Using the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework to Examine Conflict and Cooperation in Transboundary CPRs

Abstract

The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework provides a stable theoretical platform for engaging in comparative institutional analysis. It provided the foundation for the study of local level governance of common pool resources for which Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. Building on that work this panel examines the comparative design and performance of governing arrangements for larger scale common pool resources in which the central actors are not individual resource users, but governments. In particular, transboundary rivers face multiple coordination challenges, particularly when droughts combine with other disturbances to trigger tensions and disputes among users and across political borders. This panel uses the Rio Bravo / Grande in North America as an in-depth observatory to understand the factors and institutions influencing patterns of conflict and cooperation in federal rivers - a major river within or shared by a federal political system and an important form of transboundary CPR. The territorial division of authority in federal political systems distributes powers and functions between users, states and national governments, creating coordination dilemmas when roles and responsibilities are shared or unclear. The Rio Bravo is an archetypical federal river due its physical and political geography. A major tributary originates in Mexico (Rio Conchos) and the US (Upper Rio Grande); each is shared between the US and Mexico and by multiple states within them, creating interstate and international coordination dilemmas. The Rio Bravo therefore offers the opportunity to compare the evolution and performance of transboundary water governance in two federal political systems with contrasting approaches to decision-making and conflict resolution across states, providing special insight about the theory, evidence and methods needed to study and compare this class of transboundary CPR.