Institutional design includes constitutional-level rules that specify the participants, how authority is distributed, and how rules can be made, or what Hart would call “secondary rules.” Central to polycentric governance is users’ self-organization or self-governance, i.e., that users organize themselves to address shared problems and interests. In self-governance, the users of the Common pool Resources (CPRs) (e.g., fishermen fishing from the same lake, farmers using the same water basin) themselves establish, modify, and possibly enforce the rules regulating the use and protection of a common resource. As Elinor Ostrom noted, “[c]rafting development enhancing institutions is an ongoing process that must directly involve the users. Instead of designing a single blueprint for all places and circumstances, officials need to enhance the capability of social actors to design their own institutions.”
Elinor Ostrom demonstrated that self-governance brings sustainable results. Empirical studies on governance of Common pool Resources(CPRs) made in various States regarding various types of CPRs demonstrated that resource users were successful in organizing themselves and managing CPRs, often better than governments. The evidence demonstrated that users establish rules that better suit the conditions and needs, and tend to follow those rules more than they follow rules imposed from above. They have both the intimate knowledge of local conditions and the interest and incentive to devise and follow adequate rules. Users also devise a variety of formal and informal mechanisms and ways of monitoring and sanctioning, especially when they have economic rights, e.g., when they are given harvesting rights. Users’ monitoring and sanctioning proved to be better than that imposed from the top. The leading role of users is crucial in the successful governance of Common Pool Resources (CPRs). Indeed, “a common factor in ensuring successful governance of CPRs is the active participation of resource users in the management of the flow of benefits from the resources.”
Self-governance can emerge in cases of little to no government involvement but can also be facilitated or even encouraged by the government. Users organize themselves by convening forums, gathering and sharing knowledge and establishing self-governing mechanisms, e.g., organizations and institutions.
The viability of self-governance is one of the most important lessons from Ostrom to space governance. Stakeholders-based governance is not just advantageous in the realm of space activities, for the reasons mentioned, it is also inevitable. In the context of space governance, self-organization or self-governance means that stakeholders will lead to the creation, and possibly also monitoring and enforcement, of the relevant rules. Stakeholders are those actors who are directly involved in a certain sub-issue-area and therefore have stakes in its successful governance. It is the equivalent of ‘users’ in the Common Pool Resources (CPR) literature. These stakeholders may include most of the States or a handful of them, and may also include non-State actors. On one extreme, virtually all States are using radio frequencies and are therefore stakeholders, and on the other extreme, with regard to weaponization, the actual or potential producers of space weapons include no more than three to five actors: the United States, Russia, China, India, and the European Union. In the mining of space natural resources, private companies play a leading role and are therefore also stakeholders. Thus, the ‘users’ or ‘stakeholders’ of the weaponization issue may be those who develop or have the capacity to develop space weapons; the users/stakeholders of the debris issue are all those who create debris; and the users/ stakeholders of the Moon are all those who, at the relevant time, have presence on or are in close vicinity of the Moon. Many States have satellites in orbit (indigenous or procured), and all those States should participate in the regime allocating slots.
Polycentric governance therefore means that stakeholders play a central role in the governance of the sub-issue-area in which they are directly involved. The stakeholders have an incentive to play a significant role, but also they have knowledge that can contribute to the governance of that issue-area. In the International Telecommunication Union(ITU) regime, for example, stakeholders, including private companies and other telecommunication operators, actively participate in ITU conferences and standard setting meetings. In this sense, the addition of actors who are non- stakeholders might stall, or even prevent, the evolution of a governance system We can further envision that commercial entities active in space, and even persons who populate space habitats, participate in making the rules directly applicable to them, although they might have diminished rights and duties compared to the States. Yet, this does not mean there are no other participants allowed to contribute to this governance. The governance of each sub-issue-area should also consider the concerns and the interests of future users, and global public policy in general. These may be represented by UN Office for Outer Space Affairs(UNOOSA) and NGOs like the Secure World Foundation. When, further down the road, space habitats are established, the people who populate these habitats should have an important role in their governance. While the International Space Station (ISS) is governed in a semi-military hierarchy, a space habitat should adopt a more democratic system, with a significant voice for the inhabitants.
Governance mechanisms that will facilitate development of space technologies, activities and commerce, must directly involve the stakeholders. However, there is a caveat that the concurrent representation of future stakeholders and other in-directly affected actors, as well as global public policy, is similarly necessary. In addition, discussion on the issue of distribution of space benefits must include all nations. UN Office for Outer Space Affairs(UNOOSA) is positioned to represent global public policy and United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space(UNCOPUOS) is an appropriate forum to discuss the issue of distribution.
The Antarctic Treaty System is an example of users’/ stakeholders’ self-regulation. The Antarctic Treaty (which is not a U.N. treaty), and its nearly 200 supplementing instruments, form together the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). ATS provides a flexible, incremental system that can be amended and supplemented without the need to amend the treaty itself. However, the most notable feature is that all of these amendments and additions are made by those nations States that are active in Antarctica, and only by them. “Countries that do not operate in Antarctica are justifiably excluded from altering the treaties that govern the region.” The ATS has proven to be a stable, effective, comprehensive, and adaptable system.
There may be various types of users/stakeholders. In the case studies analyzed by Ostrom there was typically one kind of user, and consumers were not considered as users. The fishermen in a lake were users, not those who buy fish. In the context of space activities, by contrast, there may be several kinds of users. Users of a spaceport, space station or a Moon base include the actors establishing and operating those installations and the users of those installations, such as those who launch, dock or land there (those are also consumers, but distinguished from end-consumers, such as smartphone holders using a GPS, which would still not be regarded as users). All actual users would take part in the management, as described in the above principles, but perhaps with varying responsibilities and competences. The composition of the forum and the rule-making mechanism should allow for efficient governance.
Experts should also play a key role in space governance, as they bring the shared values and accumulated policy-oriented knowledge of epistemic communities. An epistemic community, as conceptualized by Haas, is “a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue area.” It is a network of individual professionals or experts who come from various sectors(government, industry, academe) and States, and they communicate and exchange knowledge and ideas, e.g., through conferences. Academic disciplines and professional societies are also epistemic communities. They point out problems and offer solutions, aimed at other members of the epistemic community and also policymakers. Experts often share some basic norms, values, or beliefs. There are also other conceptualizations for the networks of individuals with influence on national and global policy, notably policy networks and policy communities,(transnational) advocacy networks, and transnational or global policy networks. Epistemic communities are particularly important and influential in issue-areas characterized by novelty and technical complexity,hence their demonstrable importance for the space sector.
Epistemic communities create and disseminate knowledge and ideas and facilitate the agreement on the basics of the discourse, policy, and action, e.g., basic concepts, norms, values, and methodologies. Epistemic communities are not themselves part of a national government, intergovernmental organization, but they influence global policy in their issue area. By the knowledge and expertise they bring, they have an important role in the construction and operation of governance centres and in polycentric governance in general. Experts and epistemic communities drove the first wave of international organizations by establishing experts-led international organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). With the caveat of representation and of addressing the concerns of future stakeholders and other indirectly affected actors, stakeholders, and experts should have a leading role in space governance.