Action arena — situation + actors, seven working components, default conditions

The idea

The action arena is "the social space where individuals interact, exchange goods and services, solve problems, dominate one another, or fight" (Ostrom 2007, p. 28). It contains an action situation plus the actors (each actor: resources, valuations, information-processing, selection processes; p. 28). The action situation has seven working components: participants, positions, allowable actions and their outcome linkages, potential outcomes, control over choice, information, and costs/benefits (Ostrom pp. 28–29; McGinnis p. 9, framed as "a generalization of the 'rules of a game'"). Ostrom 2010 drops the arena/situation distinction, folding actors in via position rules (McGinnis p. 7).

McGinnis preserves the crucial default conditions (p. 10, from OGW): absent specified rules there is one position, any physically possible action, independent action, physical aggregation, full information, and "any player can retain any outcome that the player can physically obtain and defend."

The Nostr engagement

The open relay pool approximates the default conditions: any keypair (one position: "user"), any physically possible action (any signed event propagates), retention by physical possession (your key, your events). Every governance structure observed on Nostr is a departure from these defaults — gated relays add positions (operator, member), information rules, and boundary rules on top of the substrate without removing it ({{ref:claim-composable-bounded-institutions|Bounded institutions compose on the open substrate}}, {{ref:claim-worst-case-hosts-best-case|The worst case hosts the best case}}). Each relay is its own action situation; the stack of relays + clients + label providers is the linked, nearly decomposable system McGinnis describes (p. 8) — {{ref:claim-multiplicity-stack|Multiplicity}}.

Sources

- Ostrom 2007, pp. 27–30 (definition, seven elements, CPR question battery), p. 28 (actor clusters). - McGinnis, pp. 7 (5.2), 8 (nesting), 9–10 (§7 incl. 7.3 defaults).

Related: - {{ref:emergentgov|Index}} - {{ref:src-ostrom-irc-iad|Ostrom 2007}} - {{ref:src-iad-guide|McGinnis 2010/2011}} - {{ref:concept-iad-framework|The IAD framework}} - {{ref:concept-rule-types|The seven rule types}} - {{ref:concept-boundary-rules|Boundary (entry and exit) rules}} - {{ref:concept-rule-levels|Levels of rules}} - {{ref:claim-relay-spectrum|The relay spectrum}}