological traps (e.g., Londres et al. 2023; cf. Cumming 2018, Barfuss et al. 2020, Abrams et al. 2021). These characteristics make social-ecological dilemmas particularly difficult to define, analyze, and address. However, human and ecological welfare will continue to degrade if societies fail to respond adaptively and transformatively to them (Moser and Ekstrom 2010, Steffen et al. 2015).

There has been an explosion of scholarly activity on the topics of adaptive and transformative governance (ATG) for resilience and sustainability of SES (Chaffin et al. 2014, 2016a). This activity has transitioned from describing the general characteristics of ATG systems to identifying, explaining, and applying drivers of ATG (Dietz et al. 2003, Folke et al. 2005, Chaffin et al. 2016a, Cosens et al. 2017). There are numerous frameworks of ATG (e.g., Dietz et al. 2003, Betsill and Bulkeley 2006, Ostrom et al. 2007, Armitage 2008, Garmestani and Benson 2013, Chaffin et al. 2016a, Cosens et al. 2017). Science is now able to describe well specific cases of mal/adaptation and transformation (cf. Andersson and Ostrom 2008, Kemper et al. 2007, Larson et al. 2013, Cosens et al. 2014, Chaffin et al. 2016a, Garmestani et al. 2020), as well as articulate and apply some design features (design principles) for ATG (e.g., Cyphers and Schultz 2019, Garmestani et al. 2019, Sarr et al. 2021; cf. Dietz et al. 2003, Craig et al. 2017, DeCaro et al. 2017a). However, these advancements have not produced a unified framework capable of guiding institutional diagnosis and design.

Four foundational issues and conceptual/analytical barriers must be resolved to inform next-generation institutional analysis and design: (1) the proper role(s) of government and non-government actors in co-production of ATG systems (Ostrom 2010a, Cosens et al. 2017), (2) basic institutional elements (i.e., design principles) that enable self-organization and cooperation within existing, highly regulated governance systems (Dietz et al. 2003, Wilson et al. 2013, DeCaro et al. 2017a, Garmestani et al. 2019), (3) measurable institutional components of adaptive and transformative capacity (for clarification, we refer to core elements of rules, norms, and rule/norm systems that constitute the basic structures, processes, and functions of formal and informal governance systems; Ostrom 1992, 2005a, Engle 2011, Siders 2019), and (4) how core components of governance (i.e., actor types, institutions, decision processes, networks) combine to create viable governance systems in specific SES (Ostrom et al. 2007, Andersson and Ostrom 2008). Finally, scientific principles have not been distilled into comprehensible guidance for policymakers, members of the public, and other stakeholders for practical use (Agrawal and Ribot 2014). These technical and conceptual gaps contribute to maladaptive policies, de/centralization programs, and collaborative arrangements that perpetuate institutional dysfunction, exploitation, and social-ecological degradation (Agrawal and Ribot 1999, Andersson and Ostrom 2008).

To address these gaps, we present the State-reinforced self-governance framework for adaptive and transformative governance (SRSG framework). The SRSG framework enables institutional analysts to investigate the adaptive and transformative capacities of governance systems in terms of emergent properties of legal and other institutional design features (principles) governing particular actors, collective action processes, and institutional configurations. The framework is inspired by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom’s foundational work on polycentricity and societal self-governance as engines for ATG systems (Ostrom 1980a, 1992, 1994, 2010a, 2010b), as well as Elinor Ostrom’s (e.g., 1990, 2009) institutional analysis and development (IAD) and social-ecological system analytical frameworks (McGinnis and Ostrom 2014). The SRSG framework is also inspired by numerous case studies and recent developments in legal analysis of ATG systems (e.g., Chaffin et al. 2016a, Cosens et al. 2017, Craig et al. 2017, Garmestani et al. 2019). Finally, we build on initial principles of SRSG by Sarker (2013) and DeCaro et al. (2017a), with expanded concepts, analytical tools and conventions tailored to understanding government enabled (or constrained) co-production.

We first discuss the concepts of adaptive and transformative capacity that are the basis for our understanding. Afterward, we describe the origins and components of the SRSG framework, including its connection to the Ostrom frameworks. We then discuss some illustrative examples from the special issue on ATG. We conclude with research opportunities and challenges. The SRSG framework allows researchers to address fundamental questions in novel ways, providing much-needed analytical leverage over especially tricky issues.

ADAPTIVE AND TRANSFORMATIVE CAPACITY

The concepts of adaptive and transformative capacity are debated among scholars and practitioners. Differences in conceptualization and usage, or framing, of these terms contribute to widespread misconceptions, as well as misguidance and misapplication in the design and implementation of policy solutions (Engle 2011, Siders 2019, Clement et al. 2024). DeCaro et al.’s (2017a) articulation of legal foundations for ATG was informed by concepts of adaptation, transformation, and social-ecological resilience developed by legal scholars and ecologists within the Resilience Alliance (e.g., Gunderson 2000, Chaffin et al. 2016a, Garmestani et al. 2019; cf. Holling 1973, Cosens et al. 2014). We therefore adopt those terms.

From a resilient SES or ATG standpoint (Chaffin et al. 2016a), adaptive and transformative capacity refer to properties of linked social and ecological systems, which allow SES to either adjust (adapt) or innovate and replace (transform) existing structures, processes, and/or functions to address stressors or crises (Garmestani et al. 2019; cf. Engle 2011). Such capacities may pertain to diverse SES characteristics: e.g., social and behavioral (Moser and Ekstrom 2010), political, economic, ecological, infrastructural (Anderies et al. 2019), and institutional (Ostrom 1990, 1992, 2005a; cf. Gupta et al. 2010, Siders 2019).

Our focus is on human agency in governance systems. Specifically, humans occupy diverse roles and institutional regimes, making rule systems and individual and collective decisions. These decisions affect (1) governance systems and (2) SES characteristics, which affect the potential for adaptation and transformation, and ultimately resilience. These agents alter the institutions (i.e., rules, norms) that govern humanity’s relationship with SES, to achieve desired states, such as some form of resilience (Ostrom 1992, 2005, Chaffin et al. 2016a).

Clement et al. (2024), building upon Allen et al. (2019), distinguish three prevalent types, or interpretations: resilience as a rate, process, or emergent property. When viewed as a rate, resilience refers to the ability of a system, or system component, to absorb, resist, and/or rapidly recover from disturbance to maintain existing desirable functions. Resilience as a process refers to preventative and reactive steps taken to enhance adaptive and/or transformative capacity. Resilience as an emergent property encompasses and transcends these forms of resilience to include social-ecological resilience, i.e., the ability of an SES to transition to new desirable structures or processes.

Generally, greater adaptive and transformative capacity are thought to be associated with greater social-ecological resilience (Engle 2011, Clement et al. 2024). However, this link is complex. For example, transformative capacity does not guarantee transformation or social-ecological resilience. Humans are fallible (Ostrom 1998). They have constrained influence over nature and society and must therefore make wise decisions (Moser and Ekstrom 2010, DeCaro et al. 2017b). Adaptive and transformative governance systems are thought to enhance social-ecological resilience by wisely prioritizing and shifting among various forms of adaptation and transformation (Chaffin et al. 2016a, Garmestani et al. 2019).

The specific mechanisms involved in this process are not fully understood. We present the SRSG framework to articulate a potentially helpful perspective on this process. To do so, we ground adaptive and transformative capacity in human agency, seeking to understand how fallible decision makers harness fundamental elements, or design principles, of institutions to create more resilient institutional configurations, or governance systems. We start by describing the origins and evolution of the SRSG framework. We then explain its core premises and analytical conventions.

STATE-REINFORCED SELF-GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK

Origins

The SRSG framework emerged from diverse collaborations and methods over several years. From 2014–2016, DeCaro et al. (2017a) participated in the Adaptive Water Governance Project, sponsored by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). The project team, consisting of legal scholars, ecologists, and social scientists, investigated how laws constrain adaptive governance of SES in six U.S. river basins (Cosens et al. 2014, 2017). The team included some Ostrom political economists, who began to investigate how legal foundations of ATG may be related to Vincent and Elinor Ostrom’s concept of polycentric, societal self-governance (e.g., Ostrom 1990, 1994, 2010). They were inspired by a recent case study of State-reinforced self-governance by Sarker (2013), in which federal, state, and local governments in Japan enabled farmers to govern irrigation systems in increasingly complex local, state, and national self-governing systems. DeCaro et al. (2017a) applied this concept to the Adaptive Water Governance Project’s six river basins. They observed that lack of adaptation and transformation in each basin was associated with deficiencies in the authority, responsibility, and operational resources legally assigned to key stakeholders, thus hindering the stakeholders from independently or collectively resolving important aspects of the social-ecological dilemma.

DeCaro et al. (2017a) proposed an initial set of design principles (e.g., authority, responsibility) for SRSG, along with Ostrom’s (1990, 2010) principles of multi-actor cooperation, for future study. These initial principles have been applied to diverse topics and cases worldwide, such as United Nations’ sustainable development projects (e.g., Teunissen and Chan 2024); environmental decision making (e.g., Constantino et al. 2021); fire control (e.g., Cyphers and Schultz 2019); forests, rivers, and energy (e.g., McIntyre and Schultz 2020, Valencia et al. 2021, dos Santos Massoca and Brondízio 2022, Li and Jin 2023); air pollution (Sarr et al. 2021); and urban development (e.g., Yasmin et al. 2023).

However, DeCaro et al.’s (2017a) initial propositions were not fully developed or integrated into a cohesive framework, limiting their utility. In 2018, the Ostrom political economists initiated a new SESYNC project, consisting primarily of Ostrom political economists, legal scholars, ecologists, and stakeholders from several new case study systems, which spanned more diverse social-ecological dilemmas worldwide. The case studies reported in this special issue represent the ongoing test and development of the framework. We present the current framework to support its further development and understanding of ATG systems.

Core premises and analytical conventions

Adaptive and transformative governance systems are often characterized by networked centers of activity that share information, experiment, and evolve their structures, processes, and functions to address emergent and interlocking social-ecological dilemmas (Chaffin et al. 2014, 2016a, Clement et al. 2024). Self-organization, adaptive decision making, and cooperation are thought to be essential, enabling diverse stakeholders to independently and collectively create better-fitting solutions via various modes of co-provision (governance) and production (implementation; Ostrom 1990, 1996, 2010b, Folke et al. 2005). Multi-actor communication, collaboration, and shared decision making also promote legitimacy, improving trust, acceptance, and motivation (DeCaro et al. 2021). From an Ostrom political economy perspective, ATG systems are societal problem-solving systems, thought to emerge from individual and collective self-governance and cooperation (Ostrom 1992, 1994, Shivakumar 2005).

The SRSG framework’s core premise is that government(s) can facilitate such co-provision and production by using their constitutive (e.g., legislative, constitutional), administrative, regulatory, and fiscal powers to enable, i.e., authorize, require, fund, regulate (guide, supervise), self-organization, cooperation, and collective governance among key stakeholders (Sarker 2013, DeCaro et al. 2017a). Government(s) can also create, or support creation of, new institutional archetypes (e.g., actors, non/government organizations), programs, collectives, and governance networks with necessary capacities to address particular dilemmas (cf. Cosens et al. 2017). The aim is to enhance and direct actors’ capacities for self-organization and cooperation to promote problem solving (Shivakumar 2005), which may enhance ATG. Of course, government(s) can use these same powers to hinder self-organization and cooperation, thus disrupting ATG (Agrawal and Ribot 1999, Andersson and Ostrom 2008).

The SRSG framework extends prior frameworks in the Ostrom tradition (e.g., Ostrom 1990, 2007, McGinnis and Ostrom 2014) by introducing several analytical tools and conventions to further describe co-provisional/co-productive failure and success, and pinpoint and understand their origins (i.e., legal and other institutional foundations). We view these extensions as complementary to Ostrom’s prior frameworks.

The SRSG framework:

• Reconceptualizes the role of the State (government actors/processes), with more diverse roles and co-provisional/co-productive relationships.
• Introduces measurable design principles for State-reinforcement that embody the role(s) governments play in enabling or constraining adaptive and/or transformative capacity of particular actors and collective action processes, especially via capacity for self-governance and cooperation.
• Introduces a typology of institutional forms and adaptive/transformative capacities for categorizing, diagnosing, evaluating, and designing ATG systems.
• Introduces an updated SES framework, which helps to (1) represent complex governance systems (i.e., networks, institutional arrangements) and (2) contextualize specific implementations of design principles (capacities) in particular SES.
• Formalizes analysis of formal (de jure) and informal State action in de facto (i.e., observed) co-provisional/co-productive failure and success.

These advancements are necessary to describe and analyze adaptive and/or transformative capacities within complex governance systems because enabling conditions (e.g., formal laws that bestow particular capacities) typically pertain to (1) specific actors (2) performing specific functions, e.g., regulation, provision, finance, (3) to address particular aspects of a social-ecological dilemma (4) within particular sectors (e.g., water, energy, food), (5) alone or with other actors (e.g., Harvey et al. 2024, cf. McGinnis 2011). These advancements also allow institutional analysts and designers to identify specific gaps in structure, function, processes, and adaptive and/or transformative capacities within particular governance systems. Finally, they enable analysts to track the evolution of these capacities and governance systems over time as changes to institutional archetypes, governance networks, and their underlying configuration of design principles (Crawford and Ostrom 2005, McGinnis and Ostrom 2014). It is beyond the scope of this paper to fully identify all connections to prior Ostrom frameworks. However, we identify key connections.

Roles and relationships of the State

Historically, governance scholars have emphasized two roles for governments (Hobbes 1947, Hardin 1968): (1) Leviathan: impose rules (e.g., environmental regulations) and strictly enforce them to force dilemma stakeholders to comply; (2) privatization: enable privatization of common-pool resources to encourage individual stewardship. These paradigms envision the State as ultimate authority (i.e., rule maker, regulator), or benevolent dictator. They span extremes of giving individual stakeholders no agency (Leviathan) or substantial agency, within private property arrangements. These paradigms do not allow provisions for robust multi-actor cooperation to co-provision (co-create) governance systems (i.e., shared governance; Ostrom 1980b, 1992). Instead, the State seeks to exert power over citizens and society, to address social-ecological dilemmas (Ostrom 1980b, 1994). Market mechanisms are another recognized way for a benevolent State to enable public good provision (e.g., environmental governance), without either robustly granting rights of self-governance or entirely stifling individual freedom (Ostrom 2010a, Duit et al. 2016).

Elinor Ostrom famously recognized two additional paradigms. The first is self-governance: self-organization among dilemma stakeholders who hold some degree of informal (e.g., de facto, normative) constitutive/constitutional and regulatory powers (cf. McGinnis 2017) that enable them to create cooperative systems (norms, procedures, strategies) to govern themselves, provide collective goods, and manage vital resource systems (Ostrom 1990, 2010a). The second is co-production (broadly construed): collaborative governance (co-provision) and management (co-production) of public goods and resource systems by government and non-government actors (cf. Oakerson 1999, Voorberg 2014), based on principles of shared power (i.e., power with citizens and society) and self-governance (Ostrom 1994, 1996, 2010b). Examining federalism as a form of polycentricity, Vincent Ostrom (1994:15) described such co-provision and production as follows:

If a federal system of government entails a great multitude of governments, each organized on principles of self-government, we might view such an arrangement as constituting a self-governing society where “society governs itself for itself.”

A revival of interest in this topic has encouraged scholars to broaden their definition of co-production and earnestly consider the State’s role in formally enabling self-governance (co-provisioning) in polycentric systems, under the term of “State-reinforced self-governance” (Sarker 2013, DeCaro et al. 2017b; cf. Shivakumar 2005).

However, this concept needs further development. In actuality, governance systems often involve mixtures of these paradigms, with government and non-government actors fulfilling many roles and exercising diverse formal and informal powers, which are sometimes complementary, or not (e.g., Hosseinioon 2019, Jaffe and Koster 2019; cf. Kemper et al. 2007, Andersson and Ostrom 2008). No paradigm adequately explains capacity for ATG in human civilizations. All can be adaptive or transformative in particular circumstances and ways (Ostrom et al. 2007). The fundamental scientific challenge is how to embrace this complexity without overwhelming analytical comprehension or practical application (Ostrom 2005a, Agrawal and Ribot 2014).

The SRSG framework attempts to achieve this balance by synthesizing the perspectives via an expanded concept of State-reinforced co-provision and production (cf. Ostrom 1994, Shivakumar 2005, Sarker 2013). States (governments) can pursue diverse administrative or regulatory orientations (e.g., benevolent dictator, facilitator) within a spectrum of co-provisional and co-productive structures and relationships, spanning de/centralization and various forms of coercion and empowerment (Ostrom 1996, 2000, Agrawal and Ribot 1999, Fung 2006, Andersson and Ostrom 2008). Governments can also: (1) set goals, standards, and priorities; (2) authorize, require, and/or fund communication and shared decision making among key stakeholders to promote collaborative problem-solving and cooperation; (3) remove restrictions, grant new powers, and create or co-create new rule systems, actor types, or partnerships; and (4) leverage existing sources of adaptive and/or transformative capacity (e.g., decision-making discretion, flexible rules; cf. Ostrom 1992) to reallocate efforts/resources toward particular priorities (Cosens et al. 2017, DeCaro et al. 2017a, Garmestani et al. 2019). These relationships, actions, and their corresponding governance systems may look different in different SES, but they ultimately distill to some basic elements: government(s) affect ATG by altering the adaptive and/or transformative capacities of actors (and collective action processes), within particular governance structures (e.g., institutional archetypes, governance networks). The SRSG framework addresses the first of these elements with design principles.

Design principles

In common usage, the concept of a design principle in human governance conveys a core feature, or in some cases, tenet of good governance (Agrawal and Ribot 2014). Ostrom (1990) introduced several, now widely recognized design principles (e.g., shared decision making, mutual monitoring and enforcement; cf. Ostrom 2010a). As with any foundational concept, the concept of a design principle in Ostrom political economy is complex, debated, and continuing to evolve (Cox et al. 2010, McGinnis 2011, 2017). Specification and interpretation of the design principles have evolved along with scientific understanding of their historic (e.g., Ostrom 1992), behavioral (e.g., Ostrom 1990, 1998, DeCaro et al. 2021), and sociobiological (i.e., evolutionary) origins (Wilson et al. 2013, McGinnis 2011, 2017).

It is widely accepted that Ostrom’s (1990, 2010) design principles represent factors and diagnostic features often associated with successful cooperation and self-governance of common-pool resource dilemmas, and other dilemmas (Cox et al. 2010, McGinnis 2011, 2017). However, Ostrom (e.g., 1992, 1998) also conceptualized the design principles as adaptive capacities, which enable fallible decision makers to devise more effective governance systems through more effective multi-actor problem solving and cooperation.

From Wilson, Ostrom, and Cox (2013):

There is a striking correspondence between the principles derived by Ostrom for CPR groups and the conditions that caused us [humans] to evolve into such a cooperative species in the first place (s26) ... When viewed from a multilevel evolutionary perspective, the core design principles identified by Ostrom and her associates for CPR groups provide an ideal social environment for the evolution of group level adaptations in any social species and for a wide range of contexts in our own species (s25).

From Ostrom (2005:270-271):

[Herbert] Simon specifically argues no humanly designed, complex system can be fully planned to achieve optimal performance. Rather, he stressed that all complex systems must be built up from simpler components... My own conclusion related to...analysis of a complex, adaptive system is, of course, strongly influenced by the work of Simon... So, one way of thinking about the practical implications of the design principles is as a beginning point for conducting a broad search for appropriate means of solving problems. [Ostrom then rephrases each design principle as a diagnostic question. For example: Nested Enterprises] How can we create a multiple-layer, polycentric system that can be dynamic, adaptive, and effective over time?

We expand this interpretation to suggest that design principles are the core features of institutional arrangements, i.e., the fundamental building blocks, or elements, humans use to create governance systems. In other words, most, if not all, institutions can be described by the extent to which they possess such elements as provisions for authority, shared decision making, and mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement. Furthermore, like the elements in chemistry (Scerri 1998), these institutional elements interact (e.g., DeCaro et al. 2015, cf. Baggio et al. 2016). Different configurations yield new compounds (institutional archetypes), with different properties (capacities). The SRSG framework seeks to understand how these properties affect institutional adaptation and transformation to govern social-ecological dilemmas in different environments (SES). The framework distinguishes two types of design principles: principles of multi-actor cooperation and State reinforcement (Table 1). The two sets work together to affect adaptive and/or transformative capacity.

Multi-actor cooperation

The principles of multi-actor cooperation are derived from Ostrom’s (1990, 2005a, 2010a) design principles for collective self-governance. Ostrom presented many versions of these principles for different interpretative and application purposes (cf. Cox et al. 2010, McGinnis 2017). The version we present (Table 1) is closest to that presented in Ostrom (2005a) and is intended to be functionally equivalent to Ostrom’s core principles, while (1) facilitating accessibility for a diverse audience, in terms of disciplinary background and experience, and (2) aligning with our interpretation of design principles as elements and adaptive/transformative capacities of institutions.

Where our design principles depart most substantively from Ostrom’s typical presentations is that we removed the last two design principles (minimal recognition of rights to self-organize and nested enterprises) from the list because they are the conceptual basis for SRSG (rights to self-organize) and polycentricity (nested enterprises). In fact, we consider the SRSG framework as further articulating these design principles. We also removed the “institutional fit” design principle (congruence with local conditions) because evolutionarily speaking, fit emerges from the other design principles. For example, shared decision-making, a core principle of improved multi-actor cooperation, facilitates creation of better-fitting institutions (Ostrom 1990, 1992; cf. DeCaro and Stokes 2013). Analysts familiar with particular versions of Ostrom’s frameworks may continue using them. However, analysts often find our version helpful when considering State-enabled/constrained self-governance and adaptive/transformative capacity of institutions.

We consider Ostrom’s design principles to be both cooperative capacities and adaptive/transformative capacities. Considerable empirical research indicates that these principles promote robust cooperative problem solving, enhancing dilemma stakeholders’ ability to address dynamic problems (cf. Cox et al. 2010, McGinnis 2017). Specifically, these principles help diverse stakeholders learn from one another, build trust, coordinate, and internalize collective goals, norms, and duties; this process supports more effective institutional problem solving and development (Ostrom 1998, 2010, DeCaro et al. 2021).

Communication and shared decision making are the cornerstones of cooperative problem solving, promoting understanding and institutional legitimacy (Ostrom 1990, 1994, Ostrom et al. 1992). Stakeholders need to communicate openly and share important decisions to devise better-fitting solutions, which are also more acceptable and motivating (DeCaro and Stokes 2013). Communication and shared decision making also help stakeholders achieve the other design principles, for example, equity and clearly defined boundaries (Ostrom 1990).

Enforcement systems deter defectors and freeloaders (Ostrom et al. 1992), helping to further galvanize commitment (DeCaro et al. 2015, 2021). In the cases Ostrom observed, effective enforcement often entailed graduated sanctions (punishments that increase with the frequency or severity of rule violations) and mechanisms for restorative justice (e.g., public hearings, multi-lateral communication, education). Equitable costs/benefits ensure that stakeholders feel fairly compensated for their efforts and that others are doing their fair share, enhancing cooperation through a virtuous cycle of trust and reciprocity (Ostrom 1998, Janssen et al. 2022). Clearly defined ecological and socio-political boundaries help stakeholders coordinate by ensuring everyone knows their roles, responsibilities, spheres of authority, and extant dynamics of the ecological problem(s) the stakeholders face. Finally, accountability, which is a function of communication, shared decision making, and enforcement, ensures that key stakeholders are responsive to each other (horizontal), the people they oversee (downward), and/or supervisory agents (upward; Ostrom 1990, Ribot et al. 2006). The principles interact, enhancing one another (e.g., shared decision making legitimizes enforcement; DeCaro et al. 2015, 2021). Hence, deficiencies in any principle can be a critical failure point, undermining adaptive and/or transformative capacity (Dietz et al. 2003, Baggio et al. 2016).

State reinforcement

Design principles for State reinforcement (Table 1) embody the in/formal powers (authority), duties (responsibility), and operational resources actors possess to self-organize, cooperate, and otherwise address particular dilemmas (DeCaro et al. 2017a). These principles also embody institutional mechanisms for stability/flexibility, such as decision-making discretion, policy sunsets, and rule ceilings/floors (guidelines/standards; e.g., Doremus 2010, Ruhl 2011, Arnold and Gunderson 2013, Craig et al. 2017). We assume that stakeholders need contextually adequate and appropriate capacities to respond adaptively and/or transformatively.

Authority and responsibility

In the SRSG framework, these principles (authority, responsibility) are identified as core design principles of State reinforcement, with actors’ permitted and required actions being in/formally constrained by governments and government action. Hence, the SRSG framework seeks to embellish Ostrom’s (1990, 2010) original design principles for “minimal recognition of actors’ rights to self-organize” and “nested enterprises” (i.e., polycentricity) to further clarify how governments enable/constrain adaptive and/or transformative capacity.

The authority design principle refers to authorization to provision governance systems and produce goods/services. Provisioning involves (1) constitutive authority to create or constitute various institutional elements (e.g., rules, roles, rights) and/or archetypes (e.g., actor types, organizations, collectives; cf. Ostrom 1992, McGinnis 2017) and (2) decision-making authority to make decisions to govern dilemmas. Production involves operational authority to perform actor-specific (i.e., archetypal) functions to produce particular goods and services.

There are two types of decision-making authority. Constitutional decision-making authority is the capacity to decide fundamental social contracts governing particular actors and activities. Administrative decision-making authority is the capacity to decide operational activities, within constitutional constraints without fundamentally altering constitutional arrangements (Ostrom 2008a). Thus, constitutional decisions affect fundamental powers, responsibilities, goals, rules, rights, and agreements (rules of the game). Operational decisions handle regular conduct of business (cf. Ostrom 2005b, McGinnis and Ostrom 2014). For example, in the U.S., federal internal revenue code §501(c)3 grants non-profit organizations (NPOs) broad powers (Lane 1980, Singh et al. 2022). Their incorporators and board of directors are constitutional agents: they possess constitutive and constitutional decision-making authority to decide the fundamental mission of the organization and its bylaws, which establish officer roles, powers, and duties. Administrative staff possess operational authority to make decisions necessary for regular business operations. Finally, the type of NPO (e.g., land trust) grants particular operational authorities (e.g., land transfer and protection).

Operational authority refers to the functions an actor may exercise. These include archetypal functions (e.g., decision making, rulemaking, regulation, enforcement) and more specific functions. For example, per U.S. Code §501(c)3, NPOs can perform religious, financial, educational, research, conservation, and other functions. These functions may be specific to particular domains (e.g., environmental protection; Lane 1980).

Responsibility refers to duties or requirements to act (or not act) in particular ways and implement (or not implement) particular functions. Frequently, responsibilities are requirements or constraints on decision-making and/or operational authority (cf. Crawford and Ostrom 2005). For example, per U.S. Code §501(c)3, NPOs must fulfill mission-specific duties enshrined in their bylaws, and they cannot engage in political propaganda.

Analysts familiar with Ostrom institutional analysis may wonder how these principles relate to the Ostrom’s own theorizing. Authority and responsibility are foundational concepts in Ostrom institutional analysis. For example, Vincent Ostrom (1994:47) discussing the basis of societal self-governance:

If individual citizens can be presumed to exercise the basic authority specifying the terms and conditions of government and to know what it means to govern, they can exercise the basic responsibility for governing their own affairs...

Vincent Ostrom further discusses that governments are collective goods, formed from social contracts (e.g., constitutions, policies) that specify the authority and responsibility of particular actors in provisioning particular societal goods (cf. Ostrom 2006, 2008a).

When introducing the “grammar of institutions” to analyze the institutional foundations of governance systems, Elinor Ostrom argued that all institutions can be parsed into elements that enable or constrain actor authority and responsibility (Crawford and Ostrom 2005:170), “By partitioning sets of actions or outcomes into required, forbidden, and permitted subsets, rules both constrain and expand the levels of freedom of actors.” Elinor Ostrom’s (1990, 2005b) convention of analyzing collective action in terms of “action situations,” or focal decision processes, requires that analysts identify the positions (roles) various actors play, and the associated authority (permitted actions) and responsibilities (assigned actions, constraints) those actors possess in particular institutional contexts.

McGinnis (2017:174) further clarified:

Position rules specify a set of positions, each of which has a unique combination of resources, opportunities, preferences, and responsibilities. Authority rules specify which sets of actions is assigned to which positions.

Hence, institutions are fundamentally about actor’s capacities for action (cf. McGinnis and Ostrom 2014, McGinnis 2017). These capacities are further affected by their available resources.

Operational resources

Operational resources refer to the fiscal and non-fiscal resources actors need to operate (see Shivakumar 2005, Kemper et al. 2007 for discussion). External resources refer to externally provided resources, or “aid” (e.g., funding), not intrinsic to a particular institutional archetype. Self-sufficiency refers to mechanisms a particular archetype possesses to provide resources for itself. For example, governments may provide financial grants to various actors. However, per U.S. Code §501(c)3, NPOs possess the capacity for tax exemption, which means this institutional archetype is not required to pay federal income taxes or land/property tax for activities consistent with their public-service mission (Lane 1980). Therefore, NPOs may benefit from external governmental resources and fiscal self-sufficiency via tax exemptions.

Flexibility/stability

Flexibility/stability refers to institutional mechanisms that either afford flexibility and change or rigidity and lack of change. For example, decision-making authorization generally grants flexibility; decision-making restrictions or requirements generally reduce flexibility (Ruhl 2011, Arnold and Gunderson 2013; cf. Ostrom 1992). Rules may be specified in rigid (fixed) terms (e.g., specific funding requirements) or more flexible terms, such as guidelines or ranges (e.g., minimum/maximum funding) and other mechanisms (e.g., proportional resource allocation rules) that allow some flexibility and discretion in satisfying performance requirements (cf. Doremus 2010, Schlager and Heikkila 2011). Such flexibility supports considerable adaptive and/or transformative capacity in existing institutional arrangements, which might otherwise be rigid (Garmestani et al. 2019, Harvey et al. 2024). Policy sunsets are another mechanism (Teubner 1983). The SRSG framework assumes that mechanisms for flexibility/stability must be balanced to ensure adequate and appropriate levels of change for the context. Stakeholders need sufficient flexibility to alter poor-fitting solutions, but they also need consistency to plan the future and securely commit to long-term endeavors (Moser and Ekstrom 2010, Craig et al. 2017; cf. Ostrom 1990, Crawford and Ostrom 2005).

Formality

Originally, DeCaro et al. (2017a) only acknowledged formal (legally binding) design principles for State reinforcement. However, complex ATG systems are often a function of both formal and informal processes and capacities (Jaffe and Koster 2019, Garmestani et al. 2019). Therefore, we also acknowledge informal State reinforcement.

Formal reinforcement refers to official, legally binding policies (e.g., laws, contracts) and acts of government (e.g., official funding) that formally codify or affect actor capacities and constraints. Informal reinforcement refers to unofficial (e.g., undocumented) policies (e.g., norms, practices) and actions (e.g., unspoken transfers of power, informal agreements). The SRSG framework considers how in/formal elements interact or align. Mis/alignment can be beneficial or detrimental depending on the context. For example, informal authority could enable an actor to overcome a critical deficit in formal authority. Alternatively, an informally acquired responsibility could exceed an actor’s formal authority, leading to maladaptive outcomes (Simatele et al. 2017, Hosseinioon 2019).

Typology of adaptive/transformative institutional capacities

The design principles are configural, interacting in important ways. Design principles for State reinforcement tend to be concerned with actor powers, whereas design principles for multi-actor cooperation tend to focus on facilitating cooperation (DeCaro et al. 2017a). Actors with individual capacity (e.g., authority) to address aspects of a complex dilemma may not collaborate well if they lack sufficient capacity for multi-actor cooperation. In fact, State reinforcement of particular actors can strengthen faction rivalry, exacerbating conflict and exploitation of rival groups and their resource systems (e.g., Ostrom 1965, Gunderson et al. 2014, Connolly and Anguelovski 2021). This outcome is especially likely when there is deficient formal requirement (responsibility) for cooperation (e.g., shared decision making, equitable costs/benefits). Conversely, actors with sufficient cooperative capacity may not contribute optimally if they lack other essential capacities, such as important operational authorities or resources. Thus, actor and collective State reinforcement, as well as cooperative capacity, are essential.

To more precisely describe an actor’s (or collective’s) adaptive and/or transformative capacity, we suggest using a Base 3 Typology classification system (Fig. 1). Crossing three design principles of State reinforcement (authority, responsibility, and operational resources: external, self-sufficiency) delineates four major categories of de/centralization, with 16 archetypal configurations. These configurations represent basic designs with commonly known strengths and limitations. Hence, they facilitate analysis of complex governance systems. Additional archetypes can be described by considering how other design principles (e.g., flexibility/stability, shared decision making, and enforcement) modify these 16 basic forms.

We developed the Base 3 Typology from the following considerations. First, all other principles (e.g., shared decision making, enforcement) can be considered variant forms of authority and responsibility (e.g., authority/responsibility to share decisions; cf. Crawford and Ostrom 2005). Operational resources are the material and other supplies needed to support these authorizations and responsibilities (cf. McGinnis 2017). Second, from a practical standpoint, these are the first principles many analysts intuitively consider when thinking about the adaptive and/or transformative capacities of institutions and archetypical institutional arrangements. Hence, the Base 3 Typology supports fluency as an analytical starting point when attempting to conceptualize complex interactions among the design principles (elements) that comprise basic institutional archetypes.

For simplicity, we will discuss de jure (formal, legally binding) institutional arrangements. Generally speaking, entities that have sufficient authority (A⁺) but lack formal responsibility (R^-), may shirk responsibility or choose not to act. A common criticism of public participation programs is that governments, which possess authority to include and empower local stakeholders, often fail to do so because of weak formal responsibility. Typically, lax public engagement policies allow governments to minimally involve key stakeholders while retaining decision control (Arnstein 1969, Reed 2008). Alternatively, an entity may have sufficient formal responsibility (R⁺) but lack authority (A^-) to fulfill those responsibilities, a common criticism of decentralization programs that devolve responsibility to local stakeholders without granting commensurate powers (Ribot et al. 2006, Clement 2010).

As another alternative, an entity may have sufficient authority (A⁺) and responsibility (R⁺) but insufficient operational resources to act, a commonly cited deficiency of government agencies (e.g., Ebi et al. 2009, Ngigi and Busolo 2019). The balance of external versus self-sufficient operational resources affects fiscal autonomy and responsiveness. Diverse sources of operational resources can ensure fiscal resilience. Entities funded primarily by external sources may be more responsive to their sponsors, but risk becoming a pawn of funders (Agrawal and Ribot 1999, Kemper et al. 2007). Entities primarily funded by self-sufficient sources have fiscal autonomy but may not be responsive to needs or desires of external benefactors (cf. Shivakumar 2005, Ostrom and Ostrom 2017).

The mal/adaptation of any configuration depends on context. To clarify, we first discuss major archetypical categories, then evolution, and finally social-ecological fit.

Self-organized (informal self-governance)

Commonly recognized types of informal self-organization, such as Elinor Ostrom’s (1990, 2010a) foundational archetype of community self-governance, are characterized by low (e.g., absent) formal authority (A^-) and responsibility (R^-). The actors voluntarily and informally manage a social-ecological dilemma without formal governmental authorization or requirement. For example, in the domain of urban greenspace, community members sometimes informally create community gardens from vacant lots neglected by city governments (Cahn and Segal 2016, Ela 2016). Self-organization includes arrangements in which formally vested actors (e.g., government agency) engage in informal governance activities. For example, DeCaro et al. (2025a) reported a case of decentralized failure, in which a city government, prominent state university, and the Cooperative Extension Service Office attempted to create a community-greenspace program via an undocumented, verbal agreement.

Self-organizing archetypes can be further classified by whether they receive formal, government-sponsored external operational resources (e.g., grants) and/or possess formal internal mechanisms to acquire operational resources. For example, informal community greenspaces sometimes receive government funds for specific projects, programs, or materials (E⁺), but may not receive tax exemptions (SS^-) without formal authorization as a charitable, NPO. Government funding without other provisions (e.g., provision of formal decision making and/or operational authority) may be a common, but limited form of State reinforcement.

Self-organization has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Some informal, self-organizing or self-governing entities may operate more autonomously and innovatively, without “restrictive” government oversight (Ostrom 1990, 2010a). However, few entities are strictly unregulated by government(s) (Ostrom 2000, Andersson and Ostrom 2008, McGinnis 2011). This is especially true in urbanized regions, such as cities (e.g., Ostrom 1965; cf. Foster and Iaione 2016). Self-governing entities are generally not robustly protected from government interference, and they lack potentially beneficial or vital government supports. For example, informal community-governed greenspaces may be too idiosyncratic and few to address city-wide greenspace deficiencies. Many also face constant threat of dissolution and redevelopment (enclosure) due to systemic racism, exploitative market forces, and political pressure to “put vacant lots to more productive use” (Cahn and Segal 2016, Rigolon et al. 2018, Connolly and Anguelovski, 2021). Thus, like any other institutional archetype, informally self-organizing or self-governing archetypes fill a vital niche but are not panaceas (Ostrom et al. 2007).

Responsibility heavy (divested responsibility)

Another class of institutional archetypes is characterized by responsibility-heavy arrangements. These entities have high formal responsibility to address a particular social-ecological dilemma (R⁺) but lack some critical authority (A^-). These archetypes represent a common form of maladaptive decentralization, in which government(s) divest themselves of formal responsibility (Ribot et al. 2006, Kemper et al. 2007, Andersson and Ostrom 2008). These arrangements have many variants. For example, in the case of abandonment, higher government(s) turn their back on the dilemma, leaving lower government(s) and/or stakeholders to fend for themselves (Bardhan 2006). In the case of inadvertent divestment, governments assign a responsibility to a particular actor, failing to realize the actor lacks a critical power or set of powers to fulfill the responsibility (e.g., DeCaro et al. 2025a; cf. Kemper et al. 2007).

Divested responsibility may come with external funding (R⁺E⁺), which may increase capacity to some extent. However, without significant positive transformation in authority, such funding is often a double-edged sword, coming with “strings attached.” The A^-R⁺E⁺SS^- archetype is prone to fiscal dependency that erodes decisional autonomy and operational independence. Foreign aid programs are commonly criticized for undermining state/local control (i.e., constitutional and operational decision-making authority), directing governance toward specific (i.e., rigid) goals, solutions, and processes, thereby eroding capacity for self-governance, and with it, ATG (Shivakumar 2005, Gibson 2009). For instance, a detailed case analysis of decentralized irrigation reforms in Ghana (Frimpong Boamah et al. 2025) documents how institutional reforms driven by foreign aid have translated into water users (e.g., smallholder farmers) having increased responsibility but limited control over the capital and material resources needed to self-govern their irrigation commons.

State reinforced: authorized

Institutional archetypes characterized by high formal authority and low responsibility (A⁺R^-) are authorized to act but lack responsibility. These A⁺R^- arrangements bolster an actor’s decision-making and/or operational capacity, which can be beneficial if actors are motivated to voluntarily provision collective goods (Ruhl 2011, Arnold and Gunderson 2013, DeCaro and Stokes 2013). However, A⁺R^- arrangements can encourage freeloading, non-cooperation, and neglect, especially when action is personally, politically, or economically costly. For example, insufficient (weak, eroded) formal responsibility commonly permits municipal governments to neglect public good provision (e.g., air pollution control, greenspace, clean water) in racially marginalized urban areas (e.g., Arnold et al. 2019, Rigolon et al. 2018, Sarr et al. 2021). In a complex governance system, municipal governments are locally decentralized government entities, which are therefore subject to considerations of State-reinforcement by higher government(s), just as non-government entities (e.g., individuals, non-profits) are subject to State reinforcement (Elazar 1987, Ostrom 1994). Formal intervention (e.g., lawsuit, federal mandate), which assigns more robust responsibility (i.e., transitioning the system to an A⁺R⁺ arrangement), is often required to compel neglectful governments to act responsibly (cf. Bullard and Johnson 2000, Rubin 2010). Similarly, diverse stakeholders may not collaborate unless formally compelled (i.e., required; e.g., Ostrom 1965, Wheeler 2000, Reed 2008; cf. Hardin 1968).

State reinforced: reinforced

The final major category (A⁺R⁺) embodies paragons of SRSG (cf. Ostrom 1994, Sarker 2013, DeCaro et al. 2017a). In ideal form (A⁺R⁺E⁺SS⁺), these institutional archetypes have adequate and appropriate authority, responsibility, external resources, and mechanisms of self-sufficiency to deftly address essential activities. These activities include (1) managing internal affairs (organizational self-governance), (2) multi-actor cooperation, and (3) the focal social-ecological dilemma (cf. Ostrom 1992, 2005a).

For example, one reason NPOs figure prominently in ATGs is because they possess robust constitutive, constitutional, and administrative decision-making authority; diverse types of operational authority; formally assigned (i.e., enforceable), mission-specific responsibilities that compel action; ability to attract and accept external funding and resources, as well as provide resources for themselves (e.g., donations, tax exemption, volunteer labor); and robust provisions for multi-actor cooperation (e.g., communication, shared decision making; Lane 1980, Singh et al. 2022; cf. DeCaro et al. 2025b). In short, NPOs have robust capacity for provisioning and production, making them fairly robust provision and production units, or archetypes.

Institutional evolution

The Base 3 Typology has important descriptive power to identify characteristics of institutional archetypes relevant to performance. The typology can also be used to identify and assess institutional evolution, specifically in terms of changes to the configuration of underlying design principles (i.e., archetypes) that are present/absent, or adequate/deficient, in a particular situation. For example, transitioning from an A^-R^- (informal self-organizing) institutional archetype to an A⁺R^- (authorized), A^-R⁺ (responsibility heavy), or A⁺R⁺ (reinforced) archetype represents different evolutionary trajectories. Adaptive and transformative governances commonly emerge by enhancing actor capacities, reassigning responsibilities (and/or roles), and creating new actors and collective action processes with particular capacities to address critical gaps in provisioning activities to resolve particular aspects of social-ecological dilemmas (Chaffin et al. 2016a, Cosens et al. 2017, DeCaro et al. 2017a, Garmestani et al. 2019). Therefore, analysts may also consider changes in the type(s) of actors, collective action processes, governance network structures, and roles and positions played by these actors and collective action processes (cf. Crawford and Ostrom 2005, McGinnis and Ostrom 2014).

In the conventions of the SRSG framework, institutional transformation refers to changes to actors (i.e., actor types), collective action processes, governance network structures, and the capacities and constraints (i.e., underlying design principles) governing each of these elements. Transformation often disrupts existing power structures (matrices of authority, responsibility, and operational resources), resulting in new decision-making venues and processes, rules, norms, and relationships between State and non-State actors, as well as among them. Thus, transformation will often correspond with changes to institutional archetypes (Fig. 1), transitioning from one of the four major archetypes identified in the Base 3 Typology (e.g., responsibility heavy: A^-R⁺ to authorized: A⁺R^-; a cross-category transformation), or one of the 16 specific variants (e.g., reinforced: self-sufficient, A⁺R⁺E^-SS⁺, to reinforced: externally funded, A⁺R⁺E⁺SS^-; a within category transformation). This includes variants in terms of multi-actor cooperative capacities (e.g., shared decision making, enforcement).

In contrast, institutional adaptation entails using existing arrangements in novel ways, without fundamentally altering system components (e.g., actor types, network structures) or institutional archetypes (i.e., core design principles). For example, stakeholders may use existing laws in novel ways (within existing institutional configurations) to better manage particular issues (e.g., Garmestani et al. 2019; cf. Craig et al. 2017). In essence, we view such change as activating existing, latent capacities rather than transforming those capacities. These changes may result in adaptation or transformation of the SES. However, we would not consider such changes transformative, from an institutional (i.e., governance) standpoint, unless they entail changes to the fundamental actor types, governance network structures, and/or their capacities (i.e., configuration of underlying design principles).

Neither type of change (institutional adaptation, transformation) is necessarily better. Due to the complexity of SES, institutional transformation does not guarantee more resilient SES (Engle 2011, Chaffin et al. 2016a). Furthermore, many types of adaptation and/or transformation may be considered harmful or maladaptive/transformative in some way or timeframe (Chaffin et al. 2016a, Chaffin and Gunderson 2016). Whether or not particular changes are “optimal” or “desirable” depends on the actors’ perspectives and decisions (Moser and Ekstrom 2010, DeCaro et al. 2017b), and the specific SES (Ostrom et al. 2007, Epstein et al. 2015).

Social-ecological fit (adequacy and appropriateness)

Such social-ecological fit is relevant for any design principle: each principle (e.g., shared decision making) must be implemented in culturally and ecologically fitting ways to ensure acceptance and effectiveness (DeCaro and Stokes 2013, Epstein 2015; cf. Wilson et al. 2013). However, fit may be doubly important for principles of State reinforcement.

Specifically, even though there is cultural variation in how stakeholders implement Ostrom’s design principles for multi-actor cooperation in different SES, they are all generally considered beneficial to cooperation and, therefore, ATG (Ostrom 1990, 2010b). Meaning, by default we assume all key dilemma stakeholders need capacity to communicate, share decisions, etc., to enable robust cooperation (e.g., Folke et al. 2005, Cox et al. 2010, Chaffin et al. 2016b). We cannot make similarly straightforward claims for principles of State reinforcement.

The appropriate type(s) (implementation) and configuration (presence) of authority, responsibility, operational resources, and mechanisms for flexibility/stability depend on the specific actor or collective action process’s role and position in a particular SES and governance network (DeCaro et al. 2017a; cf. McGinnis and Ostrom 2014). In other words, actors’ capacities are specialized. Hence, two forms of fit must be considered for principles of State reinforcement. First, implementation must fit the social-ecological context (e.g., culturally appropriate forms of authority). Second, presence of a particular design principle must fit (i.e., be adequate and appropriate) for the specific actor type and its specialized position (role) in the governance system: not every actor should have constitutional decision-making authority, regulatory power, or any other capacity. Appropriate levels and types of capacity for provision and production depend on the governance situation and actor specialization.

We assume actor archetypes, actors, and actor capacities/constraints need to fit particular niches in the governance of SES, addressing specific aspects (provision and production demands) of complex social-ecological dilemmas (McGinnis 2011, McGinnis and Ostrom 2014), just as species and particular organisms have specialized characteristics enabling them to fit particular niches in complex ecosystems (Ostrom 1994, Holling 2001, Ostrom et al. 2007, Wilson 2014). In fact, institutional differentiation and specialization is the primary rationale for adaptive and transformative forms of governance (Ostrom 2005a, Chaffin et al. 2014, 2016a, DeCaro et al. 2017a). Effective governance of SES is often too complex and uncertain to prescribe a priori, by top-down design. Dilemma stakeholders need sufficient adaptive and/or transformative capacity to self-organize and experiment, precisely so they can devise the governance system(s) (i.e., provision/production relationships) that will be effective for their specific social-ecological dilemma (Ostrom 1994, 1998, Shivakumar 2005). The SRSG framework’s updated SES framework helps analysts comprehend this contextual diversity to diagnose the suitability and understand the effect of different configurations and implementations of design principles in diverse SES.

Social-ecological system framework

The SRSG framework adopts and extends McGinnis’s (2011) concept of “adjacent action situations” and Ostrom’s (2009) SES framework to conceptualize how governance network structure and social-ecological context affect social-ecological fit, processes, and outcomes of ATG. We assume that analysts use these concepts and frameworks by default. The history and analytics of these frameworks are well-documented (see McGinnis and Ostrom 2014, Schlager and Cox 2018). Therefore, we do not review that information here. We instead highlight key updates (i.e., analytical conventions) we have developed to complement existing frameworks and better account for SRSG and ATG within the Ostrom family of analytical frameworks (cf. Cole and McGinnis 2017).

In recent years, analysts have begun to examine increasingly complex systems, while placing even greater emphasis on detailed analysis of (1) State action, (2) diverse forms of co-provision and production, and (3) legal and other institutional foundations of ATG. This reorientation has generated increasingly complex descriptions of case systems (e.g., Larson et al. 2013, Sarker 2013), which more traditional analytical methods have struggled to address. McGinnis and Ostrom (2014) raised three concerns about the Ostrom SES framework when attempting to modernize it to better account for this complexity (see also, McGinnis 2011, Cumming et al. 2020).

First, analysts routinely over-simplify their analysis by examining artificially circumscribed dilemmas that entirely ignore or greatly marginalize the critical connections among multiple, interacting social and ecological dilemmas, laws, actors, decision centers (adjacent action situations), and organizational scales (e.g., Larson et al. 2013), which characterize most modern SES. Second, this shortcoming seems to arise because Ostrom’s prior representations of SES make it difficult for analysts to: (1) identify and differentiate critical components (i.e., systems, attributes) and (2) map the structural and functional relationships in their specific cases, especially State/non-State interactions. Many analysts therefore revert to using Ostrom’s earlier IAD (institutional analysis and development) framework or more modern versions that increasingly replicate Ostrom’s SES and other frameworks. Third, the nested dilemmas stakeholders face in a complex social-ecological dilemma are inadequately distinguished and, therefore, routinely glossed over, ignoring the specialized actor archetypes (and institutional capacities) that emerge to address them (cf. Ostrom and Cox 2010).

In practice, we observe analysts struggling to make sense of complex governance systems, hindering their ability to diagnose and propose effective solutions to enable ATG. By “effective,” we mean solutions that resolve focal social-ecological dilemmas, and which fallible human agents can understand and apply (adapt) to their specific problem(s), such as design principles and institutional archetypes suited to particular kinds (classes) of problems.

The SRSG framework introduces a SRSG-SES version of Ostrom and McGinnis’s (2014) SES framework, with four analytical conventions (Fig. 2: #1–4) to help analysts address the aforementioned challenges. These conventions are compatible with Ostrom’s existing frameworks and meant to supplement, not replace them:

1. The focal social-ecological dilemma is delineated into its ecological (e.g., common-pool resource dilemma), technical infrastructural and social elements (e.g., public good dilemmas: governance); these may be further subdivided to illustrate the sub-dilemmas addressed by particular actors and processes.
2. Governance network structure, actor types and their positions(s), role(s), and relationships with important non/government actors are more clearly depicted.
3. Formal/informal action is depicted.
4. Multiple centers of decision-making/governance activity and collective action processes (i.e., action situations) are more clearly differentiated and depicted. These are labeled in terms of provision and production activities to facilitate recognition and analysis of specialization within the governance system.

Figure 2 presents a generic representation of a complex SES and its components. It is not possible to illustrate all possible components, configurations, or SES. Therefore, analysts must adapt the representation to their case (see Ostrom 2005a, McGinnis 2011 for guidance).

It is important to dissect a social-ecological dilemma into its component parts (Fig. 2: #1) to facilitate description and analysis of actors’ specialization(s) and the laws and other institutions that provide the capacity (e.g., authority) and constraints (e.g., responsibilities) for those specializations. Doing so also reveals gaps or deficiencies in those features of the system (Ostrom 2005a, McGinnis 2011). For any focal social-ecological dilemma, we distinguish at least one primary ecological dilemma and collective/public good dilemma (cf. Barfuss et al. 2020). For example, the ecological dilemma may be a common-pool resource dilemma. The collective/public good dilemma will be to provision (i.e., supply: Ostrom 1990) institutional arrangements (e.g., governance systems) to govern the ecological dilemma. These governance systems also determine how other goods and services are to be provisioned and produced (cf. Oakerson 1999, Ostrom 2010c). These dilemmas may be further divided into sub-dilemmas, for example, provisioning (or production) of specific governance system components (or activities) such as regulatory systems (monitoring and enforcement), financing, and maintenance (Gardener et al. 1990, McGinnis 2017). In complex socio-technical networks, provisioning and production of technical infrastructure systems (e.g., irrigation systems) tied to an ecological dilemma (e.g., water dilemma) may also be distinguished as an additional collective/public good dilemma (McGinnis and Ostrom 2014). Finally, in especially complex SES, one may envision multiple such components interacting to create more complex social-ecological dilemmas (e.g., energy-water-food nexus dilemmas). Analysts specializing in particular sectors of larger dilemmas, may therefore combine smaller SES diagrams (and analyses) to get a more comprehensive view of the system and dilemma in its entirety.

In complex governance systems, stakeholders typically span diverse types of governmental and non-governmental actors, arranged into various organizations and/or collectives (Fig. 2: #2). Furthermore, these actors may perform multiple relevant functions (#4), which are affected (enabled/constrained) by diverse, complementary (and/or contradictory) laws and policies (#3). The governance network structure, represented by the entirety of the SRSG-SES diagram, helps analysts account for the independent and joint effects of these components on the governance system(s) and outcomes. Analysts can also use this diagrammatic approach to identify potential gaps in actor types, collective action processes, and policies needed to support important types of co-provision and production.

Analysts familiar with Ostrom institutional analysis may wonder where action situations are represented in the SRSG-SES framework. Action situations are figurative centers of stakeholder deliberation and decision-making (Ostrom 1990, Cole and McGinnis 2017). Networks of action situations are complex, consisting of linked and overlapping centers of activity, making individual action situations more difficult to cleanly identify and represent (Ostrom 2005a, McGinnis 2011). For simplicity, we represent individual action situations as the elements within the Collective Action area of Figure 2 (#4). These action situations correspond with specific sub/dilemmas in the social-ecological dilemma, indicating collective action processes specialized to particular provision and production activities or functions. Any of these action situations maybe considered focal, depending on the analyst’s objectives and perspective.

Guidance

We assume analysts are familiar with conceptual and methodological guidelines for applying the Ostrom frameworks (see McGinnis 2011, Polski and Ostrom 2017). In this section, we discuss some important nuances relevant to the analysis of SRSG and ATG. Specifically, we outline the major steps of applying the SRSG framework (Table 2). Some steps are self-explanatory. Therefore, we describe a few steps that require more explanation.

State orientation(s)

The State is not unitary: it is the manifestation of diverse government entities performing numerous activities across jurisdictional scales (e.g., national, state, transregional; Ostrom 2000, 2005a). These entities occupy various roles and may therefore engage in any number of co-provisional and/or productive relationships, representing diverse orientations toward de/centralization (Agrawal and Ribot 1999, Bardhan 2006, Andersson and Ostrom 2008). Moreover, any single entity (e.g., government agency) may perform multiple functions, exhibiting different relationships with particular actors and dilemmas. These orientations may be relatively permissive (laissez faire), facilitative, tyrannical, exploitative, antagonistic, or collaborative, among other possible orientations (Shivakumar 2005, Agrawal and Ribot 2006, Kemper et al. 2007). State reinforcement and constraint are the sum of the State’s relationships, which may be complementary and/or contradictory, resulting in complex forms of State reinforcement. The SRSG framework urges analysts to identify these relationships to describe how they influence mal/adaptation and transformation.

Actor capacities and constraints

Actors (individuals, organizations, collectives) are the agents that ultimately create and react to institutions (Ostrom 1980a, 1998). Because of Elinor Ostrom’s emphasis on multi-actor cooperation as a basis for ATG (Ostrom 1990, 2005a), analysts commonly analyze the capacity of collectives to cooperatively govern social-ecological dilemmas (cf. Ostrom and McGinnis 2014, Schlager and Cox 2018). However, few analyze the capacity of individual actors (e.g., organizations) to adaptively and transformatively govern themselves, independent of the focal dilemma. We believe this is a critical oversight.

According to Ostrom (1992, 2005a), the capacity of actors to govern themselves, separate from the focal dilemma, directly affects their capacity to govern the focal dilemma. According to Ostrom, this internal capacity for organizational self-governance derives from constitutive and constitutional decision-making authority (cf. McGinnis 2017). In addition, Ostrom (1992, 2005a) argued that when a particular form of self-organization is integral to long-term collective action to overcome particular types of social-ecological dilemmas, these institutional arrangements are commonly codified as particular organizational and institutional archetypes, with specialized capacities (cf. Ostrom and Ostrom 2017). For example, as noted earlier, NPOs are common organizational archetypes for collective action in a variety of dilemmas. These archetypes have been formally codified due to their robust usefulness to diverse societies (Singh et al. 2022). Other organizational archetypes, for example, subordinated administrative units (e.g., some government departments), fulfill important niches in ATG. However, this may be a more limited niche, because such archetypes typically lack robust constitutional, fiscal, or higher administrative authority to govern themselves, i.e., limiting their adaptability and transformational capacity. This archetype often struggles to address changing conditions, making it a potentially problematic solution for decentralized roles that require flexibility or diversified functions (e.g., Ribot et al. 2006).

Our emphasis on institutional archetypes and organizational self-governance highlights a critical, but often overlooked facet of fit. Adaptive and transformative governance emerges from the independent and joint capacities of individual actors, organized into various advantageous configurations, or “polycentric orders” (Ostrom 1994, 2010b; cf. Wilson 2014). It is therefore essential to ensure well-chosen assemblages of actors within particular governance networks. It is also, therefore, essential for analysts to study the adaptive and transformative capacity of key actors and institutional archetypes (cf. Ostrom 2005a, McGinnis 2011, McGinnis and Ostrom 2014).

Fundamental policies

Actors derive their capacities from formal and informal rule systems. They or other actors create these rule systems to govern (1) their institutional archetype(s) and (2) the specific role(s) or functions (i.e., permissible actions) those archetypes are authorized and required to play (McGinnis 2017). In other words, actors are constitutional agents. They create and derive power (i.e., authority) from the social and institutional contracts they create to govern societal affairs (Ostrom 1980b, 2010a). It is therefore critical to analyze the fundamental policies (i.e., constitutions, agreements) governing key actors (Ostrom 2008a).

Such policies may span national, state, regional, local, and transregional and/or trans-sector policies. For example, in the U.S., non-profit land trusts are fundamentally governed (constituted) by federal policies governing NPOs (i.e., U.S. Code 501(c)3), analogous State policies (e.g., IL General Not-For-Profit Act), and policies specific to the NPO’s mission (e.g., IL Open Land Trust Act). There may also be constitutional agreements, local policies, or fundamental organizational policies governing a particular actor or institutional archetype (e.g., articles of incorporation, bylaws). Finally, analysts may also need to analyze secondary policies that indirectly but importantly affect actors’ capacities. For example, land trusts that sponsor community greenspace are indirectly affected by city ordinances governing landscape maintenance, among other things (e.g., Kirshbaum 2000).

Network structure

Governance network structure is a highly researched topic (Barnes et al. 2017, Kellogg and Samanta 2018, Stephan et al. 2019). Rather than duplicate that discussion, we highlight a potentially important observation made in case studies using the SRSG framework. Many ATG systems feature a central, multi-stakeholder collective or bridge organization that serves as the collaborative center for diverse stakeholders. This decision arena is where key stakeholders communicate, share decision making, and wield joint authority over the social-ecological dilemma (e.g., Garmestani and Benson 2013, Dennis et al. 2020). This structural feature may not be universal. However, lack of a central, power-sharing and coordinating body, and the policies to support its creation and productivity is a potentially important diagnostic feature. We therefore recommend that analysts investigate whether and how in/formal policy provisions reinforce (i.e., authorize, require, fund) such collective decision-making bodies.

In/formality nexus

Adaptive and transformative governance emerges from the nexus of formal and informal institutional arrangements (Ostrom 2005a, b, Jaffe and Koster 2019). To understand their joint influence, we recommend that analysts start with formal (de jure) capacities and constraints. This approach creates a baseline for analysis by characterizing the formal capacities particular actors or archetypes were “designed” to possess (State reinforcement by design). De jure capacities can then be contrasted and integrated with informal capacities, helping to clarify de facto (i.e., observed) capacities (de facto State reinforcement) and their consequences (e.g., Simatele et al. 2017, DeCaro et al. 2025a).

Evaluation, synthesis, and conclusions

Frameworks enable analysts to use diverse methods to investigate fundamental questions about human governance (Schlager 2019). The case studies in this special issue illustrate diverse qualitative and quantitative methods for examining fundamental questions about State reinforced co-provision/co-production and ATG (e.g., DeCaro et al. 2025a, Frimpong Boamah et al. 2025). In each case, analysts assess (code and evaluate) the presence/absence, adequacy, and/or appropriateness of the design principles listed in Table 1, with the goal to draw inferences about adaptive and/or transformative capacity, State influence, and ATG. Such analyses can be descriptive and/or normative (cf. Poteete et al. 2010).

Descriptive analysis is important because the SRSG framework assumes that design principles (adaptive/transformative capacities) (1) are configurative, interacting with one another in complex ways, (2) are implemented differently in different social-ecological settings, and (3) therefore have different potential or apparent outcomes in different SES. The scientific community’s understanding of this diversity is limited. We therefore suggest that an analyst’s primary goal is to describe the specific ways that particular configurations and implementations of principles, processes, and outcomes exist and relate to one another in particular SES (cf. Ostrom et al. 2007, Baggio et al. 2016). Accumulated knowledge can then facilitate theory regarding generalization and boundary conditions.

However, analysts may also want to make normative judgments, such as evaluating the mal/adaptiveness of particular institutional arrangements or proposing policy recommendations. These analysts need methods to measure and then judge the presence/absence, adequacy, and appropriateness of the implemented design principles within particular institutional arrangements (Crawford and Ostrom 2005). Such normative conclusions are more difficult to draw and justify (Siders 2019, Clement et al. 2024). At a minimum, normative judgements require evaluative criteria (Engle 2011). Deficient or absent communication, shared decision making, and other design principles for multi-actor cooperation (Table 1) are generally understood to contribute to maladaptation and transformation in the form of poor coordination, intractable conflict, and institutional rigidity (Cox et al. 2010). There are also accepted conventions for evaluating these principles (cf. Ratajczyk et al. 2016).

The criteria to normatively evaluate design principles for State reinforcement are less obvious because diverse actors specialize to address particular aspects of the dilemma. For example, what are the adequate and appropriate types of authority for specific actors in particular SES? These judgments are difficult to make (Ratajczyk et al 2016) because they depend on institutional fit and emergent demands of the situation, which require considerable case knowledge and analytical expertise to comprehend (Ostrom et al. 2007, Rijke et al. 2012).

In some domains, scholars understand the contextual demands sufficiently well to articulate normative evaluative criteria, which identify the minimum required functions (e.g., operational capacities) needed to address particular aspects of the dilemma. For example, there is scholarly consensus that, in the provision and governance of urban community greenspace, some entity/entities need capacity to acquire land; protect the land from redevelopment; make governance decisions and coordinate the non/governmental and community stakeholders; manage the greenspaces; provide water, property, and liability insurance; and pay property taxes (e.g., Kirshbaum 2000, Parks and People Foundation 2000, Schukoske 2000). Analysts may therefore determine the extent to which these operational capacities are sufficiently and appropriately granted to key stakeholders. However, judging adequate and appropriate levels of constitutional or administrative decision-making authority may be more challenging (cf. Ostrom 1980a, b) in a complex governance network (cf. McGinnis 2011). When criteria are unclear, analysts may need to rely on theories and principles of political economy (e.g., federalism, subsidiarity, division of powers; Ostrom 1994, Cosens et al. 2017), resilience law (e.g., reflexivity; Ruhl 2011, Craig et al. 2017), and/or case experience, treating proposed evaluative criteria as hypotheses for investigation.

The SRSG framework is a complex analytical tool that takes time to master. We highlighted some basic features of the framework and its application. The best way to develop proficiency is with practice (analyzing one’s own cases) and exposure. The case studies in this special issue provide more exposure. To facilitate understanding, we briefly discuss two contrasting cases drawn from the special issue. These cases illustrate basic application and analytical principles of the SRSG framework.

DEMONSTRATION

Our demonstration deals with community greenspace access, governance, and management (upkeep) in racially marginalized urban neighborhoods. The first case takes place in Chicago, Illinois (IL); the second, Louisville, Kentucky (KY). These are two cities characterized by historically deficient neighborhood greenspace and different solution strategies. These case examples illustrate different State orientations toward co-provision and production; different institutional archetypes, governance network structures, and outcomes (success and failure); in/formality; and the importance of fit. Both are conducted by DeCaro et al. (2025a, b).

Greenspaces (e.g., forests, parks, community gardens) are biodiversity reservoirs, improve localized air quality, mitigate localized warming (urban heat island effect), and provide numerous other ecosystem services that benefit human welfare (Haq 2011). Greenspace is limited in many cities worldwide, especially in historically marginalized racial/ethnic communities (Rigolon et al. 2018, Sun et al. 2022). The social-ecological dilemma is complex, with many drivers. Briefly, marginalized neighborhoods are areas of political, economic, and social disenfranchisement, concentrated poverty, and current (or past) industrial activity, resulting in extreme urbanization and vacant/abandoned property (Green et al. 2016, Nardone et al. 2021). Eligible land may have substantial debt (liens) and is typically controlled by numerous uncoordinated and poorly documented owners. Cities with insufficient greenspace typically lack coherent greenspace policies or city-wide plans, viewing community greenspace as a luxury or suboptimal land use compared to profitable development opportunities (Cahn and Segal 2016). There are also competing legal and political jurisdictions to contend with (Chaffin et al. 2016b, Schifman et al. 2017). Few marginalized residents have the capacity to formally overcome these barriers. Instead, some residents form informal community-governed greenspaces, illegally squatting on vacant lots, which is a type of informal self-organization (A^-R^-).

There are many possible solutions for community greenspace governance and delivery, representing different forms of de/centralization, co-provision, and production (Colding et al. 2013). Our examples focus on government-sponsored programs that seek to enable collective provision and production of greenspaces by government entities, specifically to be governed and maintained by local communities. Figure 3 illustrates a case of robust SRSG and co-provisional and productive success (Chicago). Figure 4 illustrates a case of weak SRSG and failure (Louisville).

Case 1: Chicago’s NeighborSpace partnership

The focal action situation in this case pertains to the provision of the governance system to resolve the overarching dilemma of city-wide access to greenspace in marginalized neighborhoods (Fig. 3). Adjacent action situations include those pertaining to the acquisition and provision of the greenspaces in a usable form (e.g., property rights, debt forgiveness) and co-provision and production of greenspace governance and management, respectively.

Prior to 1996, marginalized neighborhoods in Chicago lacked formal mechanisms to ensure community greenspace (Chicago et al. 1998). Federal lawsuits brought against the city by the U.S. Department of Justice (claiming racial discrimination) culminated into a federal consent decree (enforceable remediation agreement) that triggered major policy reforms and governmental reorganization. Among these transformations was the creation of NeighborSpace, a non-profit land trust organization specifically designed to collaborate with local communities, other NPOs, and key government actors to address the dilemma (Parks and People Foundation 2000, Helphand 2015, Ela 2016).

NeighborSpace (focal actor) was created by three city partners responsible for urban greenspace: mayor’s office, Chicago Park district, and Forest Preserve district of Cook County. The partners entered a formal intergovernmental agreement (1996/1998 ordinance), bestowing NeighborSpace with formal authority and responsibility to acquire and protect small lots for community greenspace. The agreement and NeighborSpace’s bylaws specify that the partnership is to be governed by a well-balanced board of directors, consisting of NeighborSpace administrative officers (e.g., president), government representatives from each partner organization, and community interests (e.g., ward alderman). The board is the central communication, shared decision-making, and rulemaking body, linking the key stakeholders. Each city partner is formally obligated to provide US$100,000 annually (US$300,000 total) in financial support (external operational resources). As a federally and state-recognized 501(c)3 non-profit land trust organization (U.S. Code §501(c)3; IL General Not-for-Profit Act: §102.10, §103.10; IL Open Land Trust Act:§20), NeighborSpace is self-governing, possessing considerable constitutive, constitutional, administrative, and fiscal authority. Among its fiscal powers is to receive property tax exemptions, increased capacity for waived liens, and the ability to fundraise and accept charitable donations (including land/property), enhancing its internal resource capacities (i.e., self-sufficiency). In a typical year, NeighborSpace acquires approximately US$300,000–US$400,000 in such non-governmental sponsorship. As a land trust, NeighborSpace’s properties are legally protected from redevelopment in perpetuity.

The agreement and bylaws governing NeighborSpace explicitly require NeighborSpace to ensure that the greenspaces are governed and maintained by local community groups. NeighborSpace fulfills this requirement by entering a formal community partnership agreement for each site: the agreement requires interested community members to develop a leadership team, formal management plan, identify a local community sponsor organization (e.g., church), and enlist several community members as dedicated users. In exchange, local communities govern the sites themselves, as constitutional and administrative agents. These arrangements are reviewed annually, with assistance of Neighborspace’s Stewardship Coordinator.

This system exhibits the hallmarks of SRSG. Chicago lacked an actor and collective action process with sufficient capacities (authority, responsibility, operational resources) to provide greenspace in marginalized neighborhoods. After being compelled (required) by federal consent decree, key city actors pooled their existing capacities to create an innovative, polycentric solution that addressed their major capacity limitations. The City of Chicago (mayor’s office, city council) derived this authority from general powers (home rule) granted by the state’s constitution: Illinois devolves essential city governance activities to municipal government(s). Various federal and state laws further authorize actors to create non-profit land trusts to resolve social-ecological dilemmas. The city partners used this solution to create NeighborSpace, imbuing it with essential operational powers and duties, including formal capacities and requirements for multi-actor cooperation. The governance system transitioned from State oppression and neglect, fragmentation, and informal self-governance (i.e., A^-R^-E^-SS^-) to robust SRSG, polycentric coordination, and formal self-governance (i.e., A⁺R⁺E⁺SS⁺). NeighborSpace currently sponsors 120 community-governed greenspaces, serving predominantly Black and Hispanic marginalized areas. An estimated 98% of Chicago’s population is within walking distance of a greenspace/park thanks in part to the NeighborSpace Partnership (Trust for Public Land 2022; cf. DeCaro et al. 2025b).

Case 2: Louisville’s extension service partnership

Superficially, Louisville’s case system is similar to Chicago’s in that Louisville Metro Government (LMG) also partnered with a bridge organization to co-sponsor community-governed greenspace. However, the governance systems are fundamentally different from a SRSG standpoint (Fig. 4). First, the bridge organization is poorly fit, an inappropriate institutional archetype. Louisville Metro Government chose a local administrative office of Kentucky’s Cooperative Extension Service (JCCE) to implement the program. However, Extension offices are formally designed (authorized) to engage in agricultural research/development, education, and outreach (Diekmann et al. 2017), not community greenspace provision (e.g., governance) and production (e.g., access, management; Smith-Lever Act §1-2,4(c); Kentucky Revised Statutes §164.655(2,7)). Extension service is prohibited (responsibility) to own, rent, or lease property for this purpose (Morrill Act §2; Smith-Lever Act §5). This constraint limits JCCE Office’s ability to acquire and protect community greenspace.

The partnership agreement is informal, based on an undocumented verbal agreement between LMG and JCCE Office’s parent organization, the University of Kentucky (UK). There is a separate formal agreement (MOA §1) that authorizes JCCE Office to conduct general operations in Louisville. However, the formal agreement does not mention greenspace. The JCCE Office’s authority and responsibility to engage in community greenspace governance and management activities are informal and poorly specified. This informality hinders coordination and causes confusion and conflict among the key stakeholders (DeCaro et al. 2025a).

The JCCE Office is a subordinate administrative unit, with limited administrative powers. It is governed hierarchically by LMG, UK, Kentucky’s Director of Extension (who is also UK’s Director of Extension), Jefferson County’s Extension Board (upon which JCCE Office has no representation), and local councilpersons in the communities of the sponsored greenspaces (e.g., Smith-Lever Act §1(2); KRS §164.655(4,5); Louisville Ordinance §32.331). The JCCE Office lacks both constitutional decision-making and rule-making authority. The office is expected to implement the decisions and obey the rules made by these higher administrative and regulatory agents (e.g., LMG, UK Extension Director), limiting JCCE Office’s capacity to address current and emergent demands itself. For example, LMG requires every greenspace user (gardener) to sign an extensive 23-point, responsibility-heavy community garden agreement. The JCCE Office’s requests to alter the community garden agreement and the informal partnership agreement to address known problems have been routinely denied.

The JCCE Office’s funding is insufficient, and it lacks robust forms of self-sufficiency, making it fiscally dependent on LMG. Louisville Metro Government pays JCCE Office US$350,000 annually (the entirety of its formal operating budget, beyond UK’s contribution of staff salary). The office is informally authorized to use US$50,000 of this amount for the greenspace program. Cooperative Extension Districts may collect taxes to fund local offices (KRS §164.665(8–17)). However, JCCE District was not granted this authority (MOA §3). Extension districts/offices may also collect fees for services rendered to fund those operations (self-sufficiency). The JCCE Office collects garden (allotment) fees from the gardeners (approximately US$10,000 annually). However, the greenspaces cost approximately US$65,0000 annually to maintain.

The greenspaces are not self-governing. After neighborhood complaints of poor upkeep, and subsequent regulatory intervention by LMG, UK, and local councilpersons, JCCE Office took control to ensure better compliance. In practice, JCCE Office governs and maintains (e.g., mows, regulates) each site in a landlord/renter relationship. A single staff member oversees all 10 sites, spread throughout Louisville. The JCCE Office struggles to supervise the sites due to financial, administrative, and regulatory constraints. Because of these factors and lack of community self-governance, the office has not expanded operations to additional sites for several years, despite growing demand and need. Currently, only half the sites serve marginalized, predominantly Black/African American residents. Only about 33% of Louisville’s population is in walking distance of greenspaces/parks (Trust for Public Land 2023).

Finally, the key stakeholders rarely communicate or share decisions, except for routine financial administration, to handle crises or regulate JCCE Office and/or non-compliant garden users. These discussions do not empower JCCE Office or communities to co-provision greenspace governance or management. Enforcement is robust, to regulate JCCE Office’s activities, but other stakeholders (e.g., JCCE Office, garden users) lack effective ways to hold higher agents accountable. The JCCE Office bears the greatest costs (labor, service provision) while LMG, UK, and, to some extent, garden users, reap the benefits (i.e., low equity).

The governance network structure is hierarchic yet fragmented with regard to greenspace provision and production. Multi-actor cooperation is deficient, partly because there are no formal authorizations or requirements for communication and shared decision making among the key stakeholders. Community governance of the sites is deficient because, unlike Chicago’s NeighborSpace partnership, there are no formal authorizations or requirements for community self-governance. However, there are formal (e.g., lease agreements) and informal requirements (verbal agreement, threat of funding revocation) for JCCE Office to maintain the sites.

The Louisville case is a prime example of divested responsibility, and recentralization while decentralizing (Ribot et al. 2006), common forms of maladaptive decentralization. This case also illustrates the importance of formal-informal institutional arrangements. The JCCE Office is a responsibility-heavy entity (A^-R⁺). Formally, the office is required to implement goals and decisions made by higher constitutional and administrative agents (e.g., LMG, UK). It is fiscally dependent on these agents (A^-R⁺E⁺SS^-), further undermining its organizational self-governance and, therefore, basic adaptive and transformative capacity to address the focal dilemma. The office also lacks necessary operational capacities for land acquisition and protection. Nevertheless, LMG and UK/KY’s Extension Director use their formal powers to compel JCCE Office to informally govern and maintain greenspaces. Lacking essential capacities, the office coped (i.e., adapted) by abandoning community governance, restricting expansion to other sites, and prioritizing site maintenance. The JCCE Office did this without transforming underlying institutional arrangements or the associated configuration of design principles. The result is a weak form of State-reinforced co-provision and production that provides some adaptive benefits but lacks sufficient transformative capacity to address larger, more pressing needs.

DISCUSSION

Humans, acting as constitutional agents, use the basic building blocks of institutions (i.e., design principles) to form increasingly complex configurations of these principles into institutional archetypes, in/formal rule systems, governance networks, and, finally, the complex institutional arrangements we call governance systems (Ostrom 1980a, 2005a, Wilson et al. 2013). Our goal, in this paper, was to introduce a framework that helps analysts understand these systems and their adaptive/transformative capacity, from the ground up, similar to the way chemists analyze complex chemical compounds in terms of basic elements and chemical structures that possess particular properties. Because of the periodic table of elements, chemists can classify compounds into archetypes and anticipate their reactions in different environments, enabling humans to use these properties to solve problems (Scerri 2020). With sufficient time and tools, humans may achieve the same proficiency in analyzing and designing institutional archetypes and ATG systems to address social-ecological dilemmas.

To achieve this level of institutional development, scientists, policymakers, and members of the public will need basic knowledge of institutional elements, as well as basic institutional archetypes, rules, and governance networks for resolving particular kinds of dilemmas (akin to basic knowledge of chemistry, physics, or any other science of complex systems; Ostrom 2005a, DeCaro et al. 2017b). Social scientists are only beginning to articulate the conceptual and analytical tools needed to facilitate this transformation in human understanding (Ostrom 2010a, c). Therefore, we do not present the SRSG framework as final, and we hesitate to offer definitive solutions or theoretical propositions.

We present the SRSG framework as a work in progress. State-reinforced self-governance here is not a panacea. Governance systems are socio-technical tools humans use to govern societal dilemmas (Ostrom 1980a, 1998). These tools interact with context in complex ways, yielding complex outcomes (Ostrom et al. 2007). They must also be used wisely (Moser and Ekstrom 2010, DeCaro et al. 2017b). Humans can fail to activate existing capacities (e.g., Doremus 2010, Moser and Ekstrom 2010, Garmestani et al. 2019), use the wrong institutional archetype(s) (e.g., DeCaro et al. 2025a), or use ATG systems to exploit particular stakeholders and SES, rather than promote their integrity (e.g., U.S. use of ATG to exploit marginalized Black communities and their neighborhoods: Pritchett 2003, Connolly and Anguelovski 2021).

We envision a time when analysts have sufficient knowledge to identify design principles and articulate propositions about their relationships, such as cultural and contextual variation; properties inherent to assemblages of particular types of authority and responsibility; and meta-principles regarding “balance” of constitutional vs. administrative authority, responsibility, and/or external support and self-sufficiency. We maintain that the policies that enable ATG systems are context specific (Ostrom et al. 2007). However, the SRSG framework can provide guidance in the form of working hypotheses (i.e., analytical propositions).

First, governance systems are the product of their constituent parts (e.g., design principles, institutional archetypes, actors, networks, in/formal rules, and processes) interacting with each other and with numerous social-ecological factors, in particular contexts (Chaffin et al. 2016b, Ostrom 2009). Adaptive and transformative governance is an emergent property of these interactions, arising from some unknown function dependent on human fallibility, ingenuity, and cooperation (Ostrom 1980a, 1998). The challenge is understanding when, why, and how these agents use the tools available (e.g., design principles, social contracts, in/formal policies) to create systems with particular mal/adaptive and mal/transformative properties (Ostrom 2005a).

Second, ATG emerges when the right actors and collective action processes possess sufficient and appropriate authority, responsibility, operational resources, and mechanisms for flexibility/stability to independently and collectively problem solve. The challenge lies in identifying these arrangements (DeCaro et al. 2017a).

Third, constitutive and constitutional decision-making agency are fundamental to transformative governance. Actors (and collective action processes) that lack this authority exhibit diminished transformative capacity because they cannot create or decide new arrangements to fundamentally alter their institutional archetype, organizational makeup, goals, role(s)/responsibilities, procedures, and/or policies (cf. Ostrom 1992, McGinnis 2017).

The basis for this proposition is evident when we consider that assignment and balance of constitutive and constitutional authority lie at the heart of discussion on public participation (Arnstein 1969, Reed 2008), civic agency (Ostrom 2006), State control (Hobbes 1947), co-production and societal self-governance (Ostrom 1980b, 1994, 1996, 2010a). Fundamentally, these issues are about the in/formal assignment of constitutive and constitutional decision-making authority to particular actors, to determine the other institutional arrangements (e.g., regulatory, operational, fiscal) that govern human affairs. The challenge is to determine the optimal assignment(s) of constitutive/constitutional capacities and constraints for particular social-ecological dilemmas and contexts. This challenge is a matter of constitutional political economy, and the State (Buchanan 1987). The study of ATG can therefore be reframed as the study of constitutional economics for societal and social-ecological resilience (cf. Ostrom 1994, 2005a, Shivakumar 2005). Analyses and solutions that fail to recognize this connection seem to ignore the very foundation of ATG.

Fourth, continuing the previous proposition: SRSG is fundamentally about understanding the ways and contexts in which particular States, State actions, and orientations or relationships are beneficial or detrimental to societal and social-ecological resilience (Ostrom 2005a, 2010a, Sarker 2013, DeCaro et al. 2017a). This proposition also implies that there is no single best State, State action, or orientation (Ostrom et al. 2007). More importantly, the challenge is for analysts to systematically and precisely classify the manifestation(s) of the State within specific SES and social-ecological dilemmas, inclusive of its national, state, local, hyper local, and regional/transboundary scales and processes (cf. Ostrom 2005b).

Examining these propositions is currently beyond human analytical capacity and may never be fully achieved, given the complexity and evolving nature of human and social-ecological affairs. The first step in achieving greater analytical power is to articulate a vision and obvious goals for research. We have done that. The second step is to address the most obvious methodological challenges and opportunities.

Computational and analytical challenges

It is important to consider the computational (and analytical) demands required to fully investigate these propositions. We address two challenges: the number or complexity of policies to code and interpret, and archetype classification.

The problem of coding effort is partially addressed by Step 1 of our recommendations for applying the SRSG framework (Table 2). Focusing on a particular scale and focal social-ecological dilemma reduces the focal actors, processes, and policies to analyze. Analysts may also wish to target specific design principles (e.g., authority), institutional arrangements, or sectors in a particular study. Subsequent studies examining additional components could then be synthesized, creating a cohesive picture of the system. Finally, some foundational policies (e.g., U.S. Clean Water Act) are complex and lengthy. We envision a time when foundational policies, in particular sectors/dilemmas, are coded into base principles using standardized nomenclature, and then stored in open access repositories for widespread use, just as chemists do not reanalyze the atomic composition and properties of common compounds (e.g., H₂O) every time someone wants to study something about water reactivity (cf. Scerri 2020). Recent developments in computer-assisted coding and analysis within the burgeoning field of computational institutional science are already laying foundations for this vision (Rice et al. 2021). When perfected, computer-assisted coding should greatly reduce labor required for coding, allowing analysts to focus on deeper conceptual and analytical aspects of coded policies.

Regarding classification and description of institutional archetypes, the Base 3 Typology enables a diverse array of archetypes to be classified into four circumscribed and meaningful categories: self-organizing, responsibility heavy, State reinforced: authorized, and State reinforced: reinforced. In our experience, these categories account for most of the basic institutional forms scholars and practitioners encounter. Considering additional design features (e.g., shared decision making, enforcement) enables an additional layer of differentiation and analytical description, in terms of cooperative capacities.

Institutional archetypes can be further categorized by actor or organizational type(s) (e.g., government/non-government, non-profit, collective) and roles or functions (e.g., regulator, financier, legislator, bridge; McGinnis and Ostrom 2014). Longer term, we envision a taxonomic classification system like those used for organisms and chemical compounds (Scerri 2020, Padial and De La Riva 2021), enabling institutional archetypes to be classified and understood in terms of base properties, function, and fit to particular problems and environments (cf. Munger 2010, Wilson 2014). This level of scientific understanding seems necessary to enable the human proficiency in institutional analysis and design required for ATG.

Constitutional and behavioral foundations

It is not possible to understand the creation and trajectories of ATGs without understanding human cognition and behavior (Moser and Ekstrom 2010, Ostrom 1998, 2010c, DeCaro et al. 2017b, DeCaro 2019). Constitutional decision making is the foundation of human governance. Humans use constitutions (social contracts) to convey basic capacities and constraints (fundamental rules of the game), governing human affairs (Ostrom 1980a, 1998). Therefore, we must understand constitutional choice to understand ATG.

The SRSG framework’s emphasis on design principles as the building blocks of institutional arrangements implies that design principles feature prominently in constitutional choice. In particular, constitutional choice (i.e., institutional design) is about negotiating and deciding the fundamental authorities, responsibilities (roles, duties), operational resources (and other design principles) assigned to, and governing, particular actors and human affairs. Vincent Ostrom called this process Faustian Bargaining (e.g., Ostrom 1980b, 2008b), striking a deal with the devil, to convey the high stakes involved in these negotiations. Specifically, stakeholders exchange individual powers for collective powers enshrined within states, government(s), and self-governing collectives (e.g., Tarko et al. 2019; cf. Sproule-Jones et al. 2008). However, very little is known about the specific reasoning and decision-making processes involved in institutional design. If analysts are to facilitate ATG, then more attention needs to be applied to analyzing the Faustian Bargain processes and constitutional choice underlying such cases.

Conceptualizing the State

Finally, SRSG research warrants greater scrutiny of the concept of the “State.” We followed contemporary conventions, assuming a modern view of the State as consisting of multiple but functionally coherent, formal governments (Painter 2017). However, cultural anthropology, sociology, and other social sciences acknowledge diverse concepts and formulations of State and non-State, actors, and processes (Börzel and Risse 2010, Stepputat and Nuijten 2018, Pierre and Peters 2020). For example, the State can be viewed as a social construct, emerging from myriad social relations, transactions, and governance practices among particular people or societies. This conceptualizing of the State exists in the minds of particular social groups and persists in cultural understanding, above and beyond formal institutions, government actions, and perhaps even objective reality (i.e., political beliefs). Hence subjective concepts of the State by citizens, scholars, and policymakers construct the State, and heavily influence State function and outcomes (Shivakumar 2005, Ostrom 2010a).

Alternative conceptualizations of the State also acknowledge Indigenous governance systems, which may informally perform functions of a modern State yet are rarely recognized academically or popularly as a legitimate system of government (Brigg et al. 2022). Work by Elinor Ostrom (1990, 2010a) and others (e.g., Davies et al. 2023) demonstrate that these systems can be studied as legitimate governance systems, with informal, customary centers of decision-making authority and operational capacities for ATG, which contribute to social-ecological resilience in their own right (see also, McCay 2002, Folke et al. 2005). These aspects of informal and Indigenous governance have not been fully reconciled but invite further scientific analysis (Jaffe and Koster 2019, Wilson et al. 2022). Interplays between formally recognized modern States and Indigenous and/or informal governance systems, as well as Indigenous and/or informal ways of creating and reinforcing (e.g., authorizing, requiring) ATG systems (e.g., McCay 1980, Diver et al. 2022, Davies et al. 2023) are especially relevant to the SRSG perspective. Such research would expand our understanding of the self-organizing quadrant of the Base 3 Typology and facilitate a more comprehensive view of ATG systems.

CONCLUSION

Governance systems have the potential to adapt and transform to benefit human welfare and the vital SES that support life on earth. Human capacity to harness governance systems for this purpose depends in part on humanity’s ability to manipulate the fundamental building blocks of institutions, the design principles that govern human affairs. To do so wisely, humanity needs better understanding of the ways these principles translate into adaptive and transformative capacities in complex assemblages within SES. Humanity also needs to understand how States and their governments facilitate and hinder people’s inherent capacity for self-organization and self-governance via diverse forms of de/centralization, co-provision, and production. The SRSG framework attempts to provide analytical leverage over these issues with updated design principles for State reinforcement and multi-actor cooperation, a typology of institutional archetypes based on those design principles, updated conventions for analyzing SES, and more systematic acknowledgement of State action, roles, and relationships. We hope that analysts can use these tools to better understand past, current, and future analyses of ATGs.

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