abstract: Social-ecological systems (SES) are replete with hard and soft human-made components (or infrastructures) that are consciously-designed to perform specific functions valued by humans. How these infrastructures mediate human-environment interactions is thus a key determinant of many sustainability problems in present-day SES. This dissertation examines the question of how some of the designed aspects of physical and social infrastructures influence the robustness of SES under global change. Due to the fragility of rural livelihood systems, locally-managed common-pool resource systems that depend on infrastructure, such as irrigated agriculture and community forestry, are of particular importance to address this sustainability question. This dissertation presents three studies that explored the robustness of communal irrigation and forestry systems to economic or environmental shocks. The first study examined how the design of irrigation infrastructure affects the robustness of system performance to an economic shock. Using a stylized dynamic model of an irrigation system as a testing ground, this study shows that changes in infrastructure design can induce fundamental changes in qualitative system behavior (i.e., regime shifts) as well as altered robustness characteristics. The second study explored how connectedness among social units (a kind of social infrastructure) influenced the post-failure transformations of large-N forest commons under economic globalization. Using inferential statistics, the second study argues that some attributes of the social connectedness that helped system robustness in the past made the system more vulnerable to undesirable transformations in the current era. The third study explored the question of how to guide adaptive management of SES for more robustness under uncertainty. This study used an existing laboratory behavioral experiment in which human-subjects tackle a decision problem on collective management of an irrigation system under environmental uncertainty. The contents of group communication and the decisions of individuals were analyzed to understand how configurations of learning-by-doing and other adaptability-related conditions may be causally linked to robustness under environmental uncertainty. The results show that robust systems are characterized by two conditions: active learning-by-doing through outer-loop processes, i.e., frequent updating of shared assumptions or goals that underlie specific group strategies, and frequent monitoring and reflection of past outcomes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2015

This dissertation evaluates the applicability of Elinor Ostrom’s theory of the commons to other forms of collective action by mapping it on a case study of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in Ethiopia and its efforts to overcome the vast disparities that have long structured the global coffee commodity chain (the “Coffee Paradox”). The conclusions I draw are the following. While Ostrom’s theory has serious omissions, it also sheds much needed light on the struggles of Ethiopia’s coffee farmers to overcome their poverty. Both the design principles that Ostrom identifies for governance rules and her list of predictors for successful common property resource management institutions suggest that Ethiopia’s coffee cooperatives could be in peril. However, by expanding Ostrom’s governance framework to incorporate a broader enabling role for governments as well as supportive roles for civic organizations, NGOs, and social movements, we see greater potential for the success of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union.

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Abstract. In Peru, the population of a very rare monkey species called the red uakari (Cacajao calvus ucayalii) lives in the Amazon rainforest in an area called Loreto. The natural resources of Loreto have been exploited due to large anthropogenic pressure which has affected the biodiversity. This thesis focuses on two areas that are now protected; one conservation concession and one community-based conservation reserve, each led by two biologists and researchers. The theory of the tragedy of the commons – a concept first described by Garrett Hardin in an article in the scientific journal Science in 1968 – will be taken into consideration and analysed when studying the common gains to protect the forest, as well as the over usage of resources. This thesis investigates in a qualitative way the risks of overexploiting the rainforest and the actions taken to preserve it, and hence saving the red uakari from becoming extinct. A combination of semi-structured interviews with the two biologists and content analysis of some of their work, amongst others, will assist in the outcome of this thesis, which is intended to be used for future protection of inhabited lands in rainforests that run the risk of being overexploited due to external commercial interests. The supposition of my study was to get a better understanding of community-based action to protect a specific space in an area that is under a great deal of external pressure and it shows that collective action and involvement of local community often has positive outcome.

The idea that the internet enables disparate individuals to link together easily has focused attention on characterising collective action under these circumstances. My research looks instead at a situation which mixes the disparate and those united by various forms of shared identity, and material grievance. The case I focus on involves overlapping groups of benefits claimants: disabled people, carers and older people. These groups are under-represented online and their political activity in a digital environment has rarely been researched. The context of my research is a consultation over social care, which provoked a campaign of opposition and the posting online of nearly 3,000 comments on the green paper’s executive summary. This constitutes collective action because it was undertaken for a collective purpose: to defend disability benefits from a perceived threat. In order to take the focus I want, I develop a conceptual framework that includes all three drivers of collective action that feature in social psychology models - efficacy, injustice and identity. Much comparable research considers just one or two of these drivers. My analytical approach is primarily inductive but I employ a mixed-methods design, including digital tracing, inductive thematic coding and basic statistical analysis. The data is drawn from the campaign and the comments. I find that most of the comments exhibit a shared sense of injustice. They also frequently include expressions of collective identity made with reference to various groups, rather than to one overarching group. Personal narratives often accompany these collective expressions. The campaign messages spread horizontally among varied, but mostly pre-existing, forums, social networking sites and blogs. The mobilisation also had a vertical element due to the involvement of private company acting, in a hybrid manner, as a campaigning organisation. My research contributes to knowledge by showing that when online action includes people who are motivated by collective identity, traditional and more contemporary collective action processes do not simply co-exist: there is a dynamic interplay between them. It also demonstrates the value of focusing on lower-level networks. This shows that the role of the drivers can vary among the groups of actors involved and, where the drivers combine, they have a reinforcing tendency.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of collaborative action and notions of value in San Isidro, an indigenous community of c.90 families in Ecuador’s central highlands. Drawing on Arendt’s theory of action as a mode of human togetherness, it focuses on forms of activity that are both affective (appealing to particular values, principles and practices) and productive (engaging in struggles to reorder social and economic relations). These include communal gatherings, shared work-parties, assemblies, meetings, campaigns and celebrations. Developing work by Lambek and Graeber, the thesis explores how such actions are used to generate different kinds of ethical and material value, the criteria people use to evaluate competing visions of hope and possibility, and the related dynamics of division and cooperation. I argue that such a focus on action and value allows us to build on insights from existing regional literature which tends to interpret indigenous collective action as either predominantly expressive (through cultural revival) or instrumental (in terms of economic and political practice). A core theme that emerges is how localised expressions of what people hold to be vital or desirable interact with coordinated efforts to defend and secure livelihoods. In San Isidro, such efforts contend with a limited land base, ongoing conflicts rooted in histories of dispossession, and widespread patterns of migratory labour (mainly for shift-work in the Amazon-based oil industry). At the same time, many residents participate in collective work to maintain shared infrastructure, protest against land inequalities, and manage areas of the communally-held páramo hills (registering as a ‘comunidad’ as recently as 2009). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over fifteen months, I analyse how such collaborative actions are combined with everyday forms of paid and unpaid work, memories of conflict, and a sense of duty toward future generations. Through chapters that focus on shared labour, coordinated campaigns, the legacies of land reform and accounts of labour migration, the thesis also examines how cooperation is fostered within a community that is increasingly diverse in access to resources, income and outlook, and how those involved negotiate the ruptures and tensions that intentional actions entail.

Thesis advisor: Candace Jones / Online communities support collective action without many of the constraints that have belied collective actors and formal organizations in the past. They have become increasingly pervasive platforms for activism as well as potential catalysts for novelty in organizing practices. Scholars have shown that by leveraging affordances of the Internet, these communities have displaced or become complements to face-to-face organizations such as churches, community centers, labor unions and political groups that have traditionally structured civic engagement. Few empirical studies, however, systematically address how processes ranging from mobilization to the coordination of complex, large-scale collective action and practices that enable and support these processes are different in online environments. In this dissertation, I provide conceptual background that supports the study of online communities as dynamic and diverse modes of civic engagement. I reveal how locations, boundaries, interactions and identities are instantiated differently in online communities, influencing processes and practices that are crucial to social change. Using Internet-based ethnographic methods, I examine: (1) how an online community called `Anonymous' experiences shifts in purpose as it transitions from being focused on recreation to becoming both an incubator and support system for several social change projects and (2) how the community adopts a repertoire of coordinating practices that allows it to organize complex projects. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Management and Organization.

Thesis advisor: Jennie Purnell / In December of 2005, the United States House of Representatives passed the infamous Sensenbrenner-King immigration reform legislation that, if written into law, would have negatively affected the situation of millions of undocumented workers in the United States, mostly originating from Latin America. In response, the Latino community in the U.S. mobilized to organize a wave of rallies across the country during the spring of 2006. This thesis explores the construction of the collective action frame employed by movement organizers to mobilize protesters. It ultimately finds that the rhetoric of assimilation was chosen because of its ability to resonate both with the goal of effecting political change as well as with the identity of the potential audience. It was nevertheless found to be inadequate in addressing the larger issues of injustice affecting immigrants as it served to reinforce and perpetuate the oppression of consciousness that has often left Latinos feeling that their heritage must be rejected in order to be deemed worthy of certain rights in the United States. While movement organizers managed to mobilize millions of people across the country, their influence on legislation has yet to be seen, as no immigration reforms have been written into law as of the writing of this thesis. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

This dissertation examines the emergence of ethnic parties, their survival in the political system, and their impact on the governance practices. While scholars have long debated the impact of ethnic parties on state-building and democratization process, few works have empirically examined their behavior in the political system. Empirical research on ethnic parties is limited to single countries or regions -- Latin America, Eastern Europe, or a few countries including India. Firstly, this dissertation extends the research on ethnic parties to include another South Asian Country – Nepal. Secondly, research on ethnic parties has been hampered by the lack of cross-sectional data on ethnic parties. This dissertation employs new datasets on the electoral performance of ethnic parties, making use of the newly available resource. Employing both qualitative and quantitative techniques, this dissertation is built around three empirical chapters. Firstly, it argues that strategic interactions between major parties and ethnic groups, among others, determine why some ethnic groups successfully form their own parties and others do not. Secondly, it argues that the factors that are responsible for the emergence of ethnic parties are hardly sufficient for the survival of these parties in the long run and shows that ethnic parties' access to state resources is a major factor that can explain the variation in their survival. And thirdly, it argues and empirically shows that support from ethnic groups to political parties does not necessarily lead to higher levels of corruption as scholars have often argued. The parties that are overwhelmingly supported by ethnic groups increase the level of regime corruption, while the parties that have large coalitions of voters including ethnic groups do not.