Framework to Analyze the Robustness of Social-Ecological Systems from an Institutional Perspective

"What makes social-ecological systems robust? In this paper we look at the institutional configurations that affect the interactions among resources, resource users, public infrastructure providers, and public infrastructures. We propose a framework that helps to identify potential vulnerabilities of social-ecological systems to disturbances. All of the linkages among the components of this framework can fail and thereby reduce the robustness of the system. We posit that the link between resource users and public infrastructure providers are a key variable affecting the robustness of social-ecological systems that has frequently been ignored in the past. We illustrate the problems caused by a disruption in this link. We then briefly describe the design principles originally developed for robust common-pool resource institutions since they appear to be a good starting point for the development of design principles for more general social-ecological systems and do include the link between resource users and public infrastructure providers."