A perspective on social-ecological system framework and new institutional economics theories in explaining public open spaces (pos) governance and quality issues

Abstract

There has been relatively little attention paid to the implications of property-rights structures on urban and neighbourhood commons, particularly in respect to government/state-owned public open space (POS) governance, its management and its quality. By establishing interconnections of the property-rights structure with POS governance and its quality externalities, the theory of new institutional economics, the social-ecological system framework, as well as the social dilemma theory and the commons and opportunism concepts were employed and reviewed, to synthesise a conceptual framework which can help illuminate and explain the complex nexus of an institutional-social-POS system. Findings suggested that adversarial institutional design and arrangement (e.g., maladaptive property regime, incomplete rights, and attenuated rights) and change of the property-rights system, coupled with highly positive transaction cost distributions, contribute to inefficient POS governance and management, which consequently results in a suboptimal quality and sustainability of POS. This synthesis provides policy and management insights by making public officials aware of the importance of the institutional-social-ecological system, and by making them consider a re-engineering of the POS ownership regime and its management rights via an adaptive property-rights structure assessment and re-allocation.