Originally published in revista Oeconomica, 4/2009 and republished in this electronic version with the permission of the Publisher of the magazine.
Abstract:
The article reviews the core theories of Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School of Institutional Analysis and Development, use that they can claim significant pragmatical validity by enabling year integrated approach to governance, including development and other public policies. After introducing the background, the basic thesis of the School and the overall framework of institutional analysis and development ("hell"), we emphasize two complementary theories. The first is the theory of polycentric order as an approach to macroeconomic governance: propper polycentricity as the institutional arrangement of large, complex social aggregates such as regions and societies. The second theory, having STI governance at the core of common-pool resources, is tailored for mezzolevel polities such as communities and villages. Together, the two theories provide a comprehensive and integrated approach to governance. Therefore, in the last part we focus on the impact and applicability of the approach in the field of international development aid and similar policies.
Key words: institutions, institutional analysis and development, institutional design, development, Elinor Ostrom
JEL classification: B52, Raptor, O17, O43
Being invited to contribute to this issue of the magazine ŒCONOMICA by means of a presentation of the contributions for which the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to Elinor Ostrom in 2009 his, I found the right opportunity to try to contextualizam this goal in two ways: on the one hand seeking to provide a broader image of the point theoretically represented and, on the other hand its meaning, elaborating upon application, of particular interest to a society in transition and posttranzitie[i].
Under the first aspect, although the award was given primarily for its contributions in the area of economic governance of which the most important were collected in his work "of Government. The evolution of institutions for collective action "(Ostrom, 1990), its wider significance is that the reward for all those over 40 years of scientific activity that formed a new school of thought in the social sciences-school in Bloomington. Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom and their colleagues have formulated a research program which parses all levels social reality through their institutional infrastructure: micropolitic level (or few interactions between two agents), mezopolitic level (organizations, clans, communities) and macropolitic (societies, social orders, and the constitutional election arrangements). Presentation of the girl will be pl[ii]aced on the scurtprincipalele of theses schools and the overall analysis, and then focus on two complementary theories: theory of polycentric order, on the macropolitic of governance respective[iii]ly, performing the mezopolitic level.
On the one hand, covering all levels of governance through these two theories and, on the other hand, the flexibility offered by the framework of analysis used allow the institutional interpretation of some varieties of situations and social outcomes arising aplicativitatea of this remarkable neoinstitutionalism variants. The argument of the article is that besides the validity of recognized Scientific Committee of the Swedish Royal Academy school at Bloomington can claim extra and a significant "pragmatic validity", which is reflected in the extent to which the findings of scientific research can increase the capacity of traditional problem-solving practical problems (Dunn 1989, 3). It can be evaluated after the extent and consequences of well-intentioned goals could be attained by producing certain actions or use of certain instruments (Worren s.a. 2002).
The relevance of these ideas is, thus, one special for developing countries, post-conflict, transition or posttranzitie: in addition to the magnitude of the governance problems faced by them, not understanding or even ignoring the role of the institutions are the reasons for failed much of the policies in these places before. We explore this issue in the last section.
What are the school's main theses from Blooomington?
School in Bloomington is part of rational choice institutionalismelor family, along with other important schools: the one at Rochester (William Riker), whose research program was developed mainly in the direction of the study of formal institutions of democratic governance (legislatures, bureaucracy, political parties, electoral systems) and the way in which they structure their interests and actions of politicians; and school in Virginia (James m. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock,) whose main contributions have laid the foundations of the constitutional political economy.
What are the elements that distinguish the School from Bloomington and other types of institutionalism?
First of all, his area of study covers all levels of aggregation of human interactions, from the simplest to the most complex: micropolitic level (or few interactions between two agents, relationships), mezopolitic level (organizations, clans, communities) and macropolitic (societies, social orders, and the constitutional election arrangements). Secondly, the researchers studied this school Associates equally formal institutions and informal-unlike the mainstream public choice theory, whose preference for formal institutions-justified by the formality of a State political institutions modern-gets an error often. Finally, the school has developed the only frame Bloomington of comprehensive analysis that can be used for any organisation policy analysis and framework (institutional development. institutional analysis and development framework HELL), regardless of the size or level of complexity.
Although it comes from the rational choice theory, this framework is flexible from a large beach explanatory theories of human behavior, being able to integrate economic rationalizations, sociological, political and ecological. Thus, the place of HELL is the synthesis of neoinstitutionala, its creators and researchers associated with trying deliberately to keep the opening of the interdisciplinary so it can accommodate and assimilate as many relevant developments in various fields: Economics, sociology, psychology, biology and ecology.
The onset of the school took place in the 1960s (by the seminal article: Tiebout Ostrom, and Warren, 1961) and defined the central concepts in the 1970s, based on research conducted by Vincent Ostrom and colleagues in metropolitan governance and issue management, public goods. During the Decade, an analysis of Government of several metropolitan cities of the USA has opened up new perspectives in terms of the ability of self-governance of complex systems in the absence of hierarchical order, confirming the reliability of the theoretical concepts employed by the school and allowing subsequent extension of institutional analysis. Thus were laid the foundations on which subsequently developed an entire framework for analysing (Kisser and Ostrom, 1999; Ostrom, 2005) called the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD). Starting from the simplest notions, this framework of analysis can play various institutional architecture and dynamics of complex adaptive systems.
Individuals engage in relationships with others in order to pursue our interests and life plans. In pursuit of its own interests, cooperatives or individuals made conflicting actions. A relationship consists of one or more shares (non-action as well, an action). In broad, the goals of the relationship covers both production, distribution and use of different goods and services ' private ', and supply, distribution and use of a variety of goods and services, "public" and the regulation of the use of common property resources. In short, they cover all forms of fulfillment of certain tasks that require cooperation.
The unit of analysis is the situation of HELL in which certain decision-makers (actors, agents, individuals) decisions and actions. The situation of action consists of limitations and opportunities of their exogenous and perception by the individual factors that form the structure of incentives. Decisions that underlie human action are answers, more or less "rational" to this structure of incentives. The flexibility of the analysis consists in that it does not require a restrictive or specific rational behaviour (the actors do not have to be maximizatori, but can be conceptualizati as satisficienti, expressive, or in other related paradigms). Exogenous factors on the situation of action refers to the nature of the object (natural conditions, natural processes), the attributes of the respective community (social and cultural context, being shared, etc.) and to the rules in use in the community. The rules may be considered as sets of instructions for defining an action situations in a particular context. Thus, they are similar, that role, with genes. Genes combine to form a genotype, and the rules are combined to form the institutional structure of an action situation (Ostrom 2006, 17).
Conceptualized in his tradition, the rules are a means of saving. As increasing the complexity of the relationship, from 2 to n individuals, it must be ordered to transactional costs may be incurred. The principal means of arranging the relationship are institutions and organisations. Institutions can be collectively rules, relationships end-middle, informal rules etc. Front of institutions and organizations, of higher ranking level of the relationship (assuming a set of retelate institutions and organizations that contribute to the fulfilment of some complex tasks, but which can be distinguished) formed an institutional arrangement. Institutional arrangements are overlapping, interlocking included some in others; their totality for a community-for example, to a fishing village on that for the time being to consider autoguvernat and autoorganizat, ignoring the relationship between it and the wider society-forming, in the terminology of the school, a complex adaptive system or institutional system.
One of the innovations of this school is an analytical separation of all situations of possible action in three levels of analysis that correspond to the decision-making arenas and action: operational level, collective and constitutional level. Such action arena "consists of participants are in different positions that are choosing between actions in different phases of the decision-making process in the light of the control you have over the way choice of the information they have, the probable outcomes and benefits, and the costs charged for these actions." (Ostrom 2006, 7). Therefore, operational action arena, the election day, resides in the interactions of the actors throughout existing institutions conditioned applicable in situations where the action in question. The arena is the collective action in which, within an institutional system, rules are chosen by interacting between actors in different positions (in a democratic State, these can be the Member of the Parliament, Government, etc., while in a village of fishermen, they can be a member of the old town hall, the organizer of fisheries, etc.). Finally, in the constitutional arena are decided on broader rules than the collective, for example, the rules concerning the goals of an organization, existing positions as well as the collective level and according to which rules will be chosen rules collectively. In addition, some of the constitutional rules are autoreferentiale (for example, those relating to the procedures for amending the rules of the Constitutional Court).
Changes in the rules that are used to order the action to a level in the context of a set of predetermined rules at a deeper level, where changing the rules is usually more difficult and expensive, which increases the stability of the mutual expectations of individuals who interact on the basis of a set of rules. Implicit in the above sentence is that the stability of individual expectations of mutual-but also in relation to the institutional environment and economic efficiency-increase individual allocation of resources, in terms of times, Hayek, the accuracy of individual plans. Increasing the efficiency of resource allocation results in growth and economic development in the aggregate levels (community, society, etc.).
Individuals that organizes and controls have the opportunity to act at all these levels in an attempt to solve the problems, while individuals who do not have these attributes of self organization and self-government remains stuck at one level and can adopt strategies just inside the borders that they are given. This is the difference between definitionala and autoguvernarii self-government; a set of intermediate arrangements also possible. In the latest case, the collective decisions are taken in various arenas, which can be internal group that governs or external local or national legislatures arenas or arenas. Most often, a set of operational rules is influenced by multiple arenas of collective option; for example, decisions taken by national legislatures or courts with respect to all goods of a certain kind may influence operational rules used in certain locations.
From the institutional point of view, any non-ephemeral organization is made up of all three categories of rules. Even if, generally speaking, fishermen's villages-studied intensively by these researchers-not having a written Constitution, rules or ideas to answer constitutional functions exist for sure.
Researchers at the School of Bloomington have studied a variety of complex adaptive systems, of which have three categories: Primate order (Constitutional) polycentric, public and economies functioning socio-ecological systems based on common goods. Intercomparabilitatea of these systems has been one of the main sources of innovation of the school.
Polycentric order
The first of the two theories that we want to introduce them at the heart or the concept of policentricitate. Considering this, we start from the way in which this concept was developed and implemented by v. Ostrom, C.M. Tiebout and r. Warren (1961), starting from its release by Polanyi (1951).
In the context of a heated debate about the nature and objectives of the public administration reform in u.s. metropolitan areas, v. Ostrom and his colleagues responded through this new theoretical development of those who supported the idea that the Metropolitan Government was dysfunctional and need a structural reorganization.
In the most widely shared perspective at that point, the reformers instituted their dysfunction, in the multiplicity of political and administrative units: "too much Government and too little Government," resulting in a duplication of functions and an overlay of jurisdictions chaotic. The governance of American cities was "in pieces and without an overall plan", performed by local groups to fulfill passing needs "while" local borders network extends over uneven and chaotic territory "(Anderson and Weidner 1950, 169; Ostrom, 1972, 475; Ostrom, 2000). Reformers were based on recommendations in a reorganization of Government and administrative system with a single dominant Center, considered how best to provide services to the public and to administer various functions of Government. Their sources of inspiration were the theory and functioning of public administrations weberiana German and French.
Taking note of the failures of such reforms, v. Ostrom and his colleagues pointed out that proposals made in practice were based on theoretical assumptions and have created expectations that had no basis in reality and in the lessons of the experience. Furthermore, they have developed an alternative approach, designed to take into account the complexity and diversity of institutional arrangements and governance.
So it was a whole area of research. Fundamental exploration concerning the way in which social order is hereby required the construction of a new analytical framework in its entirety. To build it, these researchers have looked beyond the horizon of the standard theory of public administration or that of neoclassical economics, introducing the concept of policentricitate: "Through conceptualization of metropolitan areas as political systems, we suggest polycentric as a system of ordered relations form the basis of jurisdictions authority fragmentarii and overlapping, jurisdictions which have been frequently identified as" chaotic "and as the main source of institutional failure in governance of metropolitan areas. We have defined a polycentric political system as having multiple decision-making centres which are formally independent of some cealalte. A ' system ' was regarded as a set of ordered relationships that persist over time "(Ostrom in McGinnis 1999, 53).
The stakes of the project was to identify and map the serial EC models are emerging beyond the apparent chaos associated policentricitatii experience. As you can see, it is about a theory of a hidden agendas among other theories from the same area, as well as that of the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith or "social" mechanism of Toqueville conjured when referring to the nature of American democracy and governance (Eugene 2009, 21).
Monocentricitatea, on the other hand, is an intentional order maintained by a supreme authority through a centralized command structure. The central principle-"power unit"-needs and form a system of rules compatible (hierarchical control) to exercise authority. Conditions for the exercise of such powers and authority are overlapping, specialized knowledge and distinctive heritage of birocratilor. This category is for paradigmatica hobbesiana solution: the law is needed to ensure peace and harmony, and the law is based on the leadership. This perspective can be found in the tradition and wilsoniana weberiana concerning the Organization of the national public administration company and other modern schools of political science.
A discussion of polycentrism in the politico-administrative systems was one of the many holiday makers to discuss possible steps policentrismului generally and of nature and its implications. But constitutes a fundamental challenge polycentricity for theory and policy has broader ramifications that go beyond the problem of metropolitan areas (id.).
One of the most important ramifications regarding changing the institutional or institutional design. Both concepts refers to the processes by which rules are being created, incentives and framing systems, constrang and motivates social practice. The key concept of institutional design that defines tradition is a polycentric federalism: federal arrangement ii has on individuals as basic units in construction order in human societies-probably one of the most important theorems from political science (Ostrom, 1991, 45). Polycentric tradition emerges therefore from the works of David Hume, Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and aiming at limiting Government to a controllable size and providing the means to ensure the Government's exposure to practices of citizenship, creating opportunities for appeal. The values on which it is based upon this tradition are in themselves a prerequisite for policentricitatii.
The concept of polycentric order was the basis of some important developments from the theory of politics, especially in terms of the design of the constitutional arrangements. Researchers from this tradition, following the interdisciplinaritatii imperative, have achieved historical studies of constitutional order from different historical eras and cultures, developing in parallel a criticism of excessive centralisation of State development in modern times. References are works of Vincent Ostrom: The Political Theory of the Compound Republic: Designing the American Experiment (1971), and The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies: A Response to Tocqueville's Challenge (1997). Construction of polycentric governance systems is revealed as an opposite strategy of construction of State from top to bottom, as is happening in the international community's approach. Indigenous institutions appear in the center of a decentralization system built from the bottom up, through public growth entrepreneurs seeking local capacities and understand potential and their size. This top-down approach which emphasizes the Center or complementary systems, centralised, for governance is valued and in systems analysis of Government property.
The governance of
Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contributions especially brought to the study of and ways of their governance (ESPCRSAS 2009). The specificity of this type of good is the fact that, unlike private goods, potential beneficiaries are difficult to exclude (nonexcludabilitate) and, unlike public goods, each person's consumption reduces the availability of the good for the other beneficiaries or users (rivalry in consumption). The main such property research team from Bloomington he had in mind were the natural reservoirs of water, forests, irrigation systems and pescariile, conceptualized as a socio-ecological systems.
Why, though, common goods? The entire search undertaken by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom and their colleagues in more than 40 years of activity of the workshop was oriented towards fundamental inquiry whereby Hamilton introduced the first issue of the Federalist Papers: "it has been noted often that seems to have been reserved for the citizens of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the answer to the important question If there are people or companies not really able to establish governance through reflection and choice, or if they are forever destined to depend, in the formation of their politics, accident and force. " (Hamilton, 1787).
In addition to the constitutional level response researches of social order (through the study of constitutions, of federalism and polycentric order), his strategy of Elinor Ostrom's research was to study the governance of that extreme variant of the problem raised: on the one hand, going to the origins of micro and mezopolitice of the social order and, on the other hand, the Government in studying the cases in which it is extremely difficult (by comparison with situations in which privatization is easy doable).
This second conceptual position privileged of the issue was highlighted by the resounding previously Garett Hardin (Hardin 1968) which showed that, due to the intrinsic characteristics (nonexcludabilitate and rivalry in consumption), common goods are inevitably exposed "of tragedy": for each user is reasonable to grow their own consumption regardless of the effect of the decrease in the consumption of other users available whenever the status of endangerment. "Tragedy" refers to the inevitability of this dynamic (Yos 2007, 118-119) that leads, ultimately, to the depletion of the asset: Dynamics is determined, on the one hand, the intrinsic characteristics of the property (nonexcludabilitate and rivalry in consumption) and, on the other hand, the huge difference. In other words, the huge difference between collective and individual leads to worse results than if individuals would not be done rationally (id). The tragedy of there is something rarely encountered but, on the contrary, its ocurentele are common. A particularly high level was recorded in the early stages of post-Communist tranzitiilor (ibid.) when a wide array of goods have become "common" by removing the Communist State from its control, property rights have previously been allocated in any coherent way: irrigation systems, closed factories, forests and many other goods were victims of tragedy in those years.
Elinor Ostrom has challenged the inevitability of tragedy and raised a very provocative research question: what is "the way in which a group of beneficiaries are in a situation of interdependence can be organized and governed in order to achieve common benefits, even when everyone is faced with the temptation to take advantage of others ' work, to evade or to become opportunists." Other questions refer to combinations of variables that will increase your chances of self-organization, initial large capacity of individuals will continue attempts to autoorganiza in time or will surpass the power of self-organization in order to solve the problems of the common property without any help from outside. (Ostrom, 1990, 43). In other words, the tragedy of it is not, per se, inevitable; but the extent to which it can differ from avoided concrete case. Not surprisingly, the primary means for government institutions are created common goods.
One of the most important moments to give an answer to this question was the team of researchers around him e. Ostrom Committee dedicated to Common Resources organized in 1985 by the National Research Council of the United States. In the framework of the Conference concerned and as a result, the team at Bloomington came in contact with a large number of researches on methods of managing various types of common goods and conducted a meta-analysis of these case studies, capturing a huge diversity of institutional solutions found for coping with the tragedy of the common property. While no universal solution (State control or the privatization of all goods being the most "pure" even supported alternative) were not outlined, have seen a series of conditions whose presence could facilitate (but without the guarantee) finding institutional arrangements that lead to efficient and sustainable exploitation of those assets.
These conditions were named by e. Ostrom (1990) principles of institutional design and, in short, refers to the following issues: the existence of well-defined limits with regard to users, but also to the goods; plenitude appropriation rules (extracting units in common joint) and maintenance (i.e. benefits and costs) and local conditions; the existence of procedures to generate its own rules in the Group of users of the asset (ways of collective choice); constant monitoring of users and of the evolution of the stock of that good; establishment of gradual sanctions, related to the gravity of the offence; existence of mechanisms for conflict resolution; a minimal recognition by foreign Governments of self-organization; and, for common property systems, developing enterprises incorporated (nested) for connection, maintenance, monitoring, implementation, resolving conflicts and system administration.
Hess and Ostrom (2007) performs an interesting extension of the principles of governance to the realm of knowledge: knowledge as a common good. Problems that arise related to knowledge as a common good are: marketing, turning knowledge into good saleable (en. commodification), information that was accessible to withdrawal or avtotrassu chernovitsy, pollution and degradation of knowledge, i.e. its non-sustainability. Structure of knowledge as a common good has been dramatically changed by advances in technology that allow you to distribute information globally and many studies from this perspective focuses on the social effects of technological changes. One of the main challenges of the research programme knowledge as common good refers to the way in which systems can be designed rules and rules which can ensure access to knowledge, but I can and provide recognition and support to the creators of knowledge.
Applying theoretical analysis and institutional development at this particular type of common good, e. Ostrom (2007, 66-68) formulates a number of requirements that must be met for what a government system of knowledge to be adaptable and durable in time. These requirements relate to the provision of information, conflict resolution, inducing compliance towards rules, ensuring infrastructure and maintaining a State of preparation for change.
An effective system of governance of knowledge depends on the availability of reliable and quality information about stocks, production and internal processes of the object (in this case knowledge), but also about the external environment. In addition, mechanisms are necessary to solve conflicts which allow finding solutions considered legitimate, correct and scientifically substantiated. In terms of ensuring compliance with the rules, the challenge consists in creating a system that uses informal strategies to ensure observance of the rules, at first relying on attachment a participants new-face of the rules which they have created and imposed sanctions subtle intragrup. If formalized systems, those who monitor and those who sanction to be detention by other participants as effective and legitimate.
Note This ability so prospects to capture and describe subtle relationships in complex social systems, based on the constitutional order and to the daily operational. So it becomes easy understanding of production, supply and maintenance of property and resources vary widely: from private goods and public goods at the common goods, and among the latter from natural resources at very sophisticated resources as well as knowledge. At the same time, the framework is flexible enough to contain a variety of institutional arrangements. After this overview of the main research lines and teoretizare school at Bloomington, we can easily find many advantages provided by the institutional analysis and development.
On this basis, the next step takes us to the question concerning the applicability of the theoretical line. What is its ability to translate findings into practice? Has the school at Bloomington pragmatic validity?
We justify positive response showing some of its main consequences applied into practice through development aid policies and institutional issues of institutional design in the cases of certain societies in which formal institutions are missing or broken, or, in another way, irrelevant, and in true social infrastructure which consists primarily from informal institutions: the dispute or even ignoring the role of the institutions are the reasons for failed much of the policies in these places before. This is the case in developing countries, post-conflict, transition, or posttranzitie, in respect of which the relevancy ideas exposed here is one. We will explore this last aspect using the example of the transition through which Romania has passed.
Applications of school at Bloomington: development aid policies and institutional design
Application and analysis of institutional development framework to the study of social and economic development has allowed the value of its analytic benefits consisting of multidisciplinarity, the ability to address multiple levels of analysis and to investigate the complex and interdependent systems (Ostrom s.a. 2002, xv).
- Ostrom's research finds, in the light of the actions undertaken, as "a comprehensive set of formal laws designed to govern a large stretch of territory and diverse ecological niches will necessarily fail in exactly those areas or habitats in which should be applied" (Ostrom, 1994, 1) because this legislation is not adequate to the physical environment, biologically and culturally it is implemented. On the other hand, indigenous governance institutions for management and administration of common property (as, for example, those for the Organization and operation of grazing on mountain forests in Switzerland and Japan, as well as irrigation systems from Spain and the Philippines, in Ostrom, 1990) have been proven over time more efficient both in terms of exploitation by the beneficiaries, as well as that of other goods.
The main problem is that international actors are policies imposed exogenously (usually through central Governments), and destroyed in many cases even social capital-relationships, norms, shared knowledge and understanding of indigenous communities which connect. An example often cited is the irrigation systems from external agencies funded through Nepal: these systems failed to exceed the performance of the indigenous, although only last ditch and used wooden troughs. The explanation lies in the fact that new systems does not signify their management the commune within communities or between communities, which has led to a reduction in the frequency of interactions and relationships "face to face", which, in turn, caused the weakening of the monitoring operation of the asset by users themselves, as well as diluting the relationships of cooperation within the community. That's why the main lesson regarding development policies which was detached is that a successful strategy aims to increase the capacity of self-organization of those directly targeted a particular situation and not the imposition of institutional arrangements, idealized by actors from outside the Community (Ostrom, 1994, 25). This change of perspective behind and other applications of the school.
- Ostrom's research team at Bloomington approaches theme of incentives in the development aid in the evaluation of external aid programme of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The analysis found two general types of problems that arise in connection with incentive structure with which the actors face in this situation: problems associated with reading actors employees in collective action and information distribution problems. These two types of problems are found at all three levels of action: operational, collective and constitutional (Ostrom s.a. 2002, xvi-xviii).
In the first category, the motives of the actors, especially the issues of public goods, common goods and good Samaritan's dilemma. In the first case, when the consumption of a good of an individual is not influenced by its contribution to the production and consumption of the property is nonexcludabil, the individual is stimulated to act to benefit from opportunistic, that public good without contributing. In the case of common property, the danger is that too much to aproprieze individuals, leading to the exhaustion of the resource. Good Samaritan dilemma describes a situation in which it is advantageous for the Samaritan (ex. a humanitarian aid agency) as the one who receives aid to submit a larger effort to overcome the difficulty, because of the resources invested in need will help to reduce the resources required to be invested in aid by Samaritan. However, the best strategy for the beneficiary is to use as little effort, investing as little to get out of the impasse.
The asymmetry of information, on the other hand, the rise in turn three types of problems. First of all, the main issues are raising agent: subordonatii have more information about their own activity than their superiors and goals differ. Such as subordonatii have the incentive to use information held in order to achieve their own purposes. leading results from the perspective of the suboptimale organization as a whole, and the problem is exacerbated with the increasing number of hierarchical layers. Appear then problems of moral hazard, when individuals have benefits from a contract entered into force regardless of their exposure to risk. If the risk faced by the execution of the contract is greater, they behave differently towards the situation in which the risk is lower. Finally, information asymmetry causes problems of negative selection: hidden information or owned by one of the only parts could lead to the election of a person (the ultimate beneficiary, consultant, service provider) or less effective in relation to the objectives of the programme.
The solution to these problems from acceptance and recognition of the capacity of self-organization of individuals. This is the direct involvement of the actors singled out governance processes and the use of local knowledge in the construction of new rules and institutions. To overcome the problems listed above and to align their interests with those of the donor or recipient, the team at Bloomington (Ostrom s.a. 2002) recommends the intensification of beneficiary participation in the implementation of development aid, so its sense of ownership (ownership) on the process and its results. Typically, a more complex scheme to involve the beneficiary would consist of four procedural conditions follow-up: beneficiaries of formulating a request for help, exercise a form of control over the assets available, allocate the programme or project or even a portion of their assets and have clear responsibilities, and participate in decisions concerning the continuation of the project.
Coping with the problems of informational asymmetry of motivation involves a series of organizational reasezari to harness local knowledge dissemination among donor agency staff. Among these are: organizational reasezari the existence of a formal assessment process prior to the completion of a project; the involvement of the beneficiaries in the evaluation of projects to boost learning among donor agency staff, but also among the beneficiaries; examining the characteristics of "ownership" over the process (ownership) and assess their impact on sustainability; arrangements which ensure the reading and discussion of evaluation results and integrate findings into strategies and plans showing changes (Ostrom s.a. 2002, xxiii).
In addition to direct application on the approach development policies and mechanisms for the implementation of international aid, p. d. Eugene (2005, 161-162) passes in a range of theoretical and methodological improvements that can assist practitioners in developing strategies for implementation of economic development policies. Many of these fail in the face of the multitude of interests and institutional inertia, so the diversion goals development policies towards serving private interests is very frequent and, most often, the mechanisms of this good aren't understood by donor institutions. To overcome the obstacle, the analysis and institutional development proves very useful in that it allows the mapping of land institutional and relevant groups, thus making it possible to adapt the intervention strategies of the actors interested and to their political support. The author goes further and notice how the unintended consequences of well-intentioned and policy can be identified precisely the description and understanding of the situation, after the model described in the previous section. Mapping of actors and institutions from a situation of action allowed refining analysis "actors interested" (stakeholders), especially family practitioners involved in development projects of the World Bank. Understanding their behavior, the intentions, relationships, resources, interests and agendas that they can mobilise relevant actors is useful to develop public relations strategies with them, so the practitioner can facilitate the implementation of policies, to understand the context of that policy and to assess the feasibility of future directions. Furthermore, the HELL is useful not only in familiarity with the actors and institutions in the context of analysis, but also allows the identification of linkages between the different institutional levels. We can thus tackle problems arising in taxation, but have actually originated in a different level than the one in which they manifest themselves.
The validity of the theories of pragmatics institutionaliste Schoolyard is evidenced by the interest in international development agencies have shown him towards the practical implications of these theories. Collaboration with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency-SIDA) or the World Bank are situations illustrative of how academic knowledge is integrated in the practice of international development institutions.
The past experienced by Romania offers multiple similar examples. Over the past twenty years, Romania has gone through a number of processes of modernization and development as part of the transition from the centralized economy and authoritarian political system to a market economy and democracy, but also as part of the EU integration or participation in international structures, as well as, among others, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the IMF. An important part of the process in question consisted in the adoption and implementation of legislation, regulations, the establishment or modernization of public organizations. As in the case of international aid, the underlying principle is that of the whole of a universal recipes that need to run all over the place. However, the results are at best, mixed.
This can give the example of institutions transplanted who worked: in several episodes, the fiscal discipline imposed by the agreements with the IMF rescued the problematic situations, even though sometimes not in the optimal way. Privatization of State-owned enterprises and the restitution of properties confiscated by the Communist regime have been in a significant measure undertaken under such pressures. The army was modernized as a result of the conditions imposed by the integration into NATO, and examples may continue.
But the great mass of transplanted institutions remained on paper. Exogenous charges force was generally stopped at the level of the central Government and only the most visible. In the light of the above theory, we can argue that the failure of these institutions is due in a large measure the impedance mismatch between them and reality: common institutions who have taken birth in a certain situation of action were transplanted into an altogether different situation, with other actors and other incentive structure, other conditions of the external environment, with the wait that will lead to the same results. The consequence is that these institutions honest have never never got to be able to show results, as have never grown to be applied: the structure of incentives of local actors has not been modified after the simple exposure to a normative framework with the claim of superiority because "came from the West"; they have adapted their strategies and practices in order to further its own interests track. Social capital and relationships of cooperation do not find opportunity and development institutions are easily hijacked from their original purposes.
Another type of incentive that produces negative effects in development assistance, identified by the team at Bloomington in the research mentioned is to spend the budget or to "move your money". Especially when a small staff to manage large budgets, it tends to favour large projects, to spend money allocated quickly. The phenomenon is relevant and of high expenditure share in the last quarter of the financial year. Moreover, strict ceilings and rigid repayment schedules fail to include the dynamics of local processes and ensure flexibility for attention to be directed towards, but not towards the content and quality. An example of this are the programmes of the cohesion policy. They are far from efficient work in Romania, the emphasis being on the procedural, compliance assurance and not production changes desired and expected. Incentives of "ride of the money" are very evident in the public discourse of the officials: the accent is not on results but on the money spent; not to talk about the beneficiaries of medium and long term effects of structural adjustment programmes, you but about the extent to which these funds are absorbed. At the same time, we can conclude that the recommendations brought from the analysis of development programs of Sweden is not found in the implementation of the structural funds in terms of flexibility and terms alocarilor budget, nor in establishing the objectives and the agenda for development. The whole system is a centralized, which does not imply in any way the final beneficiaries or contractors. The effect is that the voice of final beneficiaries no longer make their presence felt after newly instated of formal procedures and requirements which contractors must respond.
Observations of this sections were referred to the several ways through which the knowledge produced in the paradigm of the school can be translated into action. His pragmatic validity is more widely recognized. A large number of practitioners, who visit the workshop at Indiana University, I am especially interested in the theoretical line concerning the design of socio-ecological systems, most of the time in direct contact with indigenous communities in designing institutions for the sustainable exploitation of common property. Three recent examples are not at all isolated cases: Christopher Bartlett, active in Vanuatu Islands tribes for sustainable exploitation of fish; Bryan Bruns, involved in the design of irrigation systems in Southeast Asia and Luz Aliette Hernandez, in projects of forest resources management in rural areas of South America.
Finally, the validity of the pragmatic result from the fact that the production of knowledge in this paradigm is closely related to looking for answers to a number of practical problems: how to manage common goods, how to provide public goods more efficiently, how to cost-effectively scale collective action agencies, how to stimulate cooperation in groups with different characteristics. Research themes were not drawn from literature, but also of the problems people confront direct and acute (Sackett 1994 in Worren s.a. 2002, 1229).
Conclusions
Problems of management are evenly spread throughout the world. However, there are several special categories of countries: countries in transition, developing, post-conflict or passing through a severe political crisis in which the incidence of social dilemmas is much higher. The integrated approach to governance, based on the one hand, polycentric order theory and, on the other hand, the advances made in terms of governance, is able to establish mechanisms of institutional design that can provide many practical solutions awaited.
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[i] View ESPCRSAS insa (2009) to justify awarding official prize.
[ii] For a detailed analysis of the theoretical advances made by the school in Bloomington, as well as to their relevance for multiple domains view Eugene and Boettke (2009).
[iii] We follow generally the Romanian translation of the term "common property resources" which is "common goods" (cf. trad. Tonner, 2007). However, sometimes it will be used and alternative "common resource" for the accuracy of the expression, the two versions but the same meaning.
