Analyzing Institutional Diversity and Change

Elinor Ostrom - Indiana University

Abstract: The past several decades has seen a blossoming of research on institutions and the incentives that individuals face leading to mixtures of beneficial and adverse consequences.  Many of the panaceas that are thought to be optimal ways of solving social dilemmas work under some circumstances and fail under others.  Why is this the case?  Resource users themselves are frequently able to craft ingenious institutions that are adapted to complex resources at multiple scales – but they can also fail. What explains the successes and the failures?  Further, why is there such an immense institutional diversity found in the field even though many academics  recommend the elimination of that diversity through the adoption of “optimal” policies?   In the field, one can observe a variety of processes that are analytically similar to processes of evolutionary change.  Can we begin to adopt new methods for analyzing diversity, performance, and change?  I will tentative answer yes to this last question and share with colleagues some of our initial efforts to do this.