Calonne, Robert, D de (2021) The Effects of a Community's Information Sharing Network on the Sustainability of Natural Resources: an Agent-Based Simulation. Master thesis, Sociology.
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Abstract
As a result of overexploitation, natural resource communities are suffering from declining resource stocks. To avoid the tragedy of the commons (Hardin, 1968), actors in a natural resource community collectively need to extract a sustainable manner. However, collective action is difficult to reach because actors face a social dilemma between extracting a sustainable manner (cooperation) and over extracting (free riding), in which over extracting is the rational choice, because on an individual level it gives a higher pay off independent of the actions of other actors. The social structure of a natural resource community can affect natural resource use and thereby the sustainability of natural resources (Isaac et al., 2006; Bodin & Crona, 2008). The social network structure affects the diffusion of both social and ecological information, which in place can both affect natural resource use. The diffusion of social information affects the visibility of actors’ behavior and thereby their reputation. Reputation is an important factor that can promote cooperation (Alexander, 1987), because free riding affects one’s reputation negatively after which he can get socially punished. Actors can use cooperative behavior as a strategy to invest in their reputation and avoid those punishments (Milinski, 2016). This is referred to as the indirect reciprocity mechanism (Alexander, 1987; Nowak & Sigmund, 2005), where the “reputation threat” might stimulate cooperation and thereby sustainable resource use. The diffusion of ecological information supports the accessibility of local ecological knowledge (Bodin & Norberg, 2006), which can help communities sustain their natural resources. Local natural resources have unique characteristics and are intertwined in complex ecosystems. Due to this complexity, it can take a considerable amount of experience before actors understand the functioning of the natural resource. Understanding the dynamics of local natural resources goes paired with understanding the risks of over exploitation, which can facilitate natural resource use by raising awareness and knowledge about how to extract sustainably (Schill et al., 2016). The effect of the social network structure on social information and ecological knowledge sharing and thereby natural resource use have been studied in the past, but not yet in the same context (Alexander, 1987; Bodin & Crona, 2008; Bodin & Norberg, 2005; Olivera et al., 2015; Turner et al., 2014; Schill et al., 2016). In this thesis we used the computer simulation method agent-based modeling to demonstrate how changing the number of social ties affects social information and ecological knowledge sharing and thereby natural resource use. We implemented an information sharing structure in a maintenance public good game to construct a simplification of a natural resource community. Our model demonstrated that increasing the social network density increases both types of information sharing. However, it also demonstrates that increasing the density of ties in a community has a contradicting effect on natural resource use. More information sharing impacts the collective ecological knowledge positively but can weaken collective action under certain circumstances. Conditional cooperators can be triggered to free ride when they learn that their partners are defectors. The last chapter of this thesis discusses the limitations and implications of our model results.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
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| Supervisor name: | Giardini, F. and Flache, A. |
| Degree programme: | Sociology |
| Differentiation route: | Social Networks In A Sustainable Society [Master Sociology] |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Dec 2021 13:21 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Dec 2021 13:21 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/17 |
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