The evolution of the Area 19 snow crab co-management agreement: Understanding the inter-relationship between transaction costs, credible commitment and collective action

The neo-liberal economic mode of ocean fisheries governance, which emphasizes private property rights, is becoming a dominant proposal for preventing the problem of over-fishing. However, much of the economic literature on fisheries property rights places little emphasis on transaction costs: the costs of securing, monitoring and enforcing property rights. Conversely, the new institutional economic literature argues that private property rights may be very costly for common pool resource management regimes such as fisheries, while collective property rights, under certain conditions, present a viable way in which people co-operate to reduce transaction costs. The purpose of this thesis research is to understand the transaction cost problems that perpetuate over-fishing and to explore the conditions under which these problems can be resolved through fisheries co-management institutions. In so doing, I analyse the evolution of collective property rights and transaction costs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence snow crab fishery which ultimately led to a negotiated Area 19 snow crab comanagement agreement in 1996. More specifically, I examine the dynamic relationship between fishermen and policy makers over time, to illustrate both the barriers and opportunities for successful management of a common pool resource. This research shows how the joint claimancy of common pool resource users facilitates reciprocal transaction cost problems with negative cascading effects over time. Thus, bargaining situations frequently arise between fishermen and government agencies as joint claimants attempt to reduce the reciprocal transaction cost effects by securing credible governmental commitment through collective action. However, the possibility for long enduring co-management institutions to resolve these transaction cost problems depends largely on the level of social capital and natural capital available in the specific fishery, such that credible commitment may be sustained. In case of the Area 19 snow crab fishery, the level of social conflict over license access criteria perpetuated a reciprocal transaction cost problem, resulting in a unique bargaining situation in a specific social, economic and ecological context. Thus, this thesis demonstrates how the inter-relationship between transaction costs, credible commitment and collective action created a bargaining situation from which a comanagement agreement could be successfully negotiated.