State-Reinforced Self-Governance and Adaptive Social-Ecological Systems Lab

About 

We analyze public policy and conduct field studies to investigate the foundations of effective governance systems—including those that deliver vital public goods/services, manage essential ecosystems and ensure societal sustainability and resilience. We adopt the perspective of Ostrom Political Economy, asking how societies create democratic ("cooperative self-governing") solutions to adaptively address complex social-ecological dilemmas.

Adaptation, Transformation and Social-Ecological Resilience

Human civilizations exist because fallible human-beings learn to overcome complex societal problems (Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, 2010). Our research group studies the governance systems societies create to address these dilemmas, focusing on the evolution of their formal and informal institutions (e.g., laws, norms, culture), governance network structures, sociopolitical and economic systems and cooperative systems and processes. This research spans diverse topics in urban and non-urban contexts in the U.S. and internationally.

State-Reinforced Adaptive/Transformative Governance 

Adaptive and transformative governance systems are innovative problem-solving systems that enable government and non-government actors to devise (co-provision) and deliver (co-produce) solutions for societal dilemmas. We examine how, why and under what conditions government(s) use their administrative, legislative, regulatory, fiscal and other powers to facilitate (or inhibit) collaborative (participatory) and democratic (self-governing) solutions to national, regional, local and community problems. 

Companion lab: Constitutional and Cooperative Decision-Making Lab.

Key Research Areas

• Ostrom Political Economy | Governance and Policy Analysis
• Democracy | Public Participation | Self-Governance
• Adaptive and Transformative Governance
• Co-Provision and Co-Production of Public Goods/Services
• Polycentricity | Centralization and Decentralization
• Sustainability | Social-Ecological Resilience 

Current Projects

• State-Reinforced Self-Governance (SRSG) Framework
  • Our research group is developing a comprehensive framework and methodologies to analyze the legal and other institutional features of effective and ineffective governance systems. We are developing a “periodic table” of institutional elements (“design principles”) and typology of institutional archetypes to classify and diagnose the adaptive/transformative capacity of common governance forms. This research program emerged from a large National Science[MD1] /Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) grant and generated a special issue in Ecology and Society and numerous student and colleague projects. The framework has also been used to inform public policy in a variety of domains. The SRSG research program continues to develop the framework, methodologies and applications.
• Computational Social Science Initiation
  • The SRSG/ASES Lab is collaborating with multiple research scholars and centers to develop rigorous next-generation analytical tools and methods for analyzing public policy documents in terms of State-reinforcement (and inhibition). This work intersects with the Institutional Grammar Research Initiative led by Dr. Saba Siddiki at Syracuse University’s Center for Policy Design and Governance. The[MD2]  goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive understanding of policy design and computer-assisted analytics and visualization tools for institutional analysis and design.
• Case Studies
  • The SRSG/ASES Lab is currently investigating the following cases:
    • U.S. Fishery Councils. Domestic/international governance of coastal fisheries via multi-stakeholder collaborative processes.
    • Neighborhood Revitalization. Federal, state and local government and non-government (e.g., non-profit, community-development corporation) programs for neighborhood revitalization and sustainable/resilient development.
    • Urban Watershed Governance. Federal, state and local programs for the management of urban watersheds, such as Louisville’s Beargrass creek system.
    • Urban Flood Resilience. Systems and patterns of flood resilience and maladaptation in urban, coastal areas within the U.S. and abroad.
    • Digital Divide and Sustainable Development. Public-private partnership for the (co)provision and (co)production of effective and accessible internet. 

Recent Publications

• DeCaro, Schlager, and Frimpong Boamah. (2025). The State-reinforced self-governance framework: conceptualizing and diagnosing legal and other institutional foundations of adaptive and transformative environmental governance. Ecology and Society 30(2):1. [online] URL: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol30/iss2/art1
• DeCaro, Frimpong Boamah, Rudolph, and Adusei. (2025). Maladaptive state reinforcement of greenspace in racially marginalized neighborhoods: lessons from Louisville, Kentucky’s failed cooperative extension partnership. Ecology and Society 30(2):3. [online] URL: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol30/iss2/art3
• DeCaro, Frimpong Boamah, Rudolph, Adusei. (2025). State-reinforced co-provision of community-governed greenspace in racially marginalized neighborhoods: lessons from Chicago’s innovative NeighborSpace land trust and partnership. Ecology and Society 30(2):2. [online] URL: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol30/iss2/art2
• Sarr, Hayes, and DeCaro. (2021). Applying Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and design principles for co-production to pollution management in Louisville, Kentucky’s Rubbertown. Land Use Policy, 104, 105383. doi: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105383

Team 

Daniel DeCaro, Lab Director
daniel.decaro@louisville.edu | 502-852-1166
View Research Profile

Former Students

Mary Rudolph, PhD
Toward an urban food commons: Participatory action research on food apartheid and community-based agrifood system governance in Louisville, KY. (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4485.
https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd/4485 

Amma Adusei, PhD
Using the State-Reinforced Self-Governance framework to evaluate neighborhood revitalization in the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative. (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 4364. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/4364