Paul D. Aligica and Vlad Tarko (Excerpt)

 Polycentricity: From Polanyi to Ostrom, and Beyond

The article overviews and elaborates the concept of polycentricity, defined as a structural feature of social systems of many decision centers having limited and autonomous prerogatives and operating under an overarching set of rules. The article starts by introducing the concept as it was advanced by Michael Polanyi and developed by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. It continues introducing possible instances of polycentricity as well as related notions, as part of an attempt to further elaborate the concept through a concept design approach that systematically applies the logic of necessary and sufficient conditions. The article concludes by arguing that the polycentricity conceptual framework is not only a robust analytical structure for the study of complex social phenomena, but is also a challenging method of drawing non-ad hoc analogies between different types of self-organizing complex social systems. The concept of polycentricity (tentatively defined as a social system of many decision centers having limited and autonomous prerogatives and operating under an overarching set of rules) was first envisaged by Michael Polanyi (1951) in his book The Logic of Liberty. From there it diffused to law studies, thanks to Lon Fuller (1978) and others...to urban networks studies...and, even more importantly, to governance studies, thanks to Vincent and Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School of institutional analysis (Aligica and Boettke 2009). The 2009 Nobel Prize in economics awarded to Elinor Ostrom pushed this concept to renewed attention. Indeed, the notion of polycentricity has a pivotal role in the Bloomington School of institutional analysis. Yet, although the concept is often recognized as important, not much has been done to further clarify and elaborate it, beyond the work of the aforementioned authors. This article is an attempt to deal with this challenge. 

Initial Developments

Michael Polanyi’s original development of the concept of polycentricity was the outcome of his interest in the social conditions preserving the freedom of expression and the rule of law (Prosch 1986, 178). His approach was highly original in that he based his social analysis on an analogy to the organization of the scientific community. This was facilitated by his antipositivist approach to the philosophy of science, as he considered the success of science to be the outcome of a certain kind of social organization, rather than of scientists following a rigidly defined “scientific method” (Polanyi 1951). Polanyi argued that the success of science was mainly due to its “polycentric organization.” In such organizational systems, participants enjoy the freedom to make individual and personal contributions, and to structure their research activities in the best way they considered fit. Researchers’ efforts do not usually dissipate in unproductive directions because they share a common ideal; that is, their freedom is utilized to search for an abstract end goal (objective truth). Polanyi’s key point is that such an abstract and underoperationalized ideal cannot be imposed on the participants by an overarching authority. Thus, the authority structure has to allow a multitude of opinions to exist, and to allow them not just as hypotheticals but as ideas actually implemented into practice. The attempt to impose progress toward an abstract ideal is doomed to failure, as progress is the outcome of a trial-and-error evolutionary process of many agents interacting freely. Polanyi argued that the same applies to art, religion, or the law as it applies to science because these other activities are also polycentric in nature and are driven by certain ideals (beauty, transcendent truth, and justice).