Research Projects

Collaborative Policy

Collaborative policy institutions are an experiment in democratic governance. Instead of the coercive policies typical of traditional environmental policy, collaborative institutions attempt to build voluntary cooperation between competing stakeholders in order to promote long-term resource protection. Collaborative institutions have both critics and advocates, and to date, the academic community has not reached a verdict on their effectiveness. My research attempts to understand the mechanics of collective action within watersheds, including an assessment of the success of collaborative institutions. The papers below report results from research on the National Estuary Program, one of the leading national examples of collaborative watershed institutions. Forthcoming papers will examine collaborative land-use and transportation planning in California.

Internet Appendices for 2003 Political Research Quarterly

Agricultural Watershed Management

One of the largest remaining water quality problems in the United States and elsewhere is non-point source pollution from agricultural runoff. A common solution to this problem is to develop watershed management programs that encourage farmers to participate in policy decisions as well as adopt on-farm "best management practices", which are designed to reduce the quantity and improve the environmental quality of agricultural runoff. Trust is a critical resource for solving the collective action problems involved with agricultural watershed management. This research is currently underway with grant funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and the California Policy Research Center.

Environmental Activism and Behavior

Environmental activism and behavior are classic examples of collective-action because each individual citizen prefers to free-ride on the behavior of others, thereby avoiding the costs of participation but reaping the benefits of new policies. The papers below use a variety of survey data to test a collective action model of environmental activism. This work continues in collaboration with Arnie Vedlitz (Texas A&M) and Sammy Zahran (Colorado State University).

Local Government Policy and Politics

Historically, theories of local government policy have largely ignored the structure of local political institutions such as district-based versus at-large elections, or mayor verus city manager executive structures. Neoinstitutional theory suggests these institutions will have systematic effects on collective decisions. In collaboration with Rick Feiock (Florida State University), this research examines the effect of local political institutions on growth management and environmental policies.

Experimental Social Dilemmas and Cultural Evolution

The collective-action problems seen in many public policy arenas have structural features that can be simulated in a laboratory in order to test central hypotheses. These are often called "social dilemma" experiments, and can be found in nearly every social science discipline--one author called them the e.coli of social science. In collaboration with Peter Richerson and Richard McElreath, I have recently expanded into experiments testing theories of cultural evolution. Social dilemmas are just one place where cultural evolution is important. The papers below report from a variety of these experiments.

Agent-Based Models and the Evolution of Cooperation

The beginnings of some results from simulations that examine how institutions influence the evolution of cooperation. Featuring agent-based simlutions in the spirit of Axelrod (1984) and Nowak and Sigmund.