| This interdisciplinary case study uses six theoretical models drawn from sociology, economics, and political science to carry out an institutional analysis of fisheries management institutions in the Columbia River Basin. The theories include group theory, public/rational choice theory, social psychological constructs of attitude formation, systems theory, and an institutional change model derived from the work of economists, Douglass North, Lee Alston, and Thrainn Eggertsson. These theories are used not just to compare and contrast the utility of various theoretical models, but also to provide an explanatory account of the causes and consequences of institutional change in the Columbia River Basin. The theories are enfolded in a deep, historical base to explain why the very institutions and organizations guiding the protection and enhancement of salmon in the Columbia River Basin are contributing to their decline. The institutional analysis includes the Indian property rights system in the Basin before the arrival of neo-Europeans and the formal and informal institutions that evolved between 1866 and the 1940s that define fisheries management in the Columbia River Basin. The successful sustained management of salmon must accommodate the basic physical realities of the life cycle of salmon. For salmon to survive and thrive, the institutional structure must be capable of providing each population the circumstances necessary for the spawners in one generation to produce, on average, at least an equal number of spawners in the next generation. Instead, the institutional analysis explains how despite herculean efforts and millions of dollars expended on recovery attempts, fisheries management in the Columbia River Basin became locked onto a path that is leading to the destruction of the salmon resources. |
