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Agriculture and Human Values 16: 295–308, 1999. © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Facing strategic narratives: An argument for interactive effectiveness Niels Röling and Marleen Maarleveld Department of Communication and Innovation Studies, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Accepted in revised form January 1, 1999

Abstract. The multiple commons is an important context in a world facing the eco-challenge. The platform for land use negotiation is a perspective concerning the good governance of the multiple commons. Platforms are devices or procedures for social learning and negotiation about effective collective action. They create collective decision making capacity at eco-system levels at which critical ecological services need to be managed. Taking platforms seriously as an option for designing a more sustainable society assumes a belief in the human capacity to engage in collective action. Unfortunately, human thinking about humans is dominated by perspectives that emphasize either technical solutions to given human ends, or perspectives that emphasize the selfish nature of human ends. This article focuses especially on the latter: the strategic narratives that have become dominant as society increasingly becomes designed on economic principles. The paper seeks to explain the dominance of strategic narratives and provides social science evidence for alternative perspectives. It concludes with cornerstones for an alternative narrative. Key words: Strategic narratives, Collective action narratives, Communicative rationality, Adaptive management, Soft side of land Niels Röling is professor at the Department of Communication and Innovation Studies, Wageningen University. At this university he received a M.Sc. in Rural Sociology. He received a Ph.D. in Communication from Michigan State University. His current research interests are brought together in a research program on “Knowledge systems for Sustainable Agriculture” that addresses facilitation of social learning, linkage between “soft” platforms for decision making and “hard” ecosystems, and on institutional and policy conditions for learning sustainable agriculture at the farm and higher agro-ecosystem levels. Marleen Maarleveld is a Ph.D. research assistant at the Department of Communication and Innovation Studies, Wageningen University. She has a M.Sc. in Social and Organizational Psychology from Leyden University, The Netherlands. Her doctoral research addresses social learning processes in natural resource management dilemmas. 1. Introduction The multiple commons is rapidly becoming an important context for managing human affairs (Steins and Edwards, 1999). Another example of such a context is the market. The eco-challenge – increasingly manifest as society moves into the “age of the environment” (Lubchenco, 1998) – has elevated the importance of the multiple commons as a context. We are increasingly playing roles as inter-dependent stakeholders in multiple but limited natural resource arenas (De Groot, 1992). Governing multiple commons calls for “platforms for land use negotiation,” the theme of this special issue. Such platforms mobilize a capacity for social learning, negotiation, and collective action at eco-systems’ levels at which threats to ecological services1 or the degradation of natural resources can be managed (Röling, 1994, 1995; Röling and Jiggins,

1998; Maarleveld, in prep.). An interest in platforms is likely to express itself in a belief in one or more of the following statements: • The collective impact of human activities on the biosphere leads to system feedback that threatens the ecological services and natural resources upon which human life depends. We have left an era in which the evolution of human opportunity was largely a question of gaining control over the biophysical environment and have entered one in which this evolution depends on our ability to control our own activities. • It is unlikely that some divine force will miraculously help humans escape from their ecological predicament. If they do not change course themselves, no one will. • Science-based technologies do not suffice to get us out. There are no technical “fixes.” And, as Albert

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Einstein said, one cannot solve problems with the same thinking that created them. • Liberalizing the struggle among self-interested actors in search of profit might lead to “the greatest benefit for the greatest number” in the short run, but a global competitive society evolves in directions that are inconsistent with ecological sustainability. • Collective action, based on social learning and negotiated agreement among the multiple stakeholders in an eco-system, is an essential condition for sustainable use and regeneration of that eco-system. • There is no given truth. Reality is socially constructed and, if people want to and have the means, they can re-construct it. But . . . if they get it wrong, they might well perish. This set of beliefs is at odds with one or more of the following dominant, contemporaneous perspectives: • Religions that emphasize faith in an external being. They have so far largely failed to develop environmental issues into moral ones. • Science that emphasizes instrumental action based on objective knowledge of cause-effect relationships. • Neo-liberal economics that emphasizes global competition as the optimal design for human society. When the market fails, it advocates fiscal policies, cost internalization, regulatory intervention, and advertising, but not collective action. • Actor-oriented sociology that emphasizes the use of power in the struggle among strategic actors seeking to realize their own projects and considers reliance on collective action naïve. • Realist positivism that emphasizes that reality exists “out there,” independently from the human observer, and can be objectively known by using scientific methods. So where does that leave the believer in the possibilities of negotiated collective action? What, if anything, can (s)he achieve, given such a formidable set of perspectives that are incompatible with his/her own, especially when these perspectives are embedded in powerfully established interest coalitions (Biggs, 1995)? How can (s)he effectively argue that social learning, negotiated agreement, and collective action offer survival strategies that are not only more effective in coping with our ecological predicament than prayer, technology, market liberalization, and power struggle, but also feasible in the sense that they are realistic, and not contrary to human nature? It is our experience time and again that one’s view of human nature plays a cru-

cial role in conceiving collective action as a feasible strategy. Our society tends to view people as strategic actors, bent on realizing their own projects and on optimizing their own benefit and, therefore, engaged in struggle, power conflicts, or competition to gain advantage over others in situations of scarcity. This concept of human nature fuels “strategic narratives” that underpin our ideas about the design of society and hence most of our policies. They prevent the exploitation of the potential of collective action to create a more sustainable society. This article examines the feasibility and potential social acceptance of alternative narratives. The first section explains the existence and persistence of strategic narratives using Giddens’ (1987) concept of “double hermeneutics.” This concept also unlocks opportunities for (re)constructing narratives that can generate faith in collective action to regenerate a sustainable future. Insights from empirically grounded social science provide valuable input into such narratives. Subsequently, Habermas’s (1984, 1987) communicative action, Holling’s (1995) adaptive management, and Röling’s (1997) notion of the soft side of land are proposed as design principles to weave an alternative narrative that endorses collective action. The last section examines how this “collective action narrative” can contribute to more effective research on common property resources (CPRs), and concludes by applying the insights gained to the discussion statements formulated in the introduction to this special issue (Steins and Edwards, 1999).

2. Explaining the persistence of the strategic narrative The term “narrative” is used to express how perspectives, “Leitbilds,” metaphors, stories, images, theories, slogans, and axioms are woven together, become widely shared and dominate behavior. The constructivist notion of “double hermeneutics,” introduced by Anthony Giddens (1987), clarifies this process. Single hermeneutics refers to the act of making sense of objects and events. For example, Copernicus, the 16th Century Polish astronomer, established that the earth is not the center of the universe. Instead, the earth is a rather insignificant planet turning around the sun. Double hermeneutics refers to the fact that sense making by some can affect the sense making and behavior of others. In other words, whether people believe the earth turns around the sun or vice versa does not affect the behavior of these celestial bodies. But the way people make sense of the world can certainly affect the sense making of others.

FACING STRATEGIC NARRATIVES

The Copernican Revolution is a prime example. It is the name for the impact of the ideas of Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, and others on Western thought, and especially on its anthropocentrism (Tarnas, 1991). Thus Copernicus showed we are not the center of the universe, Darwin showed that we evolved from other organisms and are not specially elected and created, and Freud caused an uproar by his idea that humans are not only driven by their manifest intellect, but often by an unconscious rooted in a murky animal past. In other words, new sense making by Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud had a tremendous impact on society and on how people make sense of the world, including how they look at themselves and others. Widely shared narratives are constructed that influence individual sense making by highlighting and legitimating some options and making invisible others. In our times, economics that assumes that people make selfish, if not strategic choices (see below), has become an equally powerful narrative. It affects the recursive process that Giddens (1995) calls structuration and that links social relations and structure. That is, strategic narratives shape social relations by determining our expectations about other people’s behavior. Social relations produce structure and structure produces social relations. For example, a belief that people are selfish actors favors a society based on markets in which the interactions among multiple selfish actors at the micro level leads to “the wealth of nations” at the macro level. Thus economic narratives reinforce stable if not rigid arrangements that affect society’s resilience in situations of rapid ecological change. But the market might not be the best way to design a society facing the eco-challenge. Social science can be as powerful as natural science because it can equally affect people’s sense making. It is not the power of its predictions that give social – or any – science its influence, but the extent to which its perspectives or narratives take hold of people’s imagination and enthusiasm, and especially the extent to which that sense making begins to justify policies and shape enduring practices, institutional design, and the use of natural resources and ecological services. Currently, the strategic narrative dominates. We see ourselves as selfish “economic beings,” we shape our institutions to be market driven, and we work hard to design collective interactive space as global networks of competing actors, which render more or less irrelevant the nation state with its institutions for negotiation and deliberation (Castells, 1996). In a way, we are back to the 19th Century Benthamite agenda: the greatest good for the greatest number is assured through the individual pursuit of well being. This time it is an agenda for the design of global society.

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An important reason for the current predominance of the strategic narrative is the success of economics in dominating our sense making. Economics is powerful because it makes assumptions about people’s goals. Given these assumptions, it can concentrate on people’s goal seeking behavior and make powerful statements about “rational” behavior. A typical example is the work of the institutional economist Platteau (1996, 1998), who presents a persuasive theory of the evolution of land rights under population pressure in Sub-Saharan Africa. The predictions are based not only on what Platteau calls parametric rationality, which assumes that people will maximize their benefit, but explicitly on strategic rationality: people anticipate the behavior of others in furthering their private interest, i.e., they try to win from or gain advantage over others. Strategic rationality is often also called competition. Platteau would like his theory to be disproved, but has so far not seen reason to doubt it. In fact, his studies of fishermen in Senegal have convinced him that institutions are incapable of overriding strategic rationality, i.e., of creating conditions in which people are willing to collaborate in controlling the destruction of fisheries resources (Platteau, pers. comm., 1998). Economics has presented the world with an apparently persuasive narrative. That narrative emphasizes the selfish nature of human beings and makes it less likely that we accept the feasibility of collective action. Our argument is that the impact of economics on our collective perspective through the mechanism of the double hermeneutics leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. A study by Frank Young reported upon in the Economist some years ago (see also Ridley, 1996: 260) found that economics students were more selfish than other students. The question arose whether this was a question of nature or nurture, i.e., whether students who chose economics were self-selected to have a tendency to chose the selfish options in prisoner’s dilemma games, or whether normal people became selfish as a result of economics teaching. Follow-up research revealed that students just entering economic studies were no more inclined to choose the selfish answers than other students. In other words, exposure to economics tends to strengthen selfish tendencies. However, we tend to forget that economics is not an “objective” body of knowledge. It is an axiomatic science that only works to the extent the axioms hold (Janice Jiggins, pers. comm.). Economics appears to profit from the process of double hermeneutics. And this insight presents a window of opportunity for constructing alternative narratives. Jackson’s (1998) paper for the European Society for Ecological Economics is of interest because it presents a historical exegesis of strategic narratives (or

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metaphors as he prefers to call them). His conclusion is that “our existing knowledge borrows heavily on a relatively limited set of metaphors,” in which the notion of “the struggle for existence” dominates: The metaphor on which Darwin built his theory of evolution, which Boltzmann borrowed to develop his thermo-dynamics, which Lotka used to characterize ecological behavior, Ostwald borrowed to model cultural development, Dawkins assumed for genetic succession, Friedman hijacked for corporate selectionism, and Ridley borrowed to characterize human nature, has its roots in – or at least is heavily influenced by – the cultural milieu of industrial capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century . . . . It is not the law of the jungle that is read into human affairs, Darwin read the ethos of early capitalism into the jungle. Ridley (1996: 252) puts it like this. “Hobbes (1651) (who argued that the state of nature was one of war, not of peace) begat David Hume (1739), who begat Adam Smith (1776), who begat Thomas Robert Malthus (1798), who begat Charles Darwin (1859).” “The Hobbesian diagnosis, though not the prescription, still lies at the heart of both economics and modern evolutionary biology.” Jackson ends his analysis by asking whether the cultural conditions of that time and place are still valid today, noting that the enthusiasm for liberal economics partly emerged as a reaction to the earlier dominance of Judeo/Christian religion, and also that “different cultures have entertained world views substantially different from our own.” He names several authors “who have offered what constitutes a storm of protest – largely on environmental grounds – against conventional economic models, procedures and institutions.” In fact he states “it would not be implausible to say that the entire discipline of ecological economics was borne, and continues to flourish, on the premise that conventional economics has failed signally to deliver sustainable development.” In all, Jackson pleads for an active reconstruction of the strategic narratives on which we base our selfimage and that guide the design of our society. In the next sections we explore grounds for a credible narrative that can support the belief in collective action as a feasible route out of our ecological predicament. 3. Grounds for an alternative narrative: Evidence from social science The search for, and examination of, convincing social science arguments to underpin the feasibility of effective collective action and the design of a society that

fosters the greater good instead of self-interested and anti-social behavior has been on for some time (e.g., Ridley, 1996). Moreover, recent developments in evolutionary biology give a place to co-operation that is unthinkable in classical Darwinism. Indeed the evolution of complex organisms, such as humans, can only be explained by the collaboration of micro-organisms and our bodies bear witness to the fact that they are largely collaborative structures (Capra, 1996). In our search for evidence that supports the feasibility of effective collective action and for (re)construction of an alternative narrative, we shall focus on social science. Empirically grounded social science has brought to light limitations to its power to explain and predict human behavior. These “limitations” appear to point to collective action and an alternative narrative. 3.1. Humans: Egoists or altruist? The strategic narrative assumes humans to be selfish, rational, calculating beings who anticipate others’ moves in order to pursue their advantage in conditions of scarcity. Evidence of this view of human nature can be found in both theories and models of social science and our daily lives. For this reason, the key to collective action has been assumed to lie in aligning individual interest with collective interest. In business, this argument has led to the practice of “management by objectives,” i.e., creating conditions in which selfish personal goals are in line with business goals. The skill is in constructing the link. However, based on powerful logical arguments, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Hardin’s (1968) “Tragedy of the Commons,” and Olson’s (1971) “Logic of Collective Action” refute the idea that individual rationality can guarantee collective rationality. The fact that total gains can exceed total costs of collective action is not enough for rational and intelligent individuals to undertake collective action. The reason is that groups cannot exclude from the collective benefits those who have not contributed to the realization of those benefits. Free riding is inevitable. Strategic individual reasoning (e.g., “if others contribute, I do not have to,” or “if I do not take it, others will”) makes management by objectives unlikely outside a controllable organizational context. In other words, Olson, Hardin, and social dilemma theory in its earlier game theoretical form all provide powerful arguments against collective action based on selfish “rational” behavior. And, in line with the process of double hermeneutics, these arguments have strongly influenced the sense making of policy and decision-makers, creating an environment in which strategic actors perform best. But not all social scientists have been satisfied with this conception of human nature and behavior. Careful


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Figure 1. Different possible value orientations (Uphoff, 1992: 341).

and lengthy empirically grounded research has brought to light human behavior that does not seem to fit the strategic narrative. Ostrom and her colleagues (1992; Ostrom et al., 1994; Ostrom and Slater, 1996; Ostrom, 1998) have identified collective action in situations where according to the strategic narrative, no incentives for collective action exist. Apparently, the tragedy of the commons is not so inevitable after all. Specifically, Ostrom and her colleagues have identified conditions in which fear of free riding can be overcome and in which people engage in agreements and collective action that can overcome the social dilemma and allow people to make co-operative choices in the trust that these will be reciprocated. Social psychologists (Van Lange, 1991; McClintock and Liebrand, 1989; Van Vugt et al., 1995; Van Lange and Liebrand, 1989) have explained this “divergent” behavior by differences in value orientations. In experimental studies, it has been shown that individual values regarding outcomes and interdependence of relationships influence the choice (s)he makes to cooperate or not. Four such value orientations have been distinguished: altruism, co-operation, individualism, and competition. A person who has altruistic values is mainly concerned with the others in the interdependent relationship, and with their benefits. A co-operative

value orientation is focused on the joint gains, while an individualist orientation focuses on one’s own gains. Those with a competitive value orientation are interested in maximizing the difference between their own gains and those of others. Variations in value orientation have also been found in the field. Reporting on (action) research in one of the largest irrigation systems in Sri Lanka, Uphoff (1992) identified four different value orientation as illustrated in Figure 1. In addition to identifying these alternative value orientations, the action research with irrigators in Gal Oya showed that it is possible to move from cell 1 to cell 4 through structural innovations that introduce checks and balances, reduce conflict, make corruption more difficult, allow people to behave in a generous manner, and otherwise introduce social energy. So humans are neither altruistic nor selfish but have the capability to be both, in varying degrees. Which type of behavior emerges is dependent on the interactions between individuals and their social environment, and on the institutions and structures that govern them. Drawing together research in the natural sciences, social sciences, and philosophical debates, Ridley (1996: 264) comes to the following conclusion: “The roots of social order are in our heads, where we possess the instinctive capacities for creating not a per-

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N IELS RÖLING AND M ARLEEN M AARLEVELD Box 1. Communicating scientific knowledge is not enough. Al Gore, Vice President of the US at the time of writing, claimed that scientific research had shown that July 1998 had been the hottest month since 1880 when recording began. Hence global warming was taking place at an unprecedented rate. People had to take collective action to stop the production of greenhouse gases. This was a logical argument for collective action relying on scientific proof. But it did not work. In the first place, everyone knew that scientists do not agree among themselves. There are scientists who do not believe in anthropogenic global warming and point to natural cyclic fluctuations instead. Thus Mr. Gore, who wanted to sign the Kyoto convention, referred to scientists who believe in anthropogenic global warming, while Republicans who wanted from trade, emphasized the work of scientist who believe global warming is a cyclical even. In the second place, scientific arguments are not considered trustworthy, especially as a result of the widespread awareness of the ease with which scientists have been bought by the tobacco industry to provide proof for the harmlessness of smoking. Thus the Republicans accused Mr. Gore of using scinetists with democratic sympathies to produce answers that were politically concenient.

fectly harmonious and virtuous society, but a better one than we have at present. We must build our institutions in such a way that they draw out those instincts.” 3.2. Structural innovation to promote collective action This brings us to the second argument in support of collective action and an alternative narrative. Institutions and structures can be designed to protect people against shortsighted selfish behavior, and make space for value orientations that promote collective action. The question is which type of environments brings this about. CPR researchers have done much to develop credible arguments underpinning the feasibility of agreements for governing the commons and maintaining public goods. Their focus on the conditions under which co-operative choice is likely has led to the identification of the following conditions: an ability to exclude people from using the resource, a strong sense of interdependence among the stakeholders, regular interaction, agreement about rules for access, a system for monitoring access, and sanctions for breaking the agreement (Ostrom, 1992; Steins and Edwards, 1999). Political science research on international conventions and other agreements replicates these findings. Studies of such “regimes” have shown that it is far too simple to assume that the most powerful are fixed on myopic self-interests. People and countries are linked in multiple ways and are mutually dependent. Such linking issues diversify the ways in which they hold power over one another. In similar vein, studies of efforts to break impasses through “consensual approaches to distributive conflict resolution” (Susskind and Cruickshank, 1987; Pruitt and Carnevale, 1993) suggest that in environmental conflicts, groups with relatively little formal power can achieve a great deal by making use of the many ways in which they can exert power in complex situations.

Studies of community forests in Nepal (Potters, 1998), landcare activities in Australia (Campbell, 1994), groundwater management in The Netherlands (Maarleveld, in prep.), and the solution of conflicts between herders and farmers in Benin (Dangbégnon, 1998), just to name a few, have shown that stakeholders who have experienced their mutual dependence with respect to future survival, can, under certain circumstances, reach effective agreements about the sustainable management of natural resources on which they depend, to the point of reducing their individual consumption in line with the agreement. One of the key points is creating conditions for trust that others will also honor the agreement. According to Ridley (1996), “if we are to recover social harmony and virtue, . . . it is vital that we reduce the power and scope of the state. . . . It means devolution . . . We must encourage social and material exchange among equals, for that is the raw material of trust, and trust is the foundation of virtue” (264/265). 3.3. Learning our way out For Jane Lubchenco (1998), the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the time of writing, the anthropogenic “eco-challenge” should lead society into a new social contract with science. Part of that contract must be to communicate “what is out there,” i.e., what scientists have discovered about the environment to society as a basis for its dealing with the eco-challenge. However, the communication of scientific knowledge, in itself, seems not sufficient to generate societal change. The double hermeneutic cannot be harnessed as easily as that (Box 1). In all, Lubchenco’s expectation of the power of scientific knowledge is refuted by social science research on the utilization of scientific knowledge (i.e., Callon and Law, 1989). But that is not all. Even if people accept the results of scientific studies and hence “know,” for example, that smoking reduces


their life expectancy, they are not likely to act on this knowledge. The link between knowledge and behavior is tenuous. Research of environmental behavior has shown time and again that knowledge in itself is insufficient to change behavior for most people (e.g., Van Meegeren, 1997). Such research does indicate that integrating scientific knowledge and knowledge development into existing social-political processes has more effect. In other words, the processes of everyday sense making in terms of single and double hermeneutics become of central importance. In that sense, and seen in the light of Al Gore’s experience, our effort in this paper to support an alternative narrative could also be naive, depending on our assumptions about the working of the double hermeneutic. The reconstruction of the prevailing strategic narrative towards an alternative that supports collective action entails management of the process of change of conditions under which self-assertiveness prevails to conditions in which people accept being part of a larger whole. In other words, disseminating scientific knowledge is not a sufficient condition for dealing with the eco-challenge. It will be necessary to create structures and institutions that allow the kind of collective action that is required to reverse the negative impact of human activity on our biosphere. That process of institutional change and learning increasingly takes on survival value. Understanding it better seems a key mandate for social science. Coleman (1988) sees two broad intellectual streams in the description and explanation of social action. One stream, characteristic of the work of most economists, sees the human actor “as having goals independently arrived at, as acting independently, and as wholly self-interested. Its principal value lies in having a principle of action, that of maximizing utility.” The other intellectual stream, “characteristic of the work of most sociologists, sees the actor as socialized and action as governed by social norms, rules, and obligations. The principal virtues of this intellectual stream lie in the ability to describe action in social context and to explain the way action is shaped, constrained, and redirected by the social context.” Our point is that the latter intellectual stream seems to provide more hope for effective action in a context determined by the eco-challenge than the former. The arguments with respect to the management of social change are still being developed. Examples can be seen in the mechanisms by which people “become involved in working out a mutually acceptable solution to a project or problem that affects the community and their personal lives, and mature into responsible democratic citizens and reaffirm democracy. One way of describing this phenomenon at a societal level is the term social learning” (Lee, 1993; Webler et al., 1995).

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Social learning with respect to the eco-challenge is just beginning to be explored (e.g., Parson and Clark, 1995; Maarleveld, in prep.; Maarleveld and Dangbégnon, 1999). Conflict appears to be an important mechanism for social learning about one’s interdependence with others, about the nature of those others, and about the feasibility of resolving conflicts (e.g., Upreti, 1998). In fact, some speak of “social capital” to indicate the extent to which a community has learned to trust in collective action (e.g., Coleman, 1988; Dangbégnon, 1998), or to which it has developed checks and balances for accountability (Vodouhé, 1996) and to which it has access to commonly accepted repertoires for conflict resolution. It seems, for example, that Nepalese villages have a considerable indigenous repertoire of procedures that can be called upon in times of trouble (Upreti, 1998). Social learning is a crucial ingredient in platforms for managing multiple commons (Steins and Edwards, 1999). Social learning is the mechanism through which the double hermeneutic operates, and hence a key issue in the “age of the environment.” A number of participatory methodologies have been developed in order to guide the facilitation of social learning. Soft Systems Methodology (Checkland and Scholes, 1990), for example, is a consultancy method, tested especially in corporate environments, to take a group of people, who share a problem, through a systemic learning process as a basis for agreement to take collective action. SSM has inspired work on Rapid Appraisal of Agricultural Knowledge Systems (RAAKS) (Engel and Salomon, 1997), and “Platforms for Resource Use Negotiation” (Röling, 1994, 1995; Maarleveld et al., 1997; Röling and Jiggins, 1998). RAAKS is a methodology to take a set of actors in a theater of innovation through a learning process that can enhance their synergy and collective innovative performance. It uses “windows” on the actors’ collaboration as participatory tools for learning about collaboration. Platforms for resource use negotiation allow the multiple stakeholders in a natural resource, such as a water catchment, to engage in collective action at the eco-system level at which sustainable management seems feasible. Such platforms are the very theme of this special issue (Steins and Edwards, 1999). Platforms, “mesas de concertación” (in Latin America, see Dourojeanni, 1998), or “co-operative discourses” (Webler et al., 1995) are invented all over the place because they provide a way out of the ecological predicament. Examples of concrete methods that are currently developed are “back casting,” i.e., formulating objectives for future society on which everybody can agree and then working back to the implications for present

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individual behavior (Weber, 1995), and the Future Search Conference (Weisbord, 1998), which uses a similar approach. Such communicative methodologies are paralleled by multi-agent modeling, cellular automata, distributive artificial intelligence, and other computer simulation techniques that focus on generating complex emergent environmental macro phenomena and processes on the basis of fairly simple properties and rules of engagement of agents at the micro level (Jennings et al., 1998). Summarizing section 3, we conclude that there is a considerable body of social science knowledge and practice that holds promise of providing an alternative widely shared narrative that can help us face the ecochallenge. Of course, we can still lose by running out of time.

4. Cornerstones for (re)constructing a “collective action narrative” In addition to the arguments for the feasibility of collective action presented above in section 3, we present below a number of theoretical perspectives that underpin collective action for dealing with ecological imperatives. 4.1. Communicative rationality Habermas (1984, 1987, also White, 1988; Brand, 1990) has made a useful distinction between instrumental, strategic, and communicative rationality as three ways of being effective. Instrumental rationality deals with cause and effect relationships and their instrumental manipulation through techniques in service of reaching given goals. It aims at control over the biophysical environment. Instrumental rationality and belief in the possibility to develop “the best technical means” to reach given goals is dominant in our society, largely as a result of past success. We happily consume our fossil energy in the certainty that some new technological option will be available by the time it runs out. We accept the present destructive impact of mass car mobility in the expectation that the car will be technically improved to a point where its environmentally destructive aspects can be controlled. Social engineering assumes that instrumental rationality can be used to control decision making and behavior of people. Efforts based on that idea are usually doomed to failure. Strategic rationality assumes that one is faced with other strategic intentional actors. The purpose is to anticipate their moves and win. People are expected to be selfish, bent on realizing their own projects or profits, and struggle for survival or hegemony in the

social “arena.” As we have seen, strategic rationality powerfully influences the way we design our (global) society. World trade agreements underpin global competition, market liberalization is seen as the fastest route to global food security, and only the entrepreneurial university is seen to have a chance in the privatized future. Communicative rationality is the new perspective suggested by Habermas. People can solve problems, i.e., reach individual goals, through negotiation, deliberation, co-operation, and agreement about a shared definition of the situation, leading to consensus. People can, in fact, roll back the invasion of the “life world” by “the system” through communicative action, e.g., social movements or platform processes. In fact, social theory based on instrumental or strategic action cannot explain the reproduction of society. Social theory has to be based on the rationality of communicative action. This is a hopeful thought that has inspired many people, including the present authors. But, adds Habermas, conditional for communicative rationality is an “ideal speech situation.” This means that people choose for communicative action on the basis of reasoned agreement (and not coercion), that there is complete mutual agreement and that each stakeholder in the agreement has the right to participate in the deliberation. In ideal speech situations, solutions to intractable problems emerge from interaction among reasonable people. In distinguishing communicative rationality, Habermas has done much to place social learning and collective action on the agenda as an alternative to technology and competition. But the “ideal speech” proviso leads many to reject communicative rationality as unrealistic and naïve. However, the social research findings presented in section 3 make clear that collective reflection and action are feasible. It is possible to develop devolved institutions that support the human ability to make co-operative choices and collaborate in regenerating the biosphere. The road to realizing such outcomes is ridden with problems and pitfalls. Moreover, it is uncertain whether we shall be able to do it and do it in time. But that is not a reason not to try. Democracy and civil society are generally accepted as worth fighting for, even if they remain elusive. Similarly, we need to fight to realize the potential of communicative rationality and collective action. After all, they offer our only hope for working back from the threatening system feedback that emerges from our selfish actions. The struggle between strategic and communicative rationality seems a new version of Mac Gregor’s “theory X” versus “theory Y.” The manager who holds theory X believes that the average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it. Hence


most people must be coerced and threatened with punishment to achieve organizational objectives. What’s more, the average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsibility, has relatively little ambition and wants security above all. Theory Y, on the other hand, emphasizes motivation, inquisitiveness, and the need for self-realization and achievement. People can be relied upon to loyally serve the organization’s goals if they are trusted and given responsibility. In our times, we face an adapted version: theory X expects people to be selfish and engaged in competitive struggle, while theory Y expects them to make co-operative choices. Students of CPRs will recognize the social dilemma: X defects and Y co-operates. But X and Y are not alternatives, they are two conditions of Koestler’s (1967) holon. People are two-faced. They can emphasize their own identity and be self-assertive and selfish, but they can also see themselves as part of a larger whole and be integrative and co-operative. The interest of CPR researchers is, of course, not in either state, but in the conditions that determine the switch from selfish behavior to co-operation. That is their unique perspective and the reason for the potential significance of their contribution, given that the entire biosphere is rapidly becoming a CPR, or more accurately: that we can only survive as a species if we learn to construct the biosphere as a CPR. Perhaps we can say that instrumental, strategic, and communicative rationality resemble three Russian dolls. The first one is science-based technology. It has brought us untold benefits and helped us escape from the miseries that were our lot after the fall from paradise (and, some add, the invention of agriculture). But technology needs to be economically feasible. It requires competitive markets to ensure “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Hence strategic thinking and its embodiment in economics is the second Russian doll that encompasses the first. But the dominance of strategic thinking in the design of our global society has raised awareness of the failure of the market when it comes to sustaining the ecological services on which we depend. Hence, technology and market must be conditioned by collective action, the third, most encompassing Russian doll. Of course, we shall soon find out that we need a fourth one. But it is too early to guess its contours. Spiritualism perhaps? Or virtual life? 4.2. Adaptive management The Canadian ecologist C. S. Holling and his colleagues (Gunderson et al., 1995) have given prominence to the phrase “adaptive management.” This

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term has attracted a great deal of attention from those concerned with the eco-challenge. A careful analysis of case studies of human dealings with large eco-systems, such as the Baltic Sea, the New Brunswick forests, the Everglades, and the Columbia River, has revealed a basic incongruity between people’s goals in managing eco-systems and the dynamic nature of those eco-systems themselves. Ecosystems pass through cycles (“the lazy eight”) of exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization. During exploitation, the system builds up capital and becomes more connected. During conservation, these gains are consolidated. Release by fire, storm, or pests is marked by decrease in stored capital and connectedness, while in the reorganization phase, the system is weakly connected but begins to again store capital. However, it might not be able to “recover” and might flip into a state of more or less organization and larger or smaller productivity (Holling, 1995: 22). Given these inherent dynamics, “success in managing a target variable for sustained production of food or fiber apparently leads to an ultimate pathology of less resilient and more vulnerable eco-systems, more rigid and unresponsive management agencies and more dependent societies” (Holling, 1995: 29). Capra (1996: 291) puts it like this. “A major clash between economics and ecology derives from the fact that nature is cyclical, whereas our industrial systems are linear . . . the market gives the wrong information.” The essential point is that evolving systems require policies and actions that not only satisfy social objectives but also achieve continually modified understanding of the evolving conditions and provide flexibility for adapting to surprises. (Holling, 1995: 14) Hence, their ecological analysis leads Holling and his colleagues to identify important implications for human behavior that they call adaptive management. This term was coined for the first time in 1978 by an inter-disciplinary team of biologists and systems analysts under the leadership of Holling at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis located at Laxenburg, Austria (Lee, 1993: 54). Adaptive management is a guiding principle for the design of the interface between society and biosphere, between community and eco-system, and between household and environment. The release of human opportunity requires flexible, diverse and redundant regulation, monitoring that leads to corrective action, and experimental probing of the continually changing reality of the external world. (Holling, 1995: 30)

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This is fundamentally new in the sense that our present global, national, and household management strategies largely focus on the linear growth of consumption and exploitation. Adaptive management emphasizes social learning about the complex adaptive systems (Holland, 1995) of which we are part. It looks at economic uses of nature and at policies as experiments from which we must learn (Lee, 1993: 8). Adaptive management is a general principle that needs to be translated into concrete forms of experimentation, monitoring, probing, and other forms of learning, conflict resolution, and concerted action (e.g., Lee, 1993). The ecologists cannot escape from seeing human institutions and learning as crucial factors for achieving adaptive management (e.g., Berkes and Folke, 1998). This provides an opportunity for multi-disciplinary science that is currently taken up by ecological economics, students of common property, human ecology, and others. Social scientists can add value to their work by embracing adaptive management as a key design principle for a society that risks destroying its habitat as it climbs out of “the vale of tears.” But that design principle needs to be translated into a workable praxeology – a theory to inform effective practice – with respect to social learning and collective action. 4.3. The soft side of land Understanding the “soft side of land” is an important cornerstone for perceiving the importance of collective action. Land and land use are usually thought of in “hard” terms, that is, in terms of soils, crops, livestock, pests, water, yields, erosion, etc. But land use can also be seen as emergent from human goals, organization, technology, etc. A good example is the awe inspiring rice terraces that cover entire mountainsides in Ifugao in the Northern Philippines. These terraces have been in use continuously for 3000 years. One can look at these terraces from the “hard” side, and marvel at the complexity of their construction, the irrigation methods, and other technologies that have supported a dense population in an otherwise inhospitable landscape for such a long time. Sustainable agriculture indeed. But one can also look at the soft side of these terraces: the complex organization, leadership, economics, religious beliefs, cultural practices, labor allocation, and so forth that have allowed this sustainable form of land use (Gonzalez, in prep.). The soft side of the rice terraces becomes even more evident if one analyses the reasons for the present collapse of this land use system. It started towards the end of the last century, when missionaries introduced Christianity and undermined the religious beliefs and “cosmovisions” (Millar, 1996) that underpinned the

Figure 2. Land-use as interface between eco-system and society.

system, including rites for first planting, priests with certain powers to maintain the system, etc. The system was further affected by changes in political administration that undermined the traditional leadership and authority that are required to maintain the discipline and social organization for the upkeep of the terraces and the hard work, and that are required for the acceptance of taboos with respect to cutting trees in the forests in the upper catchments that stored the water required for the system. The most recent threat comes from cheap rice produced in the low lands of the Philippines from high yielding varieties that have rendered unprofitable the arduous labor to produce rice on the terraces. The example makes clear that land use, be it at the level of the field, farm, village territory, landscape, or watershed, can be seen as the emergent property of the society that lives off it. In that perspective, sustainability is not only a “hard” attribute in terms of carrying capacity or ecological footprint, but also a “soft” one, in the sense that sustainable land use emerges from collective decisions with respect to taking less from common property resources, giving more to public goods, the design of the economy, etc. (Bawden and Packam, 1991). The unsustainable land use in a country such as The Netherlands, with its manure surplus of one metric ton of slurry per head of the population, can only be understood through the soft side, and also remedying it can only come about through the soft side: making collective decisions about how the land will be used. Such decisions must involve consumers, mitigate the impact of the agricultural treadmill and the subsequent price squeeze (e.g., Röling et al., 1998), and overcome the powerful coalition of interest of farmers, agribusiness, exporters, ministry officials, chemical industries, etc. Sustainable land use suggests collective action at a level of social aggregation at which critical ecological factors seem to be manageable. Indeed, such collective action must include agreed-upon rules of access and use, and systems of


monitoring and sanction, as indicated by the research of sustainable common property resource management (e.g., Ostrom, 1992). Our current predicament suggests that the term “land use” needs to be stretched up. It is easy to visualize the set of fields or irrigated terraces that a village community has constructed to produce crops. But among CPR enthusiasts, it is hardly necessary to point out that land use would also include the use of common forests, pastures and fishing grounds, and mining, as well as dumping garbage, skiing, and so forth. In a modern setting, it is perhaps better to speak of ecological services than of land use (De Groot, 1992). These go beyond food, fodder, fuel, and fiber, and include desirable, if not essential, conditions for human existence that could once be taken for granted but are increasingly in need of management. The term service suggests the interface between the biosphere and society. Ecological services include soils, the pollination of crops, clean air, drinking water, a stable climate, regeneration of waste, biological control of (micro-) organisms, health, reproductive or genetic integrity, protection from cosmic rays, bio-diversity, undamaged brains, pleasure, silence, beauty, etc. The list of ecological services of which we are aware and that turn out to be in need of management regularly is expanded by the discovery of yet another essential condition for human life which is threatened by our own activities. Most agricultural universities would do well to expand their attention from food, fodder, fuel, and fiber to include all ecological services. Figure 2 shows land use as the interface of the eco-system and society, at whatever level of system hierarchy. The figure further suggests a link between eco-system level and the level of social aggregation, in that critical eco-system functions require human management at a commensurate level of social aggregation, usually involving scaling up collective agency to the eco-system level at which critical ecological factors seem to be manageable. The eco-system is the realm of study of life and earth sciences, such as respectively entomology and soil science, which look at land use from a “hard” science perspective. In that case, sustainability is typically defined in terms of attributes of the eco-system, e.g., its carrying capacity, or its bio-diversity. Land-use itself is the area of focus of agronomy, farming systems research, animal husbandry, agricultural economics, rural sociology, and other typical applied sciences focusing on the design of technology and management. A set of applied sciences dealing with ecological services in the broader sense is beginning to emerge, especially where it comes to energy, water, toxic waste, etc. In this sphere, sustainability typically refers to the resource base and production

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systems on which continued provision of ecological services depends. Of particular interest is the second circle, society. In our society, which is still dominated by science and technology (based on instrumental reasoning and the manipulation of causal factors) as dominant ways of dealing with the eco-system, the second circle is not immediately obvious. There are still major European agricultural universities, for example, which do not have a social science department, apart perhaps from classical economics. Yet one can say that the use of land and of ecological services is determined by society, i.e., by institutions such as land tenure and markets for inputs, gender, and by negotiated agreements among stakeholders, or by reasons (as opposed to causes), such as food preferences and existing knowledge. The land is socially constructed. The second circle is, of course, the realm of social sciences such as economics, but especially sociology, anthropology, and psychology that look at land use from the “soft” social science perspective. In that perspective, sustainability is considered “an emergent property of a soft system” (Bawden and Packam, 1991), that is, sustainability or the lack of it is seen as determined by human activity. Sustainable land use emerges from negotiated agreement about concerted action with respect to rules of access, monitoring, and sanctions, the key tenet of CPR researchers. The emphasis on the soft side of land in the above does not mean that the hard side is unimportant. We would rather advocate a hybrid approach (Richards and Ruivenkamp, 1994) that combines the causal logic of the sciences with the hermeneutic logic of the social sciences. For example, one could use indicators derived from life and earth sciences to make visible the impact of our activities on the biosphere, while focusing on human activity as the explanation and area of likely effective intervention.

5. Conclusion We have created a society that is sophisticated in its handling of instrumental and strategic rationality. “Mainstream theories of economic and social development point towards selfish individualism as the most promising area for fulfilling human potential and meeting human need” (Uphoff, 1992: 351). However, with such a value orientation it is impossible to deal with the ecological predicament, a macroscopic threat that emerges from the collective impact of our selfish microscopic actions. Sustainable development requires collective action to redress that collective impact. That will require effective mechanisms, methodologies, and policy strategies, such as building platforms for land

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use negotiation and the facilitation of social learning. But first of all, it will require broad acceptance that collective action is feasible. Such broad acceptance is far away. Public opinion and major political programs are still based on narratives that reflect nineteenth century realities. Therefore, scientists, who feel responsible for helping society learn its way out of the ecological predicament it has created for itself, need to present credible arguments to enhance the necessity and feasibility of collective action based on communicative rationality. CPR researchers, who emphasize the conditions under which people are willing to make co-operative choices in social dilemmas and who, therefore, address the strategic tendencies of humans head on, have a crucial role to play, not only in doing empirical research and in developing working strategies, but also in developing effective arguments to deal with dismal narratives. They have a task in double, as much as in single hermeneutics. This has important implications for CPR researchers. They are not just working on a “body of knowledge” based on research. They are at the forefront of a battle with powerful interest to change the narratives for the design of society. It is ironic that the conditions for collective action must be strategically constructed. We believe that looking at the mandate of CPR research in this manner has important implications for its agenda. This agenda could do worse than to include the conditions for ideal speech situations, the institutions and collective learning involved in adaptive management, and the social construction of ecological services. What is more, the agenda should not be limited to the analysis of what occurs, but include analysis of interventions to facilitate collective action. This special issue of Agriculture and Human Values focuses on platforms for resource use negotiation, and the discussion statements suggest criteria for interventions to design and establish them (Steins and Edwards, 1999). At present, CPR enthusiasts are establishing such criteria in their efforts to make sense of the world (single hermeneutics). But CPR research will really have done its job when social learning and platforms for resource use negotiation, as well as their facilitation, have become a repertoire in the public domain that can be called upon whenever multiple stakeholders with divergent interests in multiple commons seek to engage in collective action to regenerate the ecological services on which they depend. And that is not only a question of the wide impact of the knowledge that CPR researchers develop (double hermeneutics). The mechanism of double hermeneutics itself needs to become subject of wide spread reflection. People need to socially learn how they socially learn and how they can improve their performance in

that respect, for example through creating platforms for land use negotiation. That seems to be the condition for continued human participation in the “unfinished symphony” (Jackson, 1998) of evolution, now that we dominate the Earth. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Natalie Steins, one of the guest editors of this special issue, for her constructive comments. The authors do, of course, remain responsible for the contents of the article. Note 1. The term ecological services refers to essential ecological conditions for human life (De Groot, 1992). They include food, drinking water, genetic integrity, a stable climate, biodiversity, resilience in face of external disturbance (such as cosmic rays), the pollination of crops, etc. The term service suggests that the biosphere is a type of agency set up to create the conditions in which humans can go about their business. Of course, this is a quite erroneous view. But in our world dominated by economic and anthropocentric thought, the term has caught on.

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