Institutional panarchy: Adaptations in socio-hydrological governance of the South Dakota Prairie Pothole Region, USA

This study develops and applies the Institutional Panarchy Framework (IPF) to examine institutional adaptations in the rights, rules, and authority to govern public access and use of 'nonmeandered waters' (NMWs) overlying private lands in the South Dakota Prairie Pothole Region (SD PPR). Data collection from March 2017 through July 2019 involved field observations of legislative and other public meetings and review of legislation, policy, court cases, documents, and existing statistics. Findings demonstrated how hydrological changes resulted in everyday, operational level changes in how access and use rights to NMWs were executed, conflict over rules governing use and access of NMWs at the collective choice level, and eventually constitutional level changes in the authority to determine rights and rules of access and use of NMWs. A key contribution for commons and socio-hydrological governance scholarship is that institutional resistance and pressures for change are not unidirectional; feedbacks from lower institutional levels spur change at higher levels and broader scales. Broader policy implications include institutional mechanisms for potential improvements in water quality, farm sustainability, and climate justice.

Coastal Community Resilience and Power in the United States: A Comparative Analysis of Adaptability in North Carolina and Louisiana

Community adaptations to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability depend on adaptability, which is constituted by how power shapes collective mobilization of differential capacities across scales and levels of governance systems. A multidimensional power framework (MPF) to track the role of power in adaptability is presented and applied in a qualitative, comparative case study of two historical fishing communities in the United States. The MPF conceptualizes power as differential capacities at the individual and group levels, structural at the policy level, and systemic, reflective of generalized norms, strategies, and technologies of political economic imperatives. The first case, Two Rivers, North Carolina represents an example of collective action failure resulting in transformation to a new resilience regime consisting of fundamentally altered community functions, structures, and identity. The second case, Delcambre, Louisiana represents collective action success; community adaptations resulted in continuity in change for fisher livelihoods. Success here is defined as the ability to maintain a semblance of structure, function, or identity of the original resilience regime without connotations of positive or negative desirability. The cases were similar in demographics, vulnerabilities, and differential capacities. Key differences existed in systemic political economic imperatives, structural power at the policy level, and the ways closure, the ability to enforce a common sense of place within the communities reflected systemic power. The utility of the MPF is mapping vulnerabilities and differential capacities against broader structures and systemic processes to inform effective mobilization for improved socio-ecological resilience and sustainability.

Active non-participation among local natural resource-dependent communities: the case of North Carolina fisheries governance

The great emphasis placed on the democratic participation of local user groups as necessary for sustainable natural resource and environmental governance by scholars, advocates, and practitioners of collaborative natural resource management demands a greater focus on who is and who is not participating in governance processes, why, and the potential consequences. This project examines a case where commercial fishers in North Carolina practice active non-participation regarding the governance of sea turtles, spotted seatrout and gill nets. Active non-participation is a choice to not participate in formal political activities. Data was collected through observations, interviews and document and policy review. An important finding from this study is that the active non-participation of commercial fishers is contributing to their displacement from, as well as the mismanagement of, the fisheries they depend upon for a living.