Pérez Ibarra, Irene

This study characterizes over 30 cases of small-scale agricultural and livestock systems across four continents (Africa, America, Asia, and Europe) using the Coupled Infrastructure Systems (CIS) framework. The analysis identifies system archetypes and explores the socio-ecological variables, both internal and external, that shape these systems. The findings offer insights on the adaptive capacities and transition pathways of these systems in response to global challenges, such as climate change. Internal variables include the type of system (agricultural or livestock-based), resource used (such as irrigation water, pasture, or forest), and the number of users involved in agriculture and livestock. External variables cover factors such as isolation levels, climate conditions, and biome types. Data were gathered through an approximately four-hour online survey, conducted by local researchers familiar with the studied communities. This research is significant as it provides a foundation for developing more effective governance strategies tailored to local realities, with the potential to enhance the sustainability and efficiency of agricultural and livestock systems worldwide.

The Institutional Grammar (IG) is a widely used method for analyzing institutional design, focusing on both the structure and meaning of institutions. While both rules-in-use and rules-in-form are essential for governing common-pool resources and addressing social dilemmas, the IG has primarily been developed to analyze rules-in-form. The complexities of rules-in-use, along with challenges in collecting them, limit the direct application of existing coding protocols designed for rules-in-form. One such challenge is the potential presence of inconsistencies between institutional statements provided by research participants. In this work, we propose a method to address both intra- and inter-participant inconsistencies. We demonstrate how to analyze these discrepancies at both the institutional statement and grammatical element levels, offering strategies for incorporating them into the analysis.

Institutional diversity refers to the variety of rules and norms used to govern shared resources. Its importance for the long-term sustainability of these systems has been widely recognized, as it can enhance our ability to manage them sustainably and to respond to new and unexpected challenges, such as climate change. However, there is a lack of tools to effectively quantify institutional diversity. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of research on institutional diversity to highlight its significance, summarize existing methodological approaches for its study, and propose a framework for developing quantitative studies on the topic. Our proposed approach focuses on three key dimensions: grammatical, taxonomic, and functional. This includes quantifying the richness and diversity of grammatical components in institutional arrangements, categorizing types and taxonomies of rules, and analyzing the functional meaning and structure of institutions using analytical methods such as institutional grammar, the IAD framework, and design principles. We discuss the importance of each component, exploring the contributions of each dimension and its potential to advance our understanding of institutional diversity.