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The Politics of Water Governance at a Time of Crisis: Creating Opportunities through new Analytical Lenses #WPSA16

I am in San Diego, California, for the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) just the second of six conferences and workshops I am attending and presenting at in the next six weeks. At the time, obviously, it seemed like a great idea. Right now, I am surviving through all of them, and will write about my experience, as soon as I have a minute.

Panel 04. 06 – The Politics of Water Governance at a Time of Crisis: Creating Opportunities through new Analytical Lenses
Date: Friday, March 25, 2016, 3:15 – 5:00 PM
Chair(s): Harris, Leila, lharris@ires.ubc.ca, The University of British Columbia

Paper(s): Narrative, Storytelling, and Arts-based Engagement: Revisiting Water Governance
Harris, Leila, lharris@ires.ubc.ca, The University of British Columbia

Coalition Dynamics under Collaborative Norms: Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework to Understand Collaborative Policy Processes
Koebele, Elizabeth, elizabeth.koebele@colorado.edu, University of Colorado Boulder

Testing the Water: Investigating Water Manager Responses to Ecological and Institutional Change to Understand Adaptive Governance
Childress-Runyon, Amber, achildre@rams.colostate.edu, Colorado State University

The politics of bottled water at a time of crisis: Mobilizations in California and British Columbias against Nestle
Pacheco-Vega, Raul, raul.pacheco-vega@cide.edu, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE)

Public Adaptation through the Backdoor: Can We Move Toward Adaptive Water Governance?
York, Abigail, abigail.york@asu.edu, Arizona State University
Eakin, Hallie, , Arizona State University
Smith-Heister, Skaidra, , Arizona State University
Bausch, Julia C., , Arizona State University
Aggarwal, Rimjhim, , Arizona State University
Anderies, John M., , Arizona State University

Discussant(s): Pacheco-Vega, Raul, raul.pacheco-vega@cide.edu, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE)

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 25, 2016

What counts as academic writing? #AcWri

#AcWri on a planeAnybody who reads my research blog and/or follows me on Twitter knows that I have very specific approaches to writing. Because I need a disciplined approach to life, I do things like the following: I schedule my life to the every minute, I organize my office every day, I organize my research notes and books/journal articles almost obsessively. Writing every day has become my mantra and my daily discipline.

Because I need the peace of mind of having accomplished something every day, I write every day, instead of spending extended periods of time cranking out text. I write every day because I’ve made writing my priority. Everything can wait but not writing. I can’t leave my house without doing some writing.

My academic writing #AcWri processEvery single researcher (and writer) out there will provide the advice that works best for him or her. A recent piece on Inside Higher Education(which I loved by the way, because she’s such a great writer) by Dr. Jane Ward suggests that you should “write in sprees” (e.g. write for extended periods of time), instead of writing every day. She also suggests (which I find is one of the most powerful piece of advice anybody can give) to self-identify as a writer.

This is something I do (identify myself as a writer), because in a former life, I wrote PR and marketing copy. Ask me one day over cocktails. Her third piece of advice is also extremely powerful: don’t absorb other people’s anxieties. If somebody else is stressed, don’t let that stress get you down.

But I want to go back to the first piece of advice, because that’s the one I find most people struggle with – should you write every day or should you write in long sprees. Inspired by Dr. Wendy Laura Belcher (whose 12 weeks to a journal article book is an absolute gem that you should buy this very second, and whose writing advice is stellar), I went on Twitter to rant about this notion of “don’t write every day”.

#AcWri and reflection and highlightingThe truth is: YOU ARE WRITING EVERY SINGLE DAY. Even if you are sending emails to a coauthor about how to craft a specific section, THAT COUNTS AS WRITING. Why? Because you are sharing concept notes. You are shaping how your argument is going to be structured. You are discussing the data. Are you reading and taking notes off of each paper you read? You are WRITING.

Are you drawing tables by hand to decide how you’re going to present them in your paper? YOU ARE WRITING. You are, in fact, WRITING.

Most people who write about academic writing (now that’s writing-ception) will differentiate between “generative text” (words you will end up putting into a paper or grant proposal) and “non-generative text” (bits and pieces of writing here and there). In reality, even if you don’t structure full sentences or write a full paragraph, every time you write something that pushes your work forward, you ARE writing, and you ARE writing “generative text”.

Handwritten notes

One of the problems I have found with recently published papers (and this may be the result of our publish-or-perish attitude) is that their literature reviews are exceedingly poor. Sometimes I find that key citations are absent from papers whose authors should know better. I believe one reason for this is that we don’t take the time to read and write notes about what we read. And we don’t because, WE SHOULD BE WRITING. If we don’t take reading seriously, if we don’t write notes and assemble robust literature reviews, our writing will end up being quite poor.

Our obsession with producing generative text has also led us, I believe, to relegate reflection to a distant second place. We don’t make time for proper reflection and digestion of ideas and thoughts on an every day basis. What is important in my daily academic practice? WRITE. WRITING. I NEED TO BE WRITING. But we don’t make the time to reflect. And the notes you write to yourself while you read and reflect on ideas? THAT COUNTS AS WRITING. That IS, in fact, writing.

I think we owe it to ourselves to recognize that no writing practice is perfect, or ideal, or that every single piece of advice you receive will work for you. You need to build your own writing practice. But to do so, you also need to recognize that many of the activities you don’t reward yourself for doing (like writing notes by hand, like emailing colleagues with ideas and thoughts, like reading, reflecting and taking notes about what you read) are in fact, whether you recognize it or not, writing.

My Twitter rant below:

UPDATE: Dr. Melissa Terras suggested a change in the wording of “binge-writing” that will shape how I write about this topic in the future. As Katrina Firth aptly suggested, the word “binge” suggests some sort of abnormalcy. We usually associate binging with “binge eating” or “binge drinking”, both of which may lead to physical illness.

Melissa Terras suggests “writing sprints” instead of “binge writing”, and I love this idea.

Jo Van Every had already written about the use of “binge writiing” and I didn’t recall until I searched for associated tweets. I also thoroughly agree with Professor Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch that if you want to sprint, you can’t do it unless you’ve trained daily, which is the theme of this post (how every writing you do can actually count as #AcWri).

FURTHER EDITS: Wendy Laura Belcher and Jane Ward had a dialogue in the comments on the Inside Higher Education piece, and also with me.

Furthermore here are a couple of additional thoughts by Pat Thomson who also has written on this (I’m changing my vocabulary as shown to “sprint writing” or “writing in long sprees”).

And the book recommended to me is one I already own in PDF version. “How We Write” edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari. Great read.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 11, 2016

Some advice on building conference panels

A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Yara Asi asked me for some advice on how to assemble good conference panels. I was super crazy busy after being ill for 3 weeks and doing fieldwork in Madrid for 2, so I just came around to writing this post. Apologies for the delay. Here are 5 tips I use for assembling conference panels, myself.

The Global and Regional Politics of Water (ISA 2015 TA79)

1. Never be afraid to ask.

Some of the best panels I’ve created have been with very senior scholars. Even if you are a junior scholar, you can bet that if your panel is well-assembled, has a nice line up and you craft your approach email with kindness and respect, it’s very likely that they may say yes. Of course, if they have time and they can plan for funding to go to the conference!

LASA 2013 Innovations in Drug Policy

2. Prioritize the underprivileged/early career scholars

Last year, at the International Studies Association (ISA) 2015 conference, I organized two panels with some of the brightest PhD students and post-doctoral researchers I could find who studied water. To me, organizing panels with graduate students always takes precedence. They are the ones who need the most exposure, so I am happy to promote their work.

AAG Fetishes of Water Governance

3. Don’t build an all-male panel.

I think this is self-explanatory, but it’s 2016 and some of the people I respect a lot in my field are still assembling panels with only males (even worse – only middle-aged, white men!). If you need a resource on women who also do political science, you can go to this website.

Dynamics Of Contention In Global Climate Politics (ISA 2015 WD 20)

4. Write the panel abstract so that it reads as a story

Your panel should be telling a story. It should explain coherently and succinctly why it’s important, why you’re bringing together the people you are including in the panel, and what people will learn as a result.

5. Build some slack into your panel and find alternates.

Sometimes, life happens. Funding doesn’t come through, or loved ones fall ill. So, build a list of panelists who you may not have been able to include in the panel originally as planned, but who might be able to join at the last minute. Inform the organizers as soon as a contingency happens.

Hopefully this advice will be helpful to you as you assemble your next panel!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 6, 2016

Coming back to work after a long illness

If you followed my Twitter feed in the past couple of weeks you’ll know that I fell really ill right after my two weeks of fieldwork in Madrid. My family doctor says it was a combined influenza plus overexhaustion plus almost-pneumonia kind of illness, and he got me on a two-week course of antibiotics (one week of injections and one week of pills). I am barely finished with the antibiotics and have started feeling like a human again. The first week was terrible. I had to sleep 24 hours in a row, for two days in a row.

I learned a few things these past two weeks. The first one is that some people will not understand that being ill is not a choice, and that my main focus is, and should be on getting better, not finishing a chapter/paper/article. I think it is not worth working with someone who doesn’t understand the human aspects of academia. I don’t work weekends. I don’t work holidays. I don’t work when I am sick.If that doesn’t work for you, then I don’t want to work with you.

The second thing I learned is that I should trust my doctor when he says that I need to recharge my batteries and to choose my activities wisely. He said “you will have energy to do ONE thing per day. ONE. So, be wise about which activity you do each day while you recover”. That’s exactly what I did. For example, on Wednesday, I chose to promote the Bachelor of Public Policy program in Leon, where my parents live. It was exhausting and I needed to just keel over and sleep for an hour afterwards. On Tuesday, I chose to attend an important meeting with my CIDE colleagues. On Thursday, I chose to attend a meeting with our students. I didn’t worry about doing anything else. I only had energy to do ONE thing and I did it well. And then I went back to sleep.

The third thing I learned is that I should avoid forcing myself to do anything, particularly work, while I’m convalescent. Contrary to what many people may think, I have a very fragile physique. I have severe allergies (alcohol and lactose, just to start), and my immune system has been compromised since I was a child. I’ve had to take care of myself since I was very little, and while the past few years I was able to avoid falling gravely ill, this 2016 seems to have taken a toll on me way too early, and thus I need to rest even more, as my Spring semester is actually quite busy.

The fourth thing I learned is that I should only gradually come back to do my activities, instead of trying to Get Everything Done As Soon As I Feel Remotely Healthy. I have been doing one, two small things in addition to one big thing every day, and I feel much better.

And the fifth thing, which probably should be the first, is a reminder of something I already knew: no academic accolades are worth your health and your life. No matter how many papers you are supposed to publish per year, how many conferences, your health is and should be first.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – February 19, 2016

WC15: Exploring conflict resolution and peace-building within the global water governance discourse #ISA2016

If you are attending the forthcoming International Studies Association conferences in Atlanta, I invite you to attend our panel on Wednesday, WC15: Exploring conflict resolution and peace-building within the global water governance discourse.

When:Wednesday, March 16, 1:45 PM – 3:30 PM
Where: 304, Hilton Atlanta

Exploring conflict resolution and peace-building within the global water governance discourse

Chair: Oriol Mirosa (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Discussant: Cecilia Tortajada (National University of Singapore)

Papers

Global Water Governance and Local Input: Can Participation Overcome Conflict?
Author: Oriol Mirosa (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

The global politics of bottled water: Towards an integrative research agenda
Author: Raul Pacheco-Vega (Centro de InvestigaciĂłn y Docencia EconĂłmicas (CIDE))

Justice and Global Water: The Ethics of Global Water Governance
Author: Christiana Peppard (Fordham University)

The Challenges of Governing Water at the Global Scale
Author: Cecilia Tortajada (National University of Singapore)

At the Confluence: The OECD and the Global Water Crisis
Author: Dustin Garrick (McMaster University)

Abstract and Keywords
Increasing pressures on water resources in the context of rapid global environmental change have led to a growing number of conflicts at varying scales. Given the intricacies of cross-scalar environmental dynamics, whereupon phenomena at one scale can have impacts across various levels and regions, it is fundamental to undertake profound examinations of sub-national, cross-national and global water conflicts. Given the complexity that the literature on peace-building and conflict resolution present, in particular when analyzing water resources-driven conflicts, this panel asks researchers to rethink how we can use a peace science/peace building/conflict resolution approach to examine water issues within the international arena, and how can this approach contribute to furthering our understanding of global water governance. This panel includes contributions from scholars who work within a variety of disciplines and who use a multiplicity of methodological approaches and conceptual paradigms. The panel explores a broad variety of cases: transboundary water conflict, sub-national conflict, and the role of global institutions in water conflict resolution and/or governance.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – February 16, 2016

Working at my home office vs working at my campus office

A few weeks back, Ingrid Delavigne on Twitter asked me about my thoughts on working at my home office vis-a-vis working at my campus office.

I don’t know if my followers on Twitter or my readers here know this, but I actually start writing at home early in the morning. I wake up between 4 and 4:30 am and start writing. I’ve had a practice of writing for two hours every day. I do this even if I do not have “generative text” (e.g. “new” text) every single day. I write memos about research, transcribe field notes, interviews, build datasets, etc. I write stuff that will move my research forward.

Home office in Aguascalientes at night

Again, I am well aware that I write from a place of privilege and I acknowledge my arrangements may not work for every single academic out there. I live in a three-bedroom house (which for a single man like me, it is more than enough), and one of these bedrooms has been converted into a home office. This arrangement has one drawback: where I live (in a gated community), internet access is sometimes quite spotty. But having a home office to work has many advantages: I can write in my pyjamas, nobody bothers me because I write too early in the morning, and I can focus on my work.

My policy is as follows: unless I have to be on campus early for meetings or to teach, I arrive to campus AFTER I have completed a task or series of tasks. I do try to spend at least 6-8 hours on campus because I like to be available for my students in case they want to drop by. I have decorated and organized my campus office so nice that spending many hours there is actually enjoyable.

The only time when I don’t follow my rule is when I need to be on campus for Skype/FaceTime meetings. Given that our university’s internet is WAY, WAY faster than my home wireless network, I try to make it to campus super early so that I can get some writing done before my meetings. I also work on campus when I am writing a literature review or preparing a syllabus because it’s easier to download articles when online databases recognize my laptop as being associated with my university network.

Working at my CIDE Region Centro office

Also, I work on campus for the LONGER period of time. That is, I don’t work at home for a longer period of time every day than what I work on campus. This may sound counter-intuitive to those who feel that they are more productive working at home (particularly writing). My logic for this is as follows: I work at home to achieve a goal (getting X number of words or pages written). Spending the entire day at home wrecks my division between home and work, and therefore, enables a bit of workaholism. If, on the contrary, I decide to *only* write at home only for as long as necessary to achieve a certain writing goal, and THEN I move on and continue on campus, I already got my academic writing kick-started.

Regardless of where I work, my strategy is ALWAYS to make my working space my own. I decorate both my home office and my campus office. I make sure to add personal touches (photos of my nieces and nephews, paintings from the cities where I have lived or visited, etc.) Also, as many people may realize, I am a little bit obsessive when it comes to physically organizing my books and journal articles. That’s the only way I can feel at peace and do my work. So, my recommendation is, whether you work at home or at the office, having the best setup is the smartest strategy, and the most conducive to being productive.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 13, 2016

Public Policy Analysis (Spring 2016 Syllabus)

As my followers on Twitter will know, it’s rare that I am asked to teach in the Spring. Normally I only teach in the fall (I have a 2-0 teaching load which this year turns into 2-1). But I’m really excited to go back to teaching policy theory rather than area courses. This Spring 2016 I will be teaching Public Policy Analysis. This is an undergraduate-level course (3rd year), but since I have graduate students taking it I will be adding components for those graduate students. Since my objective of increasing representation of female scholars, younger academics and underrepresented minorities is a priority for me, I had to entirely rewrite the course syllabus to make room for those who aren’t normally represented in the literature (syllabi, etc.) This process took the better part of two weeks. But I’m quite proud of how my syllabus worked out.

Here is the course abstract and goals, and the PDF version can be downloaded here.

Public Policy Analysis (Spring 2016)

Instructor: Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega

Course Goal and Prerequisites

The goal of this course is to provide you with both theoretical tools and practical skills to undertake applied policy analysis. While the course is primarily focused at the national level, it is quite likely that we will analyze state-level and local-level policies. At the same time, we will also learn a lot of comparative public policy theory. While it would be nice if you had a robust understanding of the institution of federalism and the Mexican institutional architecture neither of these is a mandatory requirement.

Course Objectives:

The course is designed as a survey of the literature on policy analysis, both from a methodological perspective and a theoretical one. We will also spend a substantial amount of time undertaking comparative cross-national policy analysis. Some of the content of the course will also be focused on policy learning, transfer and lesson drawing. Due to time constraints, the course content is necessarily a broad overview and students must go beyond the assigned readings in order to write their assignments. Using only assigned readings will not lead to a good grade!

The course is designed to provide the student with a broad understanding of the tools and techniques we use to analyze public policies. While the assumption of the course is that previous courses in public policy may have touched on the basic policy cycle theoretical tenets, we will also start from a common, homogeneous foundation bringing everyone to speed with the basic literature.

The course is also intended to help students develop practical skills to describe, analyze and synthesize data regarding, amongst other topics, the political dynamics of urban policy problems, the potential for cross-level and cross-regional collaboration and policy learning, the policy challenges of an aging population, etc. This course is eminently practical and thus I expect you to follow policy developments in Mexico on a daily basis.

As a survey public policy course, I will be touching on several substantive policy areas (namely, urban policy, water policy, climate policy, cultural policy, education policy and security policy) where the national, international and subnational dynamics plays a substantive role.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 13, 2016

My 2016 word: FOCUS

If you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I decided not to write anything until I felt physically better. As usual for me, I finished the year 2015 sick. This was actually quite predictable. I accepted an invitation to participate in a “best practices in local government” judgment competition committee which increased my workload four-fold in the space of 2 months. My Mexican passport expired literally a week before I needed to participate in the polycentricity workshop. It was end-of-the-term and I was teaching two courses, plus I’m collaborating with a colleague who asked me to give a seminar in Guadalajara that I hadn’t expected would take all the time that it did. Final projects advising for the Diploma in Government and Public Policy students. Add to that a one-day fieldwork day in Guadalajara (really exhausting as we did 6 interviews in one day), and you can expect the world to start to crumble fast.

Some of my great academic friends on Twitter know all about what to do when the world crumbles. I recommend Steven Shaw’s essay for you to think about what you want to do in 2016 to avoid having a rapid crash-and-burn when tough times happen, which is what happened to me last year and to a lesser grade, this December. Trust me, it wasn’t as bad as 2014. If you read my post on SAS Confidential, you’ll know my 2015 went swimmingly. I had learned my lesson. I was doing perfectly fine through the year. Except, of course, for November and December of 2015, as I just mentioned.

I don’t have any big resolutions for 2016. Heck, I haven’t even written a Year In Review blog post for 2015! So far, I’m riding 2016 as it comes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan. As I discussed on Twitter with Christiana Peppard earlier, I follow Janni Aragon‘s model of writing what I want to achieve in the academic year (2015-2016) but I also map what I need to do for the actual calendar year (particularly my writing commitments).

You can read an excellent 2016 resolutions post from Kevin Gannon here. When I read his paragraphs on “be present”, it reminded me of the word I have been looking for as my theme for 2016. Psyc Grrl decided hers would be “don’t know” (and as Will Lowe reminded us, Bayesian thinking says it’s better knowing that you know that you don’t know than not knowing anything at all, and improves your decision-making). It’s ok if you don’t know. In many ways, this year I also don’t know. But there’s one thing I DO know. I need to FOCUS.

I want to thank Kevin, Steve and PsycGrrl for prompting me to write this blog post, particularly because their writing got me thinking and excited to blog about my own 2016. I am healthier now, and had been thinking for a long while about what my 2016 theme would be. This year, the word is FOCUS.

Focus

Photo credit: Dani Ihtaho, on Flickr Photo license: CC Attribution-Non-Commercial

I’m going to focus on WHO is important to me (my coauthors, my students, my friends, and a number of colleagues who are ALSO friends, but more importantly, my family and specifically my Mom and Dad). I’m going to focus on WHAT is important to me. I want my scholarship to be read broadly, which means I’m probably going to publish less, but HIGHER and with a BROADER dissemination strategy. I’m going to focus on ME. I decided that it’s ridiculous that I haven’t been able to teach (let alone TAKE) a dance class in 3.5 years. I’m going to at least, TAKE one dance class this year. Also, this will be the year I’m open to at least going on a date. Or a series of dates. Not to find the love of my life, but at least to find someone to see a movie with. And come hell or high water, I’m going to find a volleyball team.

Focusing means also saying no. I already started. I am doing the political science conferences (MPSA, WPSA, CPSA and APSA, as well as ISA), but there are MANY that are in my NO file: sorry geographers, no CAG, no AAG. No sociology ASA, no anthropology AAA nor SfAAA. And in public administration I’m only doing one. I also have refocused my writing commitments to reflect what I NEED to write rather than what I am asked to write. I agreed on chapters for books on this basis. I already have 6 co-authored papers committed, I’m not accepting anything else at the moment. I’m going to honor Every Single One of my Writing Commitments, and even more so, my priorities are my coauthorships. I owe my coauthors the respect of knowing that I appreciate our collaborative work, A LOT.

Focusing means submitting to higher-ranked journals. I took a high-volume, high-speed output strategy these past three years because I needed the numbers (ask me at a conference, in person, what I think of the “publish-and-perish” model that prevails in Mexican academic evaluation schemes). I no longer need the numbers. I want to publish high, but perhaps even more than high, I want to publish broadly. I want more people to read my work in English (and trust me, I am well aware that I had promised I wouldn’t publish in Spanish anymore – yeah, I HAD to do it because I am a professor in a Spanish-speaking country).

Focusing also means doing less of the community-building and promotion efforts that I’ve been doing. That doesn’t mean that I won’t participate in them, or that I will leave behind those that I already do (like #ScholarSunday ever weekend or the #TertuliaCIDE which I love). It means that I won’t be able to attend every movie club night, I won’t be able to take it upon myself to organize many of the social things on campus, I may not be able to come up with more initiatives to promote our degree. I may just need to take it down a notch, and FOCUS.

Focusing also means spending more time with myself. I’m a strange extroverted introvert. I need time with myself, which means also that I may decide not to socialize as much as people would want me to. Surprising to me, my social life is extraordinarily rich. I spend time with my parents, with my friends both in Aguascalientes and Leon, and with my colleagues-who-also-have-become-friends. My best friend from childhood also lives in Aguascalientes, so that means that at least I have ONE social event a week for sure, in addition to other social commitments. But I do so much personal interaction with teaching, collaborating, conferencing, that I need a lot of ME time lately. And given my schedule, it’s hard for me to give myself that time. This 2016, I’m going to focus on ME and MY energy levels and what I need. And obviously not to overwork myself and take care of my health.

Focusing also means giving specific people more of my time and presence. One thing I learned after spending time with my current and former coauthors this 2015 (Oriol Mirosa, Staci Zavattaro, Kate O’Neill, Kate Parizeau, Kathryn Harrison) is that the personal side of coauthorship is fundamental. These are people that I find not only incredibly smart and whose research impresses me and inspires me and pushes my own boundaries and limits, but these are people that I CARE ABOUT. I love spending time with Oriol, with Staci, with both of the Kates, and obviously Kathy has become a friend after being my professor and mentor. Their personalities completely mesh with mine. We have similar outlooks on life and have all faced challenges that we can talk about openly and clearly. And their success is important to me, too. They support my growth and I aim to support theirs. I plan to further strengthen these coauthorship-friendships in 2016.

Focusing also means doing very specific advocacy activities. I am happy to retweet, connect people amongst themselves, etc. But I am NOT joining another organizing committee. I am going to FOCUS on advocating for the following:

Focus

Photo credit: Mark Hunter on Flickr, photo license: CC-Attribution.

I hope you will join me for an exciting 2016 where I’ll have to focus. For someone with the personality of a hummingbird it will prove definitely a challenge. But I’m looking forward to it.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 5, 2016

“Thinking Polycentrically” Authors’ Workshop at the Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis

This week was one of the most intense yet extraordinarily rewarding weeks of the past year. I participated in a week-long (well, 4 days, but you have to include travel to Bloomington too!) polycentricity workshop at the Ostrom Workshop. For many years, the idea of multilevel, nested, non-hierarchical models of governance of natural resources and public service delivery has been on the mind of many scholars, but the Ostrom group (understood as Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom and their former students and research associates) have done an extraordinary job of bringing the concept back. This year, after the IASC 2015 meeting in Edmonton (where I also presented and organized a polycentricity panel) Andreas Thiel, Bill Blomquist and Dustin Garrick set the foundations for an authors’ workshop to be held in December of 2015. The goal of the workshop was to start building a shared, common conceptual understanding of what polycentricity means, does, achieves and doesn’t achieves, and whether polycentric resource and public service delivery governance models are the “right” ones.

"Thinking Polycentrically" Authors' Workshop

The whole group, which I found very balanced: experienced scholars, up-and-coming rising stars.

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)I have to admit that I was a little nervous about participating as several participants (Dan Cole, Mike McGinnis, Bill Blomquist, Edella Schlager, Bryan Bruns, Vlad Tarko, Tanya Heikkila just to mention a few) have been working on polycentricity for much longer than I have, and I profoundly respect their work. But as I wrote in my other post, being part of “The Cult” (as we Workshoppers sometimes call ourselves) made the experience an extraordinarily rewarding one. I presented on whether we can look at polycentricity as an emerging property of a system (using Complex Adaptive Systems theory, and exploring cases of Mexican river basin councils). This paper builds on earlier iterations that I presented at IASC 2013, IASC 2015 and WOW5. It is obvious that spending 4 intense days, 8 hours a day basically thinking, reflecting, writing, reading and presenting each other’s work on polycentricity may be daunting and exhausting. But it was very rewarding too.

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

Thinking Polycentrically Authors Workshop (Ostrom Workshop)

Thinking Polycentrically Authors Workshop (Ostrom Workshop)

Thinking Polycentrically Authors Workshop (Ostrom Workshop)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop)

Thinking Polycentrically Workshop (Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington)

There’s a number of lessons I can draw from this workshop, but I think the main one is: always be prepared and willing to listen and learn. What we accomplished in those 4 days is something that will stay with me for decades to come. It was literally a brain-candy-fest. The high level of discussion, the kindness with which feedback was delivered, the willingness to work together (let’s not forget Lin’s last book with Marco Janssen and Amy Potteete was “Working Together”) was astonishing. I literally did not want to come back home.

"Thinking Polycentrically" Authors' Workshop

At the end of the workshop, we were exhausted but very happy for what we achieved

There will be a number of products arising from this workshop (a special issue, one or two books, and several articles by all authors), and I look forward to producing some of these myself, both in coauthorship and on my own. Thanks Andreas for the funding, the invitation, for collaborating with me during the workshop and future products, and for your initiative, and to Nadine for the help with all logistics to run the workshop, Dave, Gail and Patty for all your help with the workshop at the Ostrom Workshop, Dustin and Bill also for inviting me and spearheading this initiative, and every single one of the participants for an enriching experience. Tom, Tanya, Edella, Anas, Dan, Mike, Liz, Maria, everyone, I loved spending this week with you. Looking forward to seeing what 2016 will bring for us in the polycentricity realm!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 3, 2016

Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom and the ethic of kindness and collaboration of the Ostrom Workshop

I spent this week at an authors’ workshop for a book on polycentricity and a special issue of a journal. This workshop was convened by Andreas Thiel, Dustin Garrick and Bill Blomquist, and generously partially funded by a grant that supports Andreas’ work. We were hosted at a familiar space for many of us, the Ostrom Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis at the University of Indiana, in Bloomington.

Thinking Polycentrically Authors Workshop (Ostrom Workshop)
I have been here many a time, the two most recent were in the Spring of 2015 when I was invited to present a paper at the Colloquium Series, and last year for the 5th Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop (WOW5). In March, I presented my research on the application of IAD to the study of river basin councils, especially for sanitation and wastewater governance. Last year, I presented at WOW5 on polycentricity theory and its aplication to Mexican water policy. And of course, I’ve seen my friends who have had a connection with the Ostrom many times in recent years, at the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC 2013 in Fujiyoshida, Japan and IASC 2015 in Edmonton, Canada).

This workshop reminded me of the times when I had conversations with Lin and Vincent. Any feedback they offered was always couched in kind words. I never heard them speak ill of anybody, and their philosophy towards students and junior faculty was always to be generous, positive and to offer many suggestions for improvement. When we were driving after one of the afternoon sessions towards our respective dinner engagements, my friend Liz Baldwin mentioned something that I’ve felt extremely strongly in the past 3-4 years, and that has reignited the fire of my own research. Liz said that the expectation if you are in this field (commons research) or associated with the Ostrom tradition (the Bloomington School, as it’s often called), you are expected to be kind, to be generous, to share information and knowledge broadly and to provide constructive feedback. It’s not only a shared norm, it’s an expectation. Given the way in which the Ostroms defined institutions, through routine engagement, they (and their collaborators, students, staff at the Ostrom Workshop and associated faculty members) created an institution in and of themselves: the Ostrom tradition. An ethics of kindness and collaboration.

I have rarely felt more alive, more energized, more motivated to continue doing the research I do and the work that I do than when I am among those who share the Ostrom tradition. It’s electrifying. It’s reinvigorating. My brain cells were working full-steam ahead. During the polycentricity workshop, I had the opportunity to listen to excellent scholars whose work I respect, share ideas in an open forum, ready to have them challenged but always willing to listen and learn. I had the same positive experience at IASC 2013 in Fujiyoshida and IASC 2015 in Edmonton.

Even more so, being part of the Ostrom tradition sort of makes you into a family, where every time you see each other (given how geographically disperse we all are throughout the world) it’s a joyous occasion. When I came to the Ostrom Workshop in March 2015, I had dinner with Mike McGinnis and Burney Fischer, dinner with Catherine Tucker and breakfast with Eduardo Brondizio, and with Charlotte Hess. Not only are these great scholars whose work I deeply respect, they are also people whom I consider good friends. And even over dinner, lunch and breakfast, they kept giving me great advice not only on my research but also on navigating the academic world. Coming back to Bloomington always feels like coming home. And this powerful emotion that often overcomes me when I am at the Ostrom Workshop is in no small part because of the Ostrom tradition and the ethic of kindness and generosity and collaboration they spearheaded.

Sometimes, fellow scholars talk about those associated with the Ostrom tradition as belonging to “The Cult”. And to be perfectly honest, given that people who are in “The Cult” are kind, generous, and collaborative, I’m happy and honored to be part of The Ostrom Cult.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – December 19, 2015