Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action

by Elinor Ostrom

• ISBN13: 9780521405997
• ISBN10: 0521405998
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-11-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatisation of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. Offering a critique of the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways - both successful and unsuccessful - of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organisations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.

Table of Contents

Series editors' preface	xi
Preface	xiii
Reflections on the Commons	1	(28)
Three influential models	2	(5)
The tragedy of the commons	2	(1)
The prisoner's dilemma game	3	(2)
The logic of collective action	5	(2)
The metaphorical use of models	7	(1)
Current policy prescriptions	8	(15)
Leviathan as the ``only'' way	8	(4)
Privatization as the ``only'' way	12	(1)
The ``only'' way?	13	(2)
An alternative solution	15	(3)
An empirical alternative	18	(3)
Policy prescriptions as metaphors	21	(2)
Policies based on metaphors can be harmful	23	(1)
A challenge	23	(6)
An Institutional Approach to the Study of Self-Organization and Self-Governance in CPR Situations	29	(29)
The CPR situation	30	(8)
CPRs and resource units	30	(3)
Rational appropriators in complex and uncertain situations	33	(5)
Interdependence, independent action, and collective action	38	(4)
The theory of the firm	40	(1)
The theory of the state	41	(1)
Three puzzles: supply, commitment, and monitoring	42	(3)
The problem of supply	42	(1)
The problem of credible commitment	43	(2)
The problem of mutual monitoring	45	(1)
Framing inquiry	45	(10)
Appropriation and provision problems	46	(4)
Multiple levels of analysis	50	(5)
Studying institutions in field settings	55	(3)
Analyzing Long-Enduring, Self-Organized, and Self-Governed CPRs	58	(45)
Communal tenure in high mountain meadows and forests	61	(8)
Torbel, Switzerland	61	(4)
Hirano, Nagaike, and Yamanoka villages in Japan	65	(4)
Huerta irrigation institutions	69	(13)
Valencia	71	(5)
Murcia and Orihuela	76	(2)
Alicante	78	(4)
Zanjera irrigation communities in the Philippines	82	(6)
Similarities among enduring, self-governing CPR institutions	88	(15)
Clearly defined boundaries	91	(1)
Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions	92	(1)
Collective-choice arrangements	93	(1)
Monitoring	94	(1)
Graduated sanctions	94	(6)
Conflict-resolution mechanisms	100	(1)
Minimal recognition of rights to organize	101	(1)
Nested enterprises	101	(2)
Analyzing Institutional Change	103	(40)
The competitive pumping race	104	(7)
The setting	104	(2)
The logic of the water-rights game	106	(5)
The litigation game	111	(16)
The Raymond Basin negotiations	111	(3)
The West Basin negotiations	114	(9)
The Central Basin negotiations	123	(2)
Conformance of parties to negotiated settlements	125	(2)
The entrepreneurship game	127	(6)
Reasons for forming a district to include both basins	130	(1)
Reasons against forming a district to include both basins	131	(2)
The polycentric public-enterprise game	133	(3)
The analysis of institutional supply	136	(7)
Incremental, sequential, and self-transforming institutional change in a facilitative political regime	137	(2)
Reformulating the analysis of institutional change	139	(4)
Analyzing Institutional Failures and Fragilities	143	(39)
Two Turkish inshore fisheries with continuing CPR problems	144	(2)
California groundwater basins with continuing CPR problems	146	(3)
A Sri Lankan fishery	149	(8)
Irrigation development projects in Sri Lanka	157	(16)
The fragility of Nova Scotian inshore fisheries	173	(5)
Lessons to be learned from comparing the cases in this study	178	(4)
A Framework for Analysis of Self-Organizing and Self-Governing CPRs	182	(35)
The problems of supply, credible commitment, and mutual monitoring	185	(7)
A framework for analyzing institutional choice	192	(22)
Evaluting benefits	195	(3)
Evaluating costs	198	(7)
Evaluating shared norms and other opportunities	205	(2)
The process of institutional change	207	(3)
Predicting institutional change	210	(4)
A challenge to scholarship in the social sciences	214	(3)
Notes	217	(28)
References	245	(26)
Index	271