Mark Lubell, UC Davis
UC Davis Policy Networks Conference
May 19, 2009
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Most research on public policy ignores
institutional complexity
Long’s ecology of games perspective:
1. Rule-structured policy games/venues
2. Policy outcomes emergent property of multiple
games
3. Games connected through policy networks and
payoff externalities
Sonoma
Creek TMDL
Bay Area
Water
Forum
IRWM
Bay Area
Joint Venture
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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
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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
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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
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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
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IRWM is state grant program for integrating
water management
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Bay Area Study : Snowballing from IRWM list
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167/329 responses, 50.8%.
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Approximately 117 unique policy games
identified, 388 individual policy actors
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.
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“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
Mean= 3.09
SD= 4.57
Min=1
Max=42
Mean= 9.66
SD= 7.23
Min=1
Max=34
*excludes IRWM
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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”
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Using expert knowledge on national laws,
identify implementation networks—policy
actor responsibility over specific management
functions
Dynamic change over decades: 1950-2000
Planning and Monitoring
Waste
organization and evaluationDisposal
Agricultural Erosion and Geothermal
Measures
Flood Control Waters
(groundwater
permissions
etc.)
Coastal and
transitional
waters
Pricing of
Water
Publication
and
educational
activities
Legal and
institutional
arrangements
in regional
scale
Construction
of water
related
infrastructure
Operation and Transboundar
maintenance y waters
of water
related infrast.
1950
1960
1980
2000
1950
1990
1970
2000
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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
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Network theory and analysis will be useful
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Important role for policy naturalists
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Developing policy recommendations will be very
difficult