Comment 1 on workshop in political institutions - meso-level regimes and robust plans

The paper by McGinnis and Ostrom is important for at least three reasons. First, it provides a number of useful guidelines for the construction of political regimes that can control commons problems (global warming being one example) for generations yet that do not require an external enforcing authority. Second, the paper introduces some important concepts and theoretical tools from political science, history, and economics that can be used to further study such regimes. Finally, and the author believed most importantly, the paper is an excellent example of the type of study that needs to be done if the social control of global warming is to be taken seriously. McGinnis and Ostrom remind us that it is not enough to impose rules; these rules must be backed by stable self-monitoring and self-correcting institutions. Since he is in agreement with most of the points of the paper, my remarks are largely suggested extensions rather than criticisms. He focus on three issues: (1) I extend their discussion of local systems and international systems to the national and regional level; (2) I discuss a typology for how systems might fail, and (3) following John Eddy's opening comments at the conference, I make some observations on communication between the natural and social sciences