Sustainability in the Anthropocene requires social cooperation and learning against a backdrop of increasingly complex, polycentric governance. Here, we introduce an institutional navigation framework emphasizing how individuals pursue their policy goals within polycentric sustainability governance. We illustrate the utility of the framework by exploring how actors navigate institutional complexity to increase collective welfare and adaptive capacity in California’s San Francisco Bay, in contrast with protecting self-interest and constraining adaptive capacity on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. Our analysis provides: (1) a normative perspective on how institutional navigation may or may not support sustainability; (2) initial theoretical hypotheses about understudied strategies used by policy actors to advance or constrain sustainability; and (3) some practical ideas for policy actors seeking to strategically achieve complex sustainability goals in polycentric systems.

人类世代的可持续性要求在日益复杂的多中心治理的背景下进行社会合作和学习。在这里，我们介绍了一个机构导航框架，着重强调个人如何在多中心可持续性治理中实现其政策目标。通过探索参与者如何驾驭制度复杂性以增加加利福尼亚州旧金山湾的集体福利和适应能力，与保护自我利益和限制昆士兰大堡礁的适应能力形成对比，我们说明了该框架的实用性。我们的分析提供：（1）关于机构导航如何支持或不支持可持续性的规范性观点；（2）关于政策参与者用来促进或限制可持续性的未充分研究的战略的初步理论假设；