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Water Management in an Ecology of Games: Observations of a Policy Naturalist

Water Management in an Ecology of Games: Observations of a Policy Naturalist. Mark Lubell, UC Davis UC Davis Policy Networks Conference May 19, 2009. Motivation. Most research on public policy ignores institutional complexity Long’s ecology of games perspective:

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Water Management in an Ecology of Games: Observations of a Policy Naturalist

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  1. Water Management in an Ecology of Games: Observations of a Policy Naturalist Mark Lubell, UC Davis UC Davis Policy Networks Conference May 19, 2009

  2. Motivation • Most research on public policy ignores institutional complexity • Long’s ecology of games perspective: • Rule-structured policy games/venues • Policy outcomes emergent property of multiple games • Games connected through policy networks and payoff externalities

  3. The “Law” of the Colorado River

  4. Sonoma Creek TMDL Bay Area Water Forum IRWM Bay Area Joint Venture

  5. Elementary Units • Policy Issues: Common pool resources and public goods • Policy Actors: Self-interested, boundedly rational pursuing economic and political payoffs • Policy Games: Collective-choice forums where decisions are made about rules governing issues under jurisdiction • Geographically-defined policy arena: Context for interaction among other elements

  6. System-level Properties • Interdependence: Strategy and payoff externalities • Incrementalism and punctuations • Diversity and abundance of policy games • Policy games more central than policy actors • Second-order collective-action problems • Symbolic policy • Core and periphery games and actors linked to political power • Unintended consequences

  7. Possible Model Approaches • Game Theory: Games(s), nested games • Complex adaptive systems: Evolutionary agents • Network analysis and games: endogenous linkages, stability and change • Ecological theory: niche differentiation, energy flow in food webs, abundance/diversity

  8. Affiliation Networks • Focuses on actors choosing to be in games • Good way to deal with complexity of the system • Between-game versus within-game networks • Network stats applicable to both “modes” of a 2-mode matrix • ERGM analyses being developed

  9. Application 1: Bay Area Integrated Regional Water Management • IRWM is state grant program for integrating water management • Bay Area Study : Snowballing from IRWM list • 167/329 responses, 50.8%. • Approximately 117 unique policy games identified, 388 individual policy actors

  10. Identifying Policy Games There are many different forums and processes available for participating in water management and planning in the Bay Area. Planning processes are defined as forums where stakeholders make decisions about water management policies, projects, and funding. In the spaces below, please list the three most important planning/management forums and/or processes that you yourself have participated in during the last three years.

  11. Identifying Policy Actors • “Hybrid” name generator • “For each of the processes/forums named above, please list the other organizations, agencies, or other water management stakeholders with whom you have collaborated.” • Categories: Federal agencies, state government agencies, local or regional agencies including counties/cities, private or non-profit including education

  12. The Bay Area Ecology of Games

  13. Actors and Games with High Eigenvalue Centrality

  14. Degree Distribution of Actors and Games Mean= 3.09 SD= 4.57 Min=1 Max=42 Mean= 9.66 SD= 7.23 Min=1 Max=34 *excludes IRWM

  15. Application 2: Decentralization in Turkey • International trend towards decentralized water management • In EU and aspiring countries, driven by the EU Water Framework Directive that mandates basin planning • Turkey must please EU, maintain Middle East relations, and is currently a hydraulic society”

  16. Water Implementation Network • Using expert knowledge on national laws, identify implementation networks—policy actor responsibility over specific management functions • Dynamic change over decades: 1950-2000

  17. 1950 1960 1980 2000 2000 1950 1990 1970

  18. Conclusions • The ecology of games is the future of policy analysis (general equilibrium versus partial) • Many new questions demand development of new theory with appropriate balance of parsimony and complexity • Network theory and analysis will be useful • Important role for policy naturalists • Developing policy recommendations will be very difficult

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