J BioeconDOI 10.1007/s10818-013-9163-7

How far does evolution take us? Comment on ElinorOstrom’s: do institutions for collective action evolve?

Amy R. Poteete

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract Elinor Ostrom’s article in this issue suggests that institutions for collectiveaction evolve, highlights parallels between biological and institutional evolution, anddescribes an hypothetical example of institutional evolution related to an irrigationsystem. The article is provocative but not definitive in that it does not demonstratethat evolution is more than a metaphor for institutional change and that institutionsactually evolve. This commentary unpacks the concept of evolutionary change andevaluates how well various aspects of institutional change fit within this model ofchange. The analysis supports Ostrom’s contention that evolution is not just a metaphorfor institutional change, but also suggests that not all institutional change can beclassified as evolutionary. The commentary highlights the need for further conceptualand theoretical development to delineate various forms and processes of institutionalchange, distinguish between evolutionary and non-evolutionary change, and draw outthe consequences of various forms of change.

Keywords Collective action · Evolution · Institutions · Institutional change ·Elinor Ostrom

JEL Classifications D710 · Q200

1 Introduction

Elinor Ostrom’s article in this issue returns to several familiar themes, including theadvantages of community-developed institutions relative to institutions imposed from

A. R. Poteete (B)Department of Political Science, Concordia University,1455 de Maisonneuve West, Montreal, QC H3G 1M8, Canadae-mail: amypoteete@gmail.com

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above, and the value of institutional diversity and adaptive change for the resilience ofinstitutions for self-governance. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD)framework and deontic logic structure the analysis. Numerous examples based on herextensive work with colleagues on Asian irrigation systems illustrate key conceptsand arguments. Although Ostrom had described institutional change as evolutionaryin previous publications, her earlier work did not elaborate on the idea (e.g., Ostrom1990). A reader could imagine that Ostrom used the term “evolution” metaphorically.In posing the question of whether institutional change is evolutionary, Ostrom’s articlein this issue more clearly reflects her sense that evolution is not just a metaphor forinstitutional change. The article notes specific parallels between biological evolutionand institutional evolution and offers hypothetical examples of how institutions for thegovernance of irrigation systems might evolve. The analysis is suggestive and perhapsprovocative but—as Ostrom acknowledged—not definitive.

My comments consider the description of institutional change as evolutionarychange from several angles. First, I consider two different ways of understandingthis description: as a type of change or as a metaphor. The first claim would distin-guish evolutionary change from other types of change and group institutional changetogether as one of several examples of evolutionary change. If evolutionary change isunderstood as a metaphor for institutional change, however, the claim is simply thatinstitutional change is like evolutionary change. These two claims have quite differentanalytical implications and suggest different directions for future research. Second, Iunderscore some advantages of describing institutional change as evolutionary changeby expanding upon ideas raised in Ostrom’s contribution to this volume. Third, I con-sider an aspect of institutional change that—at the least—challenges our understandingof evolutionary change: the difficulty of defining what it is that is actually evolving.Fourth, I note that the existence of evolutionary institutional change does not implythat all institutional change is evolutionary. In conclusion, I return to the choice posedin the first section and in the title of my commentary: how far does evolution take usin our efforts to understand institutional change? Can institutional change be classi-fied as evolutionary change? Or is it more useful to treat evolution as a metaphor forinstitutional change? I suggest that institutional change involves a mix of evolutionaryand non-evolutionary forms of change.

2 Typology or metaphor

When we say “institutional change is evolutionary” or, more generally, “A is X,” wemay be suggesting a metaphor or applying a typology. A metaphor highlights pointsof similarities between two seemingly different phenomena; “A” is not really “X,”but “A” is like “X” in ways that, when highlighted, may make it easier to understand“A.” If institutions evolve in a metaphorical sense, institutional change is not actuallyan example of evolutionary change, even if it shares traits with evolution that mightbe more easily understood by highlighting similarities with the perhaps more familiarmodel of evolution. A typology, by contrast, categorizes phenomenon. When applyinga typology, to say that “A is X” means that “A” has all of the traits that define “X” andthus can be classed as an instance of “X.” If institutional change is evolutionary in this

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sense, institutional change is not just like evolutionary change in some respects; it isan example of evolutionary change.

When Ostrom develops the idea of institutional change as evolutionary change, shedoes so by highlighting several similarities between institutional change and biologicalevolution. This usage is consistent with a metaphorical use of evolution. But she thenstates unambiguously that “Rule systems evolve like all cultural phenomena” evenif cultural evolution “follows different mechanisms from the evolution of species.”This amounts to making the stronger claim, that institutional change is an example ofevolutionary change. Can institutional change be classified as evolutionary change oris evolution better understood as a useful metaphor for institutional change?

3 Institutional and evolutionary change

Depicting institutional change as evolutionary does help make sense of otherwisepuzzling observations. Ostrom, for example, draws a useful comparison between bio-logical genotypes and phenotypes and institutional arrangements and their outcomes.Just as the same genotype may yield different phenotypes in different environments,the same institutional arrangements interact with local contexts to produce diverseoutcomes. The parallel with biological evolution also underscores the risks of insti-tutional uniformity—what Ostrom (this issue, citing Peter Evans) calls “institutionalmonocropping”—and the value of maintaining institutional diversity. Just as the lossof genetic diversity limits the capacity of species to adapt to diverse local contextsor changing environmental conditions, so the loss of institutional diversity limits theability of societies to adapt to spatially variable or changing social, economic, cultural,and ecological conditions. These sorts of insights establish the value of evolution asa metaphor for institutional change without, however, justifying the classification ofinstitutional change as a type of evolutionary change.

To say that institutional change is an instance of evolutionary change, one must iden-tify the characteristics that define evolutionary change and demonstrate that institu-tional change has all of these characteristics. What are the key features of evolutionarychange? The political scientist Sven Steinmo (2010, p. 15) identifies the key features ofevolutionary change “as an interactive, interdependent, and ongoing process betweenthe individual, the population, and the broader environment or ecology.” In essence,evolutionary change refers to adaptations in a population (unit of analysis) over timeas individuals within that population interact with each other and their environmentand reproduce. Differences in the rate of survival and diffusion of particular traitsresult in evolutionary changes in the population. These outcomes are emergent in thesense that they are not intentionally designed, but are rather produced through inter-actions within complex systems. The general population sometimes equates evolutionwith biological evolution, but there are other types of evolutionary change. Biologicalevolution refers specifically to changes in the mix of genes in a population, whichmay or may not correspond with changes in visible characteristics (phenotypes). Cul-tural evolution involves changes in the mix of memes—culturally transmitted ideasor behaviors—within a society. Linguistic evolution, for example, involves the emer-gence and disappearance of languages as well as changes in words and grammatical

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structures within particular languages. With language as with biological species, thereis definite reproduction from generation to generation, with basic traits of languageschanging through reproduction.

Do institutions also evolve, as Ostrom asserts? Although there are many varieties ofinstitutional analysis,1 scholars working in different traditions agree that institutionalchange is path dependent. While institutional change is possible, there must be somecontinuity over time. In this sense, institutions change through adaptation. Some mightobject that the creation of new institutions is less constrained precisely because it doesnot involve adaptation. Ostrom, however, argues that the absence of rules is itself atype of institution in which no actions are required or forbidden; instead, all actionsare permitted. Thus, even the creation of new institutions occurs against the backdropof what came before. In fact, the very absence of required or forbidden actions cancomplicate—rather than facilitate—institutional change by making coordinated actionmore difficult.

But evolutionary change involves more than adaptation in the sense of path depen-dency. It also involves adaptation to changing environmental conditions through emer-gent processes. Many social scientists downplay complexity and are either unfamiliarwith or doubt the relevance of emergent processes. Nonetheless, as Sven Steinmonotes, “Evolutionary theorists and historical institutionalists alike see adaptation asan interactive, interdependent, and ongoing process between the individual, the pop-ulation, and the broader environment or ecology” (2010, p. 15). Although Steinmolimits his claim to historical institutionalists, scholars associated with other varietiesof institutionalism, including Ostrom, would endorse this depiction of institutionalchange. Increasingly, social scientists are looking more closely at evolutionary theoryand realizing that it may be more helpful for understanding social change than they hadrealized. While, for some, evolution remains a metaphor, others agree with Ostromthat institutional change is not simply like evolution but actually involves evolution.

Nonetheless, some aspects of institutional change do not fit easily into an evolution-ary framework. I highlight two: the difficulty of defining social unit that is undergoingevolution and the common practice of pursuing institutional change by creating par-allel institutions.

4 What exactly is evolving?

Evolutionary change refers to adaptations in a population (unit of analysis) over timeas individuals within that population interact with each other and their environment.When we talk about institutional change, how should we define the relevant populationor unit of analysis? What exactly is evolving? Many political scientists would identifystates as the unit of analysis. When Steinmo (2010), for example, analyzed changesin the political economies of Sweden, Japan, and the United States as evolutionarychange, he defined his unit of analysis as the system of social, political, and economicinstitutions within a given country. His study encompasses non-state as well as state

1 For reviews of the most common types, see Hall and Taylor (1996); Immergut (1998), and Schmidt(2008).

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institutions, but the system of institutions is bounded by the state. The analysis ispersuasive in part because the unit of analysis is well-defined.

Ostrom pushes us to view institutional evolution as a more general phenomenon, inwhich the state represents one but not the only—and certainly not the most important—source of institutions. Her examples concern institutions for the development, main-tenance, and operation of irrigation systems, with some drawn from Nepal and otherAsian contexts, but others described in hypothetical terms, with no specification of acountry setting. Nothing in her discussion suggests that states have any special role indefining populations or sub-populations of institutions.2 Indeed, she offers no explicitguidance on how to conceptualize the relevant unit of analysis or population in thesense of scope of analysis when studying institutional evolution.

Should the scope of analysis be defined according to the self-proclaimed functionsof institutions, so that institutions for irrigation systems and forests, for example, mightbe seen as two separate populations? While Ostrom’s decision to focus on irrigationsystems in this contribution lends some credence to this approach, her other workintentionally drew upon examples of institutions related to diverse natural systems,including fisheries, forests, and groundwater in addition to irrigation systems. Allof these institutions were presented as examples of institutions for self-governance.Rather than treating each type of natural resource as a separate population of insti-tutions, she referred to differences in the characteristics of natural systems as factorsthat influenced the difficulty of collective action to create and maintain institutions forself-governance. It seems that, for Ostrom, the scope of analysis for institutional evo-lution may have included all institutions for local governance, regardless of the natureof the resources to be managed or the origins of the institutions (state or non-state).

If the population undergoing evolution consists of institutions for local governance,localities or communities might serve as the unit of analysis. In some respects, localcommunities might be considered smaller scale variants of states. As Ostrom recog-nized, a complex system of institutions can be found in any community. These includeformal and informal institutions, institutions for managing natural resources, main-taining public order, and delivering public services (e.g., education, health care, sanita-tion). Because each function implicates somewhat different groups of people, Ostromfavored polycentric organization in which institutions varied in territorial scope andmembership depending on particular functional goals.

The boundaries of communities, however, are less well-defined than are those ofstates. Not only are all communities internally heterogeneous (Agrawal and Gibson1999), but sedentary populations often interact with migrant populations, who oftenself-identify as distinct communities despite sharing resources. People within a sin-gle settlement may consider themselves to be simultaneously members of multiplecommunities based, for example, on administrative jurisdiction, family origins, reli-gion, tradition, or other factors. Although these communities compete for membersin some sense (Benda-Beckmann 1981; Migdal 1988; Lund 2006; Ribot et al. 2008),people often cultivate membership in more than one community rather than choosing

2 Ostrom does recognize the role of the state in either facilitating or hindering the development and survivalof institutions developed by local communities. See, for example, her treatment of this issue in the conclusionof Ostrom (1990).

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among them. Local communities are not neatly self-contained units. Instead, they havefluid borders that are subject to multiple and competing interpretations. Overlappingbut somewhat different sets of actors address overlapping sets of issues in a shiftingarray of fora. These multi-dimensional linkages (Poteete 2012) represent an importantsource of dynamism, including institutional dynamism. Some aspects of these inter-actions may be consistent with evolution. Indeed, they contribute to the complexity ofthe system. On the other hand, the fluidity of communities makes it more difficult toidentify the unit of analysis that might be undergoing evolution. These observationssuggest that evolution may occur within complexes of inter-related institutions ratherthan in functional types of institutions. While the challenges of defining the limits ofthese social complexes for the purpose of analysis remains, it is not clear that it is anymore difficult that defining biological populations or language groups.

Despite an on-going concern with localized self-governance, Ostrom does not claimthat institutional populations should be associated with communities, however defined.Instead, she relies on the IAD framework to structure her analysis. The units of analysisin IAD framework are action situations, a flexible concept consistent with the image ofalternative and shifting arenas for social interaction described above. The frameworkdoes not, however, provide guidance on how to define the scope of analysis. Furtherconceptual and theoretical work is needed to clarify how the elements of the IADframework correspond to the elements of an evolutionary process.

5 The co-existence of evolutionary and other types of change

Evidence of institutional evolution does not imply that all institutional change is evolu-tionary. Even in biology, where the role of evolution is perhaps most widely accepted,other types of change also occur. Recognition of evolutionary institutional changeshould not blind us to other forms of change. Rather, scholars must recognize that dif-ferent kinds of change coexist and work to understand the diverse processes throughwhich institutional change occurs.

Important contributions to this endeavor include the work of Thelen and colleagues(Streeck and Thelen 2005; Mahoney and Thelen 2010; Thelen 2010).3 They distin-guish five forms of institutional change. Displacement occurs when existing rules areremoved and new rules are introduced. Institutional layering arises with the develop-ment of new institutions that operate within the same general area as existing insti-tutions, so that the interaction between the two institutions alters the overall path ofinstitutional change. Institutional conversion involves the redirection of existing insti-tutions toward new goals, either in reaction to new challenges or in response to theincorporation of new actors. Drift refers to changes in the operation of institutions asa result of changes in the environment rather than changes in the institutions them-selves. Conversion describes change from the “strategic redeployment” of existinginstitutions to address new issues (Mahoney and Thelen 2010).

3 Thelen and colleagues present these ideas in slightly different formulations across the publications cited.My discussion represents a synthesis.

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Thelen and colleagues identify several mechanisms that contribute to these variedforms of institutional change (Streeck and Thelen 2005; Mahoney and Thelen 2010).First, all institutions are subject to multiple interpretations. It is impossible to specifyall possible contingencies and language is inherently open to interpretation. Differentunderstandings of a rule are often not recognized until a dispute arises. Interpretationsmay shift imperceptibly—and unintentionally—over time or across localities. Further-more, actors may intentionally promote particular interpretations or reinterpretationsof institutions to promote their material interests or ideological worldview. Changesin interpretation can produce substantial change in the operation and consequencesof an institution. Second, imperfect enforcement of institutions creates opportunitiesfor deviations that, with repetition, can give rise to new institutions. These two mech-anisms interact with two important drivers of human action: strategic behavior andcognitive limitations. On the one hand, strategic actors will attempt to influence boththe design and implementation or enforcement of institutions. On the other hand, cog-nitive limitations hamper efforts at design, giving rise to unintended consequences.Reliance on heuristics and habit also influence the interpretation of institutions andlimit their enforcement.

Which of these processes and types of change are consistent with evolutionarychange? Arguably, all four processes—interpretation, imperfect enforcement, cogni-tive limitations and habit, and strategic behavior—lend themselves to change throughdifferential survival and adaptation. In particular, parallels can be drawn between lin-guistic evolution and institutional changes involving changes in interpretation of or innon-strategic practice within institutions. Some of these processes, however, may alsocontribute to non-evolutionary change. Institutional change in which strategic behav-ior dominates, such as displacement and the creation of institutional layers, seem morelikely to involve non-evolutionary dynamics. In addition, institutional drift seems moreakin to acclimatization than evolution. Even if some might argue that these displace-ment, layering, and drift also involve evolution, there is no reason to assume that allforms of institutional change involve evolution. Recognition of the possibility thatevolutionary and non-evolutionary forms of change are likely to coexist underlinesthe importance of distinguishing these forms of change.

6 Conclusion

In these comments, I have considered alternative interpretations of Ostrom’s assertionthat institutions evolve as well as its analytical advantages and disadvantages. Myruminations suggest that, while at least some institutional change may be evolution-ary, evolutionary institutional change may coexist with non-evolutionary institutionalchange. In other words, while there are reasons to contend that evolution is not justa metaphor for institutional change, not all institutional change can be classified asevolutionary. There is a need for further conceptual and theoretical development toclarify the unit of analysis for institutional evolution (what exactly is evolving) and todelineate various processes and forms of institutional change.

For Ostrom, evolution is not simply a description of a process but also a sourceof adaptation and resilience. Institutional diversity, like biological diversity, should

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be preserved or even fostered. Just as the loss of genetic diversity increases the risksof widespread crop failure, so the loss of institutional diversity increases the risks ofpoorly adapted institutions that hamper rather than facilitate both collective action andadaptation. Institutional evolution and its coexistence with non-evolutionary institu-tional change undoubtedly have additional implications that should be identified andevaluated in future research.

Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the support of Concordia University, Montreal, and theSocial Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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