How cybernetics explains institutional failure: A case of Greenland's open-air fish markets

Understanding why institutions fail is a major concern for natural resource governance. In systems where resources are managed locally, failure is often attributed to the rules poorly fitting the social-ecological system. But what might also bring failure is the manner with which the rules are 'fitted' to the system. This paper argues that the conceptual development of institutional failure could be made more tenable with cybernetics - the science of control and feedback. In our case study and process tracing of a 'market' institution (an open-air fish market in Greenland), we show how recently implemented European food safety regulations have generated unintended negative consequences, limiting Inuit access to marine foodstuffs, altering the social characteristics of food exchange, and giving rise to underground markets for marine foods. These outcomes signal the failure of reforms to this market institution, but not necessarily why it failed. We show how cybernetic orders explain institutional failure, focusing on how command-and-control-style decisions to intervene in marine food trading and handling (considered as the first-order cybernetics) fostered public doubt for the scientific expertise underpinning the reforms, and ultimately led to a public rejection and closure of a new, hygienic, multi-million-dollar marketplace for marine foods. We clarify how second-order cybernetic elements - such as legitimacy, reflexivity, co-design, and interaction among governance actors - could have prevented the observed outcome. Our case expands the conceptual development of institutional failure and clarifies how the lens of cybernetics can inform the study and practice of institutional change in fisheries governance.