Addressing the commons: normative approaches to common pool resources

2012 ◽  
pp. 63-68
Author(s):  
A. Kallhoff
Keyword(s):  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
The Commons

scholarly journals Emergent sustainability in open property regimes

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (51) ◽  
pp. 12859-12867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Moritz ◽  
Roy Behnke ◽  
Christine M. Beitl ◽  
Rebecca Bliege Bird ◽  
Rafael Morais Chiaravalloti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Sustainable Resource Use ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Property Regimes

Current theoretical models of the commons assert that common-pool resources can only be managed sustainably with clearly defined boundaries around both communities and the resources that they use. In these theoretical models, open access inevitably leads to a tragedy of the commons. However, in many open-access systems, use of common-pool resources seems to be sustainable over the long term (i.e., current resource use does not threaten use of common-pool resources for future generations). Here, we outline the conditions that support sustainable resource use in open property regimes. We use the conceptual framework of complex adaptive systems to explain how processes within and couplings between human and natural systems can lead to the emergence of efficient, equitable, and sustainable resource use. We illustrate these dynamics in eight case studies of different social–ecological systems, including mobile pastoralism, marine and freshwater fisheries, swidden agriculture, and desert foraging. Our theoretical framework identifies eight conditions that are critical for the emergence of sustainable use of common-pool resources in open property regimes. In addition, we explain how changes in boundary conditions may push open property regimes to either common property regimes or a tragedy of the commons. Our theoretical model of emergent sustainability helps us to understand the diversity and dynamics of property regimes across a wide range of social–ecological systems and explains the enigma of open access without a tragedy. We recommend that policy interventions in such self-organizing systems should focus on managing the conditions that are critical for the emergence and persistence of sustainability.

scholarly journals Interrelationships between Public Open Space, Common Pool Resources, Publicness Levels and Commons Dilemmas: A Different Perspective in Urban Planning

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Hoh Teck Ling ◽  
Chin Siong Ho ◽  
Kar Yen Tsau ◽  
Chin Tiong Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Future Research ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Management Quality ◽  
Public Open Space ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
The Commons

Public open space (POS) is central to the environment, and oftentimes spatial and architectural designs are emphasised in urban planning as part of creating quality POS. However, such initial design and planning of POS may not adequately encapsulate the sustainability dimensions of the complex social-ecological behavioural patterns of POS consumption and management, hence resulting in space mismanagement, underinvestment, and quality degradation. This phenomenon is particularly true and relevant in the context of government/state-owned POS. Therefore, an objective of this perspective paper, coupled with the concepts of the publicness levels, is to provide a different understanding of exclusivity and subtractibility natures of POS, primarily using the theory of common pool resources (CPRs), which subsequently helps explain and rationalise the perennial, adversarial POS management, quality and sustainability status quo. This paper reveals that, instead of being considered as pure public goods, scarce POS owns two inherent attributes of CPR, namely non-excludable and subtractive (rivalrous) that are ultimately susceptible to social/commons dilemmas, covering the Tragedy of the commons (overexploitation), management shirking, free-riding, underuse, disuse, and moral hazard, which lead to degraded, unsustainable POS. The commons or CPR theory can indeed offer a new paradigm shift, making urban planners and landscape managers to embrace that the unexclusive natures of CPR-based POS are truly finite and depletable and thus vulnerable to POS dilemmas. Hence, to achieve quality, sustainable POS commons, effective governance in terms of consumption and consistent management is vital. For future research, urban design as a necessary societal role is suggested, which has established the need for effective allocation of POS management via an adaptive institutional property rights design.

scholarly journals Sustainability and Common-Pool Resources Alternatives to Tragedy

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 170-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley R. Carpenter ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
Types Of Error

The paradox that individually rational actions collectively can lead to irrational outcomes is exemplified in human appropriation of a class of goods known as "common-pool resources" ("CPR"): natural or humanly created resource systems which are large enough to make it costly to exclude potential beneficiaries. Appropriations of common-pool resources for private use tend toward abusive practices that lead to the loss of the resource in question: the tragedy of the commons. Prescriptions for escape from tragedy have involved two institutions, each applied largely in isolation from the other: private markets (the "hidden hand") and government coercion (Leviathan). Yet examples exist of local institutions that have utilized mixtures of public and private practices and have survived for hundreds of years.Two problems further exacerbate efforts to avoid the tragic nature of common- pool resource use. One, given the current level of knowledge, the role of the resource is not recognized for what it is. It is, thus, in a fundamental, epistemological sense invisible. Two, if the resource is recognized, it may not be considered scarce, thus placing it outside the scrutiny of economic theory. Both types of error are addressed by the emerging field of ecological economics.This paper discusses common pool resources, locates the ambiguities that make their identification difficult, and argues that avoidance of a CPR loss is inadequately addressed by sharply separated market and state institutions. When the resource is recognized for what it is, a common-pool good, which is subject to overexploitation, it may be possible to identify creative combinations of public and private institutions that can combine to save that resource. Disparate examples of self-organized enterprises, public/private utilities, and "green" taxes, to name a few, provide empirical content for developing theories of self-organized collective action.

scholarly journals The Different Meanings of Land in the Age of Neoliberalism: Theoretical Reflections on Commons and Resilience Grabbing from a Social Anthropological Perspective

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haller
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
The State ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Land Acquisitions ◽  
The Commons

Recent debates in social anthropology on land acquisitions highlight the need to go further back in history in order to analyse their impacts on local livelihoods. The debate over the commons in economic and ecological anthropology helps us understand some of today’s dynamics by looking at precolonial common property institutions and the way they were transformed by Western colonization to state property and then, later in the age of neoliberalism, to privatization and open access. This paper focuses on Africa and refers to the work of critical scholars who show that traditional land tenure was misinterpreted as customary tenure without full property rights, while a broader literature on the commons shows that common-pool resources (pasture, fisheries, wildlife, forestry etc.) have been effectively managed by locally-developed common property institutions. This misinterpretation continues to function as a legacy in both juridical and popular senses. Moreover, the transformation of political systems and the notion of customary land tenure produced effects of central importance for today’s investment context. During colonial times a policy of indirect rule based on new elites was created to manage customary lands of so-called native groups who could use the land as long as it was of no value to the state. However, this land formally remained in the hands of the state, which also claimed to manage common-pool resources through state institutions. The neoliberal policies that are now demanded by donor agencies have had two consequences for land and land-related common-pool resources. On the one hand, states often lack the financial means to enforce their own natural resource legislation and this has led to de facto open access. On the other hand, land legally fragmented from its common-pool resources has been transformed from state to private property. This has enabled new elites and foreign investors to claim private property on formerly commonly-held land, which also leads to the loss of access to land related common-pool resources for more marginal local actors. Thus, the paper argues that this process does not just lead to land grabbing but to commons grabbing as well. This has furthermore undermined the resilience and adaptive capacity of local populations because access to common-pool resources is vital for the livelihoods of more marginal groups, especially in times of crisis. Comparative studies undertaken on floodplains in Botswana, Cameroon, Mali, Tanzania and Zambia based on a New Institutional Political Ecology (NIPE) approach illustrate this process and its impacts and show how institutional transformations are key to understanding the impacts of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA) and investments in Africa.

scholarly journals Contemporary commons: Sharing and managing common-pool resources in the 21st century

Human Affairs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-86
Author(s):  
Anna Šestáková ◽  
Jana Plichtová
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Community Gardens ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Ecological Benefits ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
The World ◽  
Bike Sharing ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Empirical Case Studies

Abstract In her groundbreaking work, Elinor Ostrom suggested that communities are able to self-organize and develop rules which allow them to effectively manage common-pool resources while avoiding the “tragedy of the commons”, as proposed by Hardin. Based on empirical case studies of how forests, irrigation, grazing land and fisheries are organized all over the world, Ostrom suggested several principles that can serve as guidelines for managing common-pool resources. In the 21st century new initiatives have been based on sharing. There are various examples such as car and bike sharing in cities, internet platforms such as Wikipedia, community gardens and many others. There is a reason to believe that these efforts will continue to grow and become more popular as people realise the economic, social and ecological benefits. The aim of this paper is to analyse to what extent Ostrom’s findings are relevant to these new, often urbanised or digitalised forms of sharing. Can the famous design principles for which she won the Nobel prize be applied or do we need to search for a different set of principles that are more suitable for these new emerging forms of ‘the commons’? Our findings suggest that although Ostrom’s framework needs to be adapted before being applied to the reality of urban and digitalised environments, some of her findings remain relevant.

scholarly journals The Position and the Development Trends Private Property and Common Property

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Quang Duc
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
The Commons

The issue of the relationship between private property and common property has engaged both legal and economic scholars in a long series of controversies over the meaning, the sequence of development, and the superiority of private vs. common property. The issues debated relate to the efficiency, equity and sustainability of private property as contrasted to common property. Many scholars think of contemporary examples of common property as remnants of the past, likely to disappear during the twenty-first century. Recent research, however, has challenged the presumption that private property is necessarily superior to common property. Keywords: Private property, common property, open access regimes. References: [1] Grossi, Paolo (1981), An Alternative to Private Property; Collective Property in the Juridical Consciousness of the Nineteenth Century, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.[2] Maine, Henry Sumner (1963), Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society and its Relation to Modern Ideas; With Introduction and Notes by Frederick Pollack, Boston: Beacon Press (reprint of 1861 ed.), p. 252.[3] North, Douglass C. and Robert Paul Thomas (1976), The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, London: Cambridge University Press.[4] North, C. Douglass, L. Terry Anderson, and J. Peter Hill (1983), Growth and Welfare in the American Past: A New Economic History, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.[5] W.P. Welch, “The political feasibility of full ownership property rights: The cases of pollution and fisheries”, Policy Sciences, (1983), 16, 165-80.[6] Ostrom, Vincent, The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration, 3rd ed., Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press (2008).[7] North, C. Douglass, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, New York: Cambridge University Press (1990).[8] Elinor Ostrom and Charlotte Hess, Private and Common Property Rights, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, 29/11/2007, https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=sul (truy cập lần cuối: 31/03/2019).[9] Ciriacy-Wantrup, V. Siegfried and C. Richard. Bishop (1975), “Common property” as a concept in natural resource policy, Natural Resources Journal, 15, 713-727.[10] Báo Pháp luật (điện tử): https://plo.vn/thoi-su/dai-bieu-lo-dan-het-duoc-tu-do-tam-bien-o-phu-quoc-774398.html (truy cập lần cuối: 05/04/2019).[11] Báo Tuổi Trẻ (điện tử): https://tuoitre.vn/khong-the-chap-nhan-tinh-trang-lay-bien-lam-cua-rieng-2018110711421466.htm (truy cập lần cuối: 05/04/2019.[12] Dales, H. John (1968), Pollution, Property, and Prices: An Essay in Policy-Making and Economics, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.[13] Higgs, Robert (1996), “Legally induced technical regress in the Washington salmon fishery”, in L. J. Alston, Thráinn Eggertsson, and Douglass North (eds), Empirical Studies in Institutional Change, New York: Cambridge University Press.[14] Johnson, N. Ronald and D. Gary Libecap (1982), “Contracting problems and regulation: The case of the fishery”, American Economic Review, 72, 1005-1022.[15] Wiersma, L. Lindsey (2005), “Indigenous lands as cultural property: A new approach to indigenous land claims”, Duke Law Journal, 54, 1061-1088.[16] Ostrom, Vincent and Elinor Ostrom (1977), “A theory for institutional analysis of common pool problems”, in Garrett Hardin and John Baden (eds), Managing the Commons, San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman, pp. 157-172.[17] Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, and James M. Walker (1994), Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.[18] Feeny, David, Fikret Berkes, Bonnie J. McCay, and James M. Acheson (1990), “The tragedy of the commons: Twenty-two years later”, Human Ecology, 18, 1-19.[19] Bromley, Daniel W. (1992), “The commons, common property, and environmental policy”, 2 Environmental and Resource Economics, 1-17.[20] Singh, Katar (1994), Managing Common Pool Resources: Principles and Case Studies, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. [21] Singh, Katar and Vishwa Ballabh (1996), Cooperative Management of Natural Resources, New Delhi: Sage.[22] Blomquist, William and Elinor Ostrom (1985), “Institutional capacity and the resolution of a commons dilemma”, Policy Studies Review, 5, 383-393.[23] Lueck, Dean (1995), “The rule of first possession and the design of the law”, Journal of Law and Economics, 38, 393-436.[24] Ghoshal, Sumantra and Peter Moran (1996), “Bad for practice: A critique of the transaction cost theory”, Academy of Management Review, 21, 13-47.[25] Putterman, Louis (1995), Markets, hierarchies, and information: On a paradox in the economics of organization”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 26, 373-390.[26] Seabright, Paul (1993), “Managing local commons: Theoretical issues in incentive design”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7, 113-134.  

scholarly journals Emergence of Knowledge Commons, Risks, and Relevance for the Human-Rights Framework

2020 ◽  
pp. 186-202
Author(s):  
David Vila Viñas
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Knowledge Commons ◽  
The Commons

The study of common-pool resources (CPRs) has become increasingly important in social sciences. CPRs emphasize a more inclusive use and an institutional and normative community-based approach. However, this approach is exposed to access, sustainability, and democracy risks. This paper shows the interest that the rationality of the institutions for the commons can have for the legal sphere and, particularly, for human rights. Both are characterized by powerful democratic legislation and share concern for meeting the needs of the subjects involved and for the effectiveness of their contents and guarantees.

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