Power
Many environmental issues are global
- Need international solutions → need international institutions
- Solutions at smaller levels often don't work
- e.g. Colorado River → outflow in Mexico, but most of flow in US
- Need institutional arrangements to fix it
Within many countries where there is a weak federal state
- Real difficult getting environmental solutions implemented through their own federal system
- International level gets involved to help them out
- e.g. Mexico has been struggling with US for a long time to get high quality water
- International arena could help them influence US and get power they don’t otherwise have
Power (Conca, Maniates, Bellah keep using this term)
- Decision making is about choices, interests, etc
- But outcomes have to do with power—actors with power get their way
Types (Faces) of Power
- bargaining
- Ford F150 exercise in discussion section: movement within the zone of potential agreement (ZOPA)
- power increases to the extent the actor can move reservation price higher or lower
- based on alternatives to reaching agreement (BATNA)
- coercive
- by force (financial or military might; also psychological, e.g police)
- rule-making
- structural power (e.g. legislative body)
- having authority or access to those with authority (influence, "being at the table")
- normative
- norms, principles, ideas
- e.g. the Pope's moral authority (Stalin: "How many armies does the Pope have?")
- e.g. Frederick Winslow Taylor's efficiency—has had a huge impact
Property
Context so far has been environmental resources and their institutions; now shift to a broader notion of institution → idea of nested institutions
Property as an institution (nested):
- Object/resource (set of materials, source of benefits to be claimed/taken) →
- Property (claim with exclusion: "it's mine, it's not yours") →
- Property rights (relationship between the benefits of an object and claims of the owner) →
- Property regime/institution (external authority that enforces rights, determines how rights and duties are distributed)
Property is a relationship between the benefits from that object and the claims from the individual, and the exclusion of others, enforced by a third party
3 (rough) Categories of Property
- Private
- Each actor has owns piece of the thing
- Each actor has a right to their piece—can keep all other actors from using their piece
- Common
- Multiple actors all own the thing; no particular pieces belong to any particular actor
- State
- Actors can come in from outside, use it, and leave
- State owns it but allows usage
Example: two private houses/common driveway/state road
- Each person exclusively owns their house to live in (private)
- But they both own the entire driveway, not just each side (common)
- Parking a RV on one person side, but they have to decide together how to use it because it is both of theirs
- Can’t just do anything to it even if it is closer side because the whole thing is shared
- Everyone uses street and sidewalk but then leaves (state)
Nuances: no single definition of power is exclusive of others
- Private means you have some but not complete rights to space
- Can’t dump waste in back, stop planes from flying over, put up billboard
- Can exclude people from it, rebuild house, etc
- Sidewalk is state owned, but private owner has to pay for sidewalk maintenance in front of house
- State has authority to make private owners pay, and responsibility to keep sidewalk open to the public
- Norm: parking spot in front of house is psychologically the house owner's
- Norm: if you shovel a spot after a snowstorm, it's yours
- Squatters can develop property rights if they occupy private property long enough
- de jure
- based on law
- de facto
- what actually happens in practice
Claims of effectiveness of different property regimes
- Ostrom: privatization is the only way to achieve sustainability (people are motivated to protect what they own)
- Others say state is only one with authority to establish rules, enforce compliance
- Or common pool resource?
- Also 4th regime: everyone has access, no one has responsibility → resources will be trashed if sufficient access, technology and demand (ropes removed in pennies game)
What really matters: how well a property regime is run
- Well-defined boundaries
- Congruence between the rules of the institution and sustainability
- High level of responsibility among users
- Nested within a stable, well-defined property regime
- Embedded in a broader, enabling institution
- Greater likelihood of sustainable practice
Maniates: individualist environmentalism of “plant a tree, save the world”
- Appears apolitical and non-confrontational, but constrains imagination
- Control over individual choices is constrained, shaped, and framed by institutions
- Institutions can only be remade by collective action