This paper provides an overview of our adaptation ofNortonLong's concept of the "ecology of games" into a theoretical framework for analyzing institutional complexity. I discuss the basic concepts of the framework, discuss hypotheses related to fundamental questions in governance and policy, and outline some basic analytical approaches. The conclusion assesses the future prospects of the ecology of games framework, including future research needs for theoretical and empirical development.
In: Journal of policy analysis and management: the journal of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, Volume 23, Issue 3, p. 549-573
In: Journal of policy analysis and management: the journal of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, Volume 23, Issue 3, p. 549-574
In: Political research quarterly: PRQ ; official journal of the Western Political Science Association and other associations, Volume 56, Issue 3, p. 309
In: Political research quarterly: PRQ ; official journal of Western Political Science Association, Pacific Northwest Political Science Association, Southern California Political Science Association, Northern California Political Science Association, Volume 56, Issue 3, p. 309-324
The literature on environmental activism has failed to produce a model of individual decision making explicitly linked to the logic of collective action. To remedy this problem, this article adapts the collective interest model developed by Finkel, Muller, and Opp to explain protest behavior and argues environmental activism is a function of citizen beliefs about collective benefits, the ability to influence collective outcomes, and the selective costs/benefits of participation. The author tests the hypotheses of the collective interest model using data from a survey of 460 residents of a coastal watershed and national data on 1,606 respondents from the 1993 General Social Survey Environment Battery. The author's findings corroborate several central propositions of the collective interest model and provide a theoretical account of environmental activism that synthesizes many previous results.
The consensus-building processes that characterize many environmental partnerships are often thwarted by cognitive conflict, which occurs when stakeholders have conflicting beliefs about the parameters of environmental problems and institutional performance. The author argues cognitive conflict results from stakeholders behaving like intuitive lawyers, who interpret uncertain situations in ways consistent with their self-interest. The implications of this argument are tested using survey data from stakeholders in the Environmental Protection Agency's National Estuary Program. The findings suggest cognitive conflict is a significant source of transaction costs for consensus-building processes, a barrier that should be directly addressed within partnership decision-making structures.