标题：Assessing an Adaptive Cycle in a Social System under External Pressure to Change: the Importance of Intergroup Relations in Recreational Fisheries Governance
摘要：The adaptive cycle constitutes a heuristic originally used to interpret the dynamics of complexecosystems in response to disturbance and change. It is assumed that socially constructed governancesystems go through similar phases (K, .[omega], α[alpha], r) as evident in ecological adaptive cycles.Two key dimensions of change shaping the four phases of an adaptive cycle are the degree of connectednessand the range of potential in the system. Our purpose was to quantitatively assess the four phases of theadaptive cycle in a social system by measuring the potential and connectedness dimensions and theirdifferent levels in each of the four phases. We assessed these dimensions using quantitative data fromcontent analysis of magazine articles describing the transition process of East German recreational fisheriesgovernance after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This process was characterized by the discussion oftwo governance alternatives amendable for implementation: a central East German and a decentralizedWest German approach. Contrary to assumptions in the adaptive cycle heuristic, we were unable to identifythe four phases of the adaptive cycle in our governance system based on quantitatively assessed levels ofconnectedness and potential alone. However, the insertion of in-group (East Germans) and out-group (WestGermans) dimensions representing the two governance alternatives in our analysis enabled us to identifythe specific time frames for all four phases of the adaptive cycle on a monthly basis. These findings suggestthat an unmodified "figure-eight model" of the adaptive cycle may not necessarily hold in social systems.Inclusion of disciplinary theories such as intergroup relation theory will help in understanding adaptationprocesses in social systems
关键词：adaptive cycle; connectedness; content analysis; East Germany; intergroup relation theory;potential; recreational fisheries; social system
