About

Michael Schoon is a professor in Arizona State University's School of Sustainability, specializing in policy and governance within sustainable systems. His doctoral dissertation at Indiana University's Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis focused on transboundary conservation and Peace Parks in southern Africa, earning the American Political Science Association’s best dissertation award. Currently, his research centers on collaborative governance addressing various environmental challenges in Arizona, employing multiple methodological approaches to examine how adaptive institutional arrangements influence social-ecological outcomes. He is actively involved in the complexity and resilience research communities and participates in the IUCN’s transboundary conservation specialists group. Professor Schoon's research builds on his doctoral work by exploring cross-boundary collective action dilemmas and the design and implementation of collaborative governance arrangements that transcend political borders. His goal is to develop a generalizable theory of cross-border, cross-scale governance linked to large-scale environmental management. His research agenda includes projects such as analyzing cross-border governance in the Arizona borderlands using social network and spatially-explicit institutional analysis, leading a research team combining common-pool resource and international regime theories to study large-scale commons, employing agent-based modeling to investigate environmental management effects in linked habitats, and collaborating on large-scale conservation and development projects in southern Africa focused on governance and collaboration across borders.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Ecology
• Economics
• Knowledge management
• Business
• Computer Security
• Geography
• Social Science
• Biology
• Physics
• Engineering
• Process management
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Mathematics
• Public relations
• Environmental resource management
• Software engineering
• Management science

Selected publications

• Welcome home! Introducing SocSES: a society for inclusive and impactful social-ecological research

  Ecology and Society · 2025-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Underpinned by systemic thinking, social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as a critical field for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene, marked by a cross-scale focus, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, and a strong emphasis on place-based work. Thanks to the efforts of many networks and institutes, the field has advanced new theoretical and methodological approaches, fostered dedicated journals, and spurred educational programs. It has also significantly influenced sustainability initiatives and policy from local to global scales, and has richly informed place-based efforts. Despite this progress, SES research faces persistent challenges, including conceptual and methodological fragmentation, difficulty in scaling localized insights to global frameworks (and vice versa), and capturing cross-scale connections and processes while retaining contextual relevance. Inclusivity also remains a critical issue, with regional, Indigenous, and local contributions often underrepresented, as there is still a reliance on short-term, inequitably distributed grant funding for much of the research in the field. This paper introduces the Society for Social-Ecological Systems (SocSES), a global platform designed to build on and connect to the rich legacy of SES networks. SocSES aims to advance and support SES–based research, practice, and action toward a just and sustainable future. We outline how SocSES will provide a home for SES institutes, networks, researchers, and practitioners working at the science-practice-policy interface to connect and amplify existing efforts through thematic streams, regional hubs, an institutional hub, an early-career professionals hub, and synthesis groups. The society will provide a stable infrastructure to foster interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration, enhance the generalizability and policy relevance of SES research, bolster education, research, and knowledge co-production, and support the next generation of SES professionals. By addressing the persistent challenges facing the field and fostering transformative spaces and communities for innovation and action, SocSES aspires to support and leverage SES knowledge as a cornerstone of global sustainability science. In line with the society’s commitment to linguistic diversity and equitable access, this abstract has been translated into 12 languages by authors of this paper and additional contributors. These translations are available in Appendix 2 and at https://socses.org/about/paper.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Convergence research as transdisciplinary knowledge coproduction within cases of effective collaborative governance of social-ecological systems

  Ecology and Society · 2024-01-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Successful collaborative governance (CG) of social-ecological systems (SES) involves multiple stakeholders convening iteratively over the long term to reach a commonly held vision. This often involves building knowledge for social learning processes induced to come to collective decisions about managing complex systems in flux. Because of the complexity of any SES in the Anthropocene, this coproduced knowledge is frequently transdisciplinary, using a convergence of applied and scientific knowledge from a variety of disciplines and stakeholders outside academia. We find evidence that these cases of effective SES CG involve both knowledge coproduction and convergence research. We evaluated seven case studies of CG across four continents using criteria (principles and methods) developed to facilitate and describe convergence research on SES and found them to be largely present. We also assess these CG cases using indicators of knowledge coproduction, and show that they all involved transdisciplinary knowledge coproduction, which can provide an informative lens for deepening our shared understanding of convergence and its application to complex adaptive systems. All the cases selected for this paper are examples of CG of SES in which research was conducted as part of a collaborative effort to improve the social-ecological conditions in a particular place, and several incorporate various forms of knowledge and ways of knowing. We suggest that these cases demonstrate both convergence research and knowledge coproduction because of the overlap and similarity of these concepts, providing a brief comparison and contrasting of these approaches to addressing sustainability problems collaboratively.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “Going back to what really held us together”: re-adaptation as resilience in the Torres Strait Islands, Australia

  Ecology and Society · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  In the Torres Strait Islands (TSI), Indigenous Australian communities are negotiating the challenge of maintaining their identities and cultures in the face of rapid change. These identities and cultures are seen as vital to the region’s resilience, and yet to be resilient may mean making difficult choices about change, specifying which aspects need changing, under what conditions, and by and for whom. TSI communities have a long history of conceptualizing relationships with change that have enabled them to build resilience to navigate these. As such local, indigenous-led conceptualizations of resilience are needed as alternatives to generic, externally defined ones, and participatory co-research processes can be key to surfacing and probing these. We consider “re-adaptation” as an articulation of resilience that emerged through such a process that we undertook in the TSI to explore and build community and regional stakeholders’ capacities to deal with diverse drivers of change. Re-adaptation was proposed in this process to describe how communities might turn to past cultural practices and knowledge to address contemporary and possible future challenges. The concept suggests connections to resilience theory through three inter-related features: first, it entails a weaving of old and new, or past and future; second, it suggests a dynamic view of resilience, and pathways to achieve it; third, it represents an Indigenous, place-based relationship with change. Existing research on the importance of Indigenous knowledge in decision making for resilience supports this, and recent developments in climate policy and Indigenous rights in the TSI make it timely to give more consideration to meanings of re-adaptation. Re-adaptation reflects the “scaling deep” mode of impact, by enriching the discursive landscape through more pluralistic conversations about resilience.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Principles for a Case Study Approach to Social Tipping Points

  Springer climate · 2024-01-01 · 5 citations

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Recent interdisciplinary study has led to significant conceptual advances and a broad empirical evidence base for ecological and climate tipping points. However, the literature has yet to present convincing empirical case studies of social tipping, as the data-driven identification of social tipping points remains a challenge. Arguing that the barriers to such empirical research are largely methodological in nature, we develop methodological guidance to identify social tipping processes in social-ecological system case studies, based on four key elements—multiple stable states, self-reinforcing feedback dynamics, abruptness, and limited reversibility. We apply our approach to food system changes linked to the Flint Water Crisis between 2010 and 2020. We identify seven principles that can simultaneously serve as a seven-step process for social tipping point analysis in any social-ecological system. We highlight two major challenges: the limited availability of high quality, longitudinal social data, and the possibility that value-driven social processes tend to curb abruptness and non-linear change. Utilizing the seven principles to study historical, ongoing, or anticipated cases of social tipping processes could facilitate a deeper understanding of the conditions and limitations of non-linear social change and, therefore, inform efforts to facilitate change towards more sustainable futures.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Managing Fish or Governing Fisheries? An Historical Recount of Marine Resources Governance in the Context of Latin America – The Ecuadorian Case

  MARE publication series · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access

  Abstract The narratives and images about ocean and its resources governance, their use and value have deep roots in human history. Traditionally, the contemporary images of fish and fisheries have been shaped under the cultural construction of power, wealth and exclusion, and also as one of poverty and marginalization. This perception was formed on early notions of natural (marine) resources access and use that were born within the colonial machinery that ruled the world from the Middle Ages until late XVII. This research explores the historical overview of marine resources usage and governance in Latin America, from a ‘critical approach to development’ perspective, by following a narrative description based on a ‘three-acts’ format. It illustrates how and to what extent politics, power and knowledge have deeply influenced policies and practices at exploring the marine and terrestrial resources and at managing fish and seafood, historically, and how the fisheries resources’ management practices are influenced by principles of appropriation, regulation and usage, put in place already in the XV century that were imposed at the conquering and colonization of the Americas, disregarded previous governance practices. This article argues that fisheries governance cannot be improved without some appreciation for the social, historical, geopolitical, and cultural significance of the fishing resources themselves, of the perceptions of them by humans, and of the interactions Global North-Global South. The analysis also opens the dialogue about what kind of ocean and governance “science” we want, to support decisions, policies and practices regarding fisheries governance. Final thoughts highlight a reflection about whose knowledge is created and used to support decision and policy making in Ecuador.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Systematic Review of Key Factors of Effective Collaborative Governance of Social-Ecological Systems

  Society & Natural Resources · 2023 · 20 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Environmental resource management

  Sustainable resource management requires governance systems that facilitate effective collaboration among a variety of stakeholder interests, across jurisdictional scales and resource sectors. Yet, there is not widespread scholarly agreement on the key ingredients that need to be present to facilitate the effective collaborative governance of natural resources. To address this scholarly gap, we conducted a systematic literature review which revealed 17 publications that compiled essential lists of key factors for effective collaboration. From these studies across multiple disciplines, we identified 22 common factors associated with effective collaborative natural resource management, including near unanimous acceptance of the importance of nested governance structures and conflict resolution mechanisms. These 22 factors, along with additional contextual and outcome-oriented factors, could begin to form a core set of factors to comparatively test large numbers of case studies on collaborative governance of social-ecological systems around the world.

  PublisherDOI

• Learning from sticky variables in cross-case analyses of collaboration in social-ecological systems

  Ecosystems and People · 2023-03-19 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  The importance of collaborative approaches to governing social-ecological systems (SES) towards more transformative outcomes is now widely acknowledged. Theoretical and meth- odological frameworks to enable such collaborations are being developed across a range of disciplines. Transdisciplinary approaches are emerging as a key enabler of potentially trans- formative collaborations in SES, particularly where these are characterized by ‘multiple multi- ples’ (e.g. multiple scales, knowledge systems, etc.). A typical approach to studying complex collaborative initiatives across a range of contexts is comparative case study research, often relying on researchers embedded in cases. In this approach, qualitative case studies are coded using predetermined variables (based on ecological, social, and social-ecological features of cases) to enable comparison and cross-case analysis. In our experience, the process of coding qualitative cases into a quantitative analysis framework can be hampered by what we term ‘sticky variables’, i.e. variables which are difficult to code for reasons related to aspects of the intrinsic complexity of social-ecological systems. Based on cases from a range of geographic locations across the Global North and South, we identify sticky variables, and elucidate the reasons for their ‘stickiness’. We propose several ways of working with and learning from sticky variables, and we reflect on theoretical, methodological and reflexive aspects of transdisciplinary research on collaborations. Moreover, we suggest that sticky variables might be ‘flags’ for interesting underlying factors that influence collaboration. We conclude by drawing out recommendations for researchers and practitioners confronted with the complexities and nuances of collaborations in social-ecological systems around the world.

  PublisherDOI

• Recovery or continued resuscitation? A clinical diagnosis of Colorado River sub-basin recovery programs

  Ecology and Society · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  With a particular emphasis on the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program (UCR-EFRP) and Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program (LCR-MSCP), we analyze, for each program, four system properties that contribute to resilience: system architecture, which includes (1) connectivity and distribution and (2) assemblage of system elements; and system dynamics, which includes (3) social and natural capital flows and (4) system renewal and continuation. Each of these system properties is analyzed based on specific social and corresponding biophysical indicators. The system properties were ranked on a carefully constructed scale based on gradations of each system property (derived from the literature) on both social and biophysical indicator standing. Our results indicate that the UCR-EFRP has relatively better social architecture and dynamics with relatively less impact on the ecological architecture and dynamics compared to the LCR-MSCP, though this result may be a function of the greater amount of infrastructural constriction and path dependence in the lower basin compared to the upper basin. We conclude by suggesting that a transformative pathway forward needs greater adaptability and flexibility incorporated into the social architecture and dynamics to move toward better ecological health of the river.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Systematic Review of Key Factors of Effective Collaborative Governance of Social-Ecological Systems

  Figshare · 2023-01-01

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Sustainable resource management requires governance systems that facilitate effective collaboration among a variety of stakeholder interests, across jurisdictional scales and resource sectors. Yet, there is not widespread scholarly agreement on the key ingredients that need to be present to facilitate the effective collaborative governance of natural resources. To address this scholarly gap, we conducted a systematic literature review which revealed 17 publications that compiled essential lists of key factors for effective collaboration. From these studies across multiple disciplines, we identified 22 common factors associated with effective collaborative natural resource management, including near unanimous acceptance of the importance of nested governance structures and conflict resolution mechanisms. These 22 factors, along with additional contextual and outcome-oriented factors, could begin to form a core set of factors to comparatively test large numbers of case studies on collaborative governance of social-ecological systems around the world.

  PublisherDOI

• Panarchy: ripples of a boundary concept

  Ecology and Society · 2022-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  How do social-ecological systems change over time? In 2002 C. S. Holling and colleagues proposed the concept of panarchy, which presented social-ecological systems as an interacting set of adaptive cycles, each produced by the dynamic tensions between novelty and efficiency at multiple scales. Initially introduced as a conceptual framework and set of metaphors, panarchy has gained the attention of scholars across many disciplines, and its ideas continue to inspire further conceptual developments. Almost 20 years after this concept was introduced, we reviewed how it has been used, tested, extended, and revised, through the combination of qualitative methods and machine learning. Document analysis was used to code panarchy features common to the scientific literature (N = 42), a qualitative analysis that was complemented with topic modeling of 2177 documents. We found that the adaptive cycle is the feature of panarchy that has attracted the most attention. Challenges remain in empirically grounding the metaphor, but recent theoretical and empirical work offer some avenues for future research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Marco A. Janssen

  Institute for Sustainable Development

  21 shared

• Jacopo A. Baggio

  Hospital Universitario Santa Cristina

  20 shared

• Duan Biggs

  18 shared

• Louisa Evans

  University of Exeter

  15 shared

• Natalie C. Ban

  13 shared

• Chanda L. Meek

  University of Alaska Fairbanks

  11 shared

• Reinette Biggs

  Stellenbosch University

  10 shared

• Maja Schlüter‬

  10 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Public Policy

  Indiana University

  2008

• Other, Strategy and Operations

  Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

  1999

• B.S., Mechanical Engineering

  University of Arizona

  1993

• B.S., Aerospace Engineering

  University of Arizona

  1993

Awards & honors

• American Political Science Association’s best dissertation a…