Browsing by Author "Blomquist, William"

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    All CPR's Are Not Created Equal: Two Important Physical Characteristics and Their Relation to the Resolution of Commons Dilemmas
    (International Association for the Study of Common Property, 1991) Blomquist, William; Schlager, Edella; Tang, Shui-Yan
    Workshop Abstract: "Policy prescriptions offered in the now-voluminous literature on common-pool resources (CPRs) frequently focus upon the strategic situation of resource users, paying relatively less attention (or none at all) to the characteristics of the common-pool resources themselves. In short, most contributions to the policy literature presume that all CPRs are alike. Based on our reconsideration of the strategic situations users face, and our empirical observation of three kinds of CPRs fisheries, irrigation systems, and groundwater basins we conclude that two physical characteristics of CPRs have vital implications for the likelihood of successful resolution of difficulties over resource use, and for the types of resolutions users develop. Those physical characteristics are the degree of stationarity of flow units and the existence of storage capacity. Speaking generally, fisheries are CPRs with fugitive flow units and without storage capacity, irrigation systems have fugitive flow units but possible availability of storage, and groundwater basins have relatively stationary flow units and storage capacity. Using comparisons among these types of CPRs, we analyze the effects of these physical characteristics upon the. prospects for the emergence- of successful cooperation in resource use."
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    Being Smart and Lucky: Why Water Policy is Important Even in a Wet State
    (Center for Translating Research Into Practice, IU Indianapolis, 2021-04-23) Blomquist, William
    Most natural resource problems are ultimately human problems – matters of human social behavior and choice. The structures and processes of decision making that we use in trying to deal with those problems are therefore very important. Professor Blomquist's goal is to aid in understanding how we make decisions about our water resources and how we can do that better, based on studies of past and current efforts.
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    Building the Agenda for Institutional Research in Water Resource Management
    (JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 2004) Blomquist, William; Heikkila, Tanya; Schlager, Edella
    This paper pursues more specifically the recommendations of a recent National Research Council report recommending greater attention to research on institutions in the field of water resource management. The important challenge for the future in institutional research lies in going beyond the observation that institutions are important and in explaining instead how institutions actually affect management options and outcomes. It is possible to illuminate the relationships between institutional features and water management through comparative institutional research. This paper offers recommendations for studying water institutions in a comparative context, including methodological recommendations concerning approaches to comparative institutional research, and topics for comparative institutional research that appear especially fruitful at this time. The example of conjunctive management is used to illustrate the importance of institutional factors in water management, drawing to some extent on the authors’ recent experience with a comparative study of conjunctive management institutions.
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    Common Property's Role in Water Resource Management
    (Second International Conference on Property Rights, Economics and Environment, 1998) Blomquist, William
    Since I was invited to speak about common-property arrangements in the management of water resources, I shall begin with a description of common-property arrangements. I will then turn to the relationship between the common property and regulatory-agency approaches to water resource management, addressing both its empirical manifestations and some theoretical bases for understanding them. Then I will consider the relationship between common-property and private-property or market arrangements, again analyzing that relationship from empirical and theoretical perspectives. When I use examples or illustrations in this brief presentation, they will have to do with groundwater basins in the United States since those are the empirical cases with which I am familiar. And throughout my remarks, I will be applying the analytical approach of institutional rational-choice analysis, and restating the work of many scholars who have worked in the field of common-property resources.
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    Comparison of Institutional Arrangements for River Basin Management in Eight Basins
    (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2005) Blomquist, William; Dinar, Ariel; Kemper, Karin
    This study represents an effort toward understanding conditions that affect successful or unsuccessful efforts to devolve water resource management to the river basin level and secure active stakeholder involvement. A theoretical framework is used to identify potentially important variables related to the likelihood of success. Using a comparative case-study approach, the study examined river basins where organizations have been developed at the basin scale and where organizations perform management functions such as planning, allocation, and pricing of water supplies, flood prevention and response, and water quality monitoring and improvement. This paper compares the alternative approaches to basin governance and management adopted in the following river basins: the Alto-Tiete and Jaguaribe River Basins, Brazil; the Brantas River Basin, East Java, Indonesia; the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia, Canada; the Guadalquivir Basin, Spain; the Murray-Darling River Basin, Australia; the Tarcoles River Basin, Costa Rica; and the Warta River Basin, Poland. The analysis focuses on how management has been organized and pursued in each case in light of its specific geographical, historical, and organizational contexts and the evolution of institutional arrangements. The cases are also compared and assessed for their observed degrees of success in achieving improved stakeholder participation and integrated water resources management.
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    Conservation and Indiana Gubernatorial Politics, 1908-1916
    (2006) Hackerd, Jeremy Lynn; Scarpino, Philip V.; Coleman, Annie Gilbert; Blomquist, William
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    CPR Coding Manual
    (Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, 1989) Ostrom, Elinor; Agrawal, Arun; Blomquist, William; Schlager, Edella; Tang, S.Y.
    "The fourth activity we have undertaken has been the identification of in-depth case studies that describe how CPR appropriators have succeeded or failed in efforts to manage inshore fisheries, small- to medium-sized irrigation systems, communal forests, or grazing lands. Identifying and coding in-depth case studies is undertaken in several steps. Most of this manual is devoted to an in-depth discussion of this activity."
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    Decentralization of River Basin Management: A Global Analysis
    (World Bank Group, 2005) Dinar, Ariel; Kemper, Karin; Blomquist, William; Diez, Michele; Sine, Gisele; Fru, William
    Decentralization and increased stakeholder involvement have been major elements of water sector reform as ways to promote sustainable and integrated resource management particularly of river basins. Based on an analytical framework for relating decentralization and stakeholder involvement to improved river basin management, this paper infers several hypotheses about factors associated with greater or lesser likelihood of success of the decentralization process using data from 83 river basins worldwide. The results suggest that physical, political, economic, financial, and institutional characteristics of the basin do affect the process and the level of performance of the decentralization. In particular, the presence of water scarcity may be a stimulus to reform, uniting the stakeholders in the basin and leading to better performance; organized user groups push for the initiation of decentralization reforms but may be associated with costs to the process and difficulty of achieving decentralization; the existence of dispute resolution mechanisms supports stakeholder involvement and improves decentralization performance; where stakeholders accepted greater financial responsibility, complying with tariffs and contributing to the budget for basin management, the decentralization process and performance measures increased; basins with higher percentages of their budgets from external governmental sources benefited from better stability and support and it shows in the performance of the decentralization process.
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    Deliberation, learning, and institutional change: the evolution of institutions in judicial settings
    (Springer, 2008) Blomquist, William; Ostrom, Elinor
    Institutional change entails institutional design, assessment, and modification, which necessarily take place within the constraints and opportunities afforded by existing institutional arrangements. Viktor Vanberg has made major contributions to our understanding of how institutions evolve. We wish to contribute to this symposium in honor of Vanberg by analyzing how institutions for the management of water institutions in Southern California evolved primarily through the use of the courts as settings for deliberation, learning and institutional change.
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    The Design and Promise of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework
    (Wiley, 2011-02) Blomquist, William; deLeon, Peter
    In September 2009, Peter deLeon and Christopher Weible, co-editors of this journal, approached Dr. Elinor Ostrom with the suggestion that she identify a list of authors who would contribute to a "state-of-the-art" report on the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework that had been formulated over a number of years by Dr. Ostrom and her colleagues at Indiana University's Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. The co-editors suggested that while there was a sizable literature on the IAD, it was circulated within the policy community, and it was not as well disseminated and utilized as should be the case. Dr. Ostrom agreed and proposed a program to develop a series of articles, which included a two-day seminar at the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver. These articles were then subjected to the journal's peer review process. The revised manuscripts were given a second presentation at the 2009 meeting of the American Political Science Association. This issue of the Policy Studies Journal reflects these activities. This Introduction briefly comments on the individual articles as well as suggests avenues for the continued refinements of the IAD.