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Elinor Ostrom

Governing the Commons (Canto Classics) Reissue Edition

by Elinor Ostrom (Author)

(4.6) 258 ratings

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The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing 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 uses institutional analysis to explore 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 organizations 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.

ISBN-10

1107569788
ISBN-13

978-1107569782
Edition

Reissue
Publisher

Cambridge University Press
Publication date

October 8, 2015
Language

English
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.67 x 8.5 inches
Print length

296 pages
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4.6 out of 5

258 global ratings

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Un francais en angleterre

We need more people like Ostrom

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 24, 2009

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I am surprised that there's little review activity going on for this book, even though the author has won the "fake nobel" prize (i.e. the "price in memory of alfred nobel" for economy). Regardless of what one thinks about the fake nobel, the author is certainly someone whose achievements deserve recognition. This book is a pedagogical summary of the important work that she's done in relation to "Common Pool Resources".

It is written in an accurate and scientific style that never falls into the jargon trap. This gives a vivid impression of the author as someone open minded and keeping her thinking clear and focused on the facts.

After an introduction on her intentions and method, she presents the so called "tragedy of the commons" (and its close kin, the "prisoner's dilemna") as a situation where theoretical thinking sees central intervention as the only way to break the (self)destructive behaviour predicted and often observed: everyone tries to appropriate as much as they can get away from common resources until those resources collapse and everyone becomes worse off. She then calls attention to several field situations where individuals have been able to organize themselves to avoid falling into this trap without external intervention. The situations described are as diverse as mountain terrain in Switzerland, irrigation land in Spain and the Philippines or even fisheries in Turkey. Ostrom provides a detailed description of the salient features of these institutions before highlighting the common ground and the differences. She points out that these examples have institutions that have been stable for a long time and that we're therefore unsure about the process through which the institutions themselves were created.

She then turns to more recent examples of successful institutions managing CPR where information is available regarding the institutional development that led to the current situation. The key examples are water management institutions in California and a project to improve local irrigation communities in Sri Lanka. She finally contrasts successful institutions with failing ones, with a view to identify whether factors that may have been thought of as being factors of success may not actually be irrelevant.

The overall message of the book is that it is possible for local communities to take care of themselves and to efficiently manage CPR. It is not easy though and certain type of government intervention actually makes the matter worse. Likewise privatization is also not a one size fits all solution. So she's basically highlighting the need to consider each situation on its own, without ideological glasses. She provides a framework to analyze each specific case, but certainly avoids over-generalization.

The world needs more people like Ostrom, (i.e. lucid thinkers genuinely interested to understand what goes on). Too bad the typical social "scientist" seems to be more interested to bend the facts to fit to his theories and ideologies.

18 people found this helpful

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Act

Good content but it reads like a car manual…

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 26, 2022

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The ideas presented in this book are great, if you can get past the endless theoretical comparisons and scientific games.. There was no attempt to make this book hold your attention at all.. it is A very painful read.

One person found this helpful

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Douglas Winslow Cooper

How to Prevent "The Tragedy of the Commons"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 4, 2018

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Resources jointly held by many, especially those that are susceptible to use by "free riders" who contribute nothing to the creation and maintenance of the resource, present fertile ground for "the tragedy of the commons," where the common pool resource (CPR) is depleted by over-use and under-support.

Elinor Ostrom won the prize in economics analogous to the Nobel Prize in other fields. She was awarded this because of her ground-breaking work in studying the management of common pool resources worldwide, resources like water basins of California, fisheries off Nova Scotia, grazing lands and farming lands jointly held in foreign lands.

Ostrom describes successful ventures and unsuccessful ones, and she gives some guidance on how to manage the commons and under which conditions that management is likely to succeed when done very locally, or bottom-up.

Throughout, the book is highly readable and heavily documented.

10 people found this helpful

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Nick Donovan

Solid Work with many New, Good Ideas, but Suffers Slightly from Length and Style

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 5, 2013

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Overall, this is a great entry by Elinor Ostrum. She gives relevant background stories and information about the issue of "The Commons".

Ostrum's main idea is that a blend of a private property regime and state/government approach is the best way to govern the commons and prevent over-withdrawal (i.e. over-fishing, etc). She stresses the importance of local knowledge in setting up systems and fostering trust between the governors and those who are governed. However, the state's use of scientific knowledge and its ability to enforce the boundaries efficiently and strictly are of significance as well.

Unfortunately, the work suffers from a muddling of ideas. Ostrum argues against the separate two approaches as an to portray her idea as a fair balance, but sometimes it's unclear why she discusses some points or uses some example.

A good read if you have the time and can sift through schemes and organize them.

One person found this helpful

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Richard Ells

Exceptionally valuable book on cooperative resource management

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 19, 2016

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Governing the Commons is an excellent exploration of how people can work together to manage shared, limited resources. It is a bit of a heavy read, but I found it very worthwhile. One of its basic points is that the Garret Hardin "Tragedy of the Commons" idea is not inevitable. There are many examples of communities setting up stable, long term institutions for managing common resources such as water supplies, fisheries, and forests. Ostrom outlines the interaction between local private initiatives, administrative organizations such as water districts, and legal frameworks provided by government. She also describes how favoritism, bribery, and corruption to thwart such efforts. A very good read for anyone thinking along the lines of "Think Global, Act Local."

12 people found this helpful

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Edoardo Angeloni

An interesting point of view about the policy.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 24, 2011

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The game theory could be applyied to the reallity of the policy? The argument of this book is very interesting because, if many authors have a negative idea about this possibility, Ostrom is sure with a certain competence of this fact. The author supposes that the social action must born as collective. Next the problem is related to the possibility to talking about several situations. A strategy is strong if we can use it in Sri Lanka and in California. This theory can be transfered in a coherent context if we know as the complexity theory works.

One person found this helpful

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James-philip Harries

Tragedy of the Commons? - Not!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 22, 2012

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Once you tune in to some academic jargon, this book is fascinating.

The firm and government have their theorists and avatars a-plenty (Smith, Coase, Hume, Hobbes, Marx, Rousseau). There's another form of economic organisation sandwiched between the two: the Commons. Or, in the jargon, Common Pool Resources. Ostrom is a brilliant guide to how these CPRs work, or sometimes don't work. Most people, from left and right of the political spectrum, seem to think CPRs don't work, based on Hardin's famous phrase of the "tragedy of the Commons". But in fact many CPRs are older than the states that enfold them, and have been working for over 1,000 years. If you live in an English village you may find that your house deeds include the right to pannage, coppice, charcoal...

Ostrom describes a range of cases: forests, irrigation and fishing are the classic examples. She derives (chapter 1, cart before the horse, this is academe) some general features and rules for successful CPRs. She describes successes and failures in subsequent chapters, from a world wide set of examples. Her rules seem robust (I'm not qualified to say) but she may be underemphasising some points. To criticise:
1. If CPRs which fail are characterised by over exploitation, CPRs which last may imply systematic underuse. It's inconceivable that a durable equilibrium would be perfect, no?
2. Monitoring and sanctioning are crucial in Ostrom's view, to prevent free riders. She says the costs of these must be low. Yes, but the costs could also be quite high if the costs of alternative organisation such as privatisation, division and nationalisation are even higher.
3. Ostrom discusses the question of changing the rules of the CPR to accomodate weather, rainfall, etc. It's excellent but does it cover revolutionary change? Swiss and Japanese foresters have adapted to the chain saw, Spanish farmers have adapted to the water pump. Newfoundland inshore fishers have simply banned new technology while the Common Fisheries Policy is a notorious scandal.
4. CPR institutions are only sort-of democratic (exclusiveness is a must) and one-man-one-vote probably is a rarity.
These four questions make me fear that there is a bureaucrat sharpening his pencil somewhere...

Common Pool Resources, despite the jargon, are wonderful. Once you start to examine them, they seem to be everywhere: church congregations, cricket clubs, PTAs, Mt Blanc, coral reefs, even maybe sharia courts in non-muslim countries.

This is an eye-opening book, worth the effort. Elinor Ostrom richly deserves her "Nobel" prize. If I could I'd give her the Freedom of the City and the right to herd bankers over London Bridge as well.

17 people found this helpful

Athan

Superb

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 29, 2014

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Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel for her work on common-pool resources, so this book represents Economics orthodoxy on the topic.

It does not disappoint.

Presumably to get us interested, the author starts backwards, taking us through three examples of simple theories that predict common-pool resources will always perish: the "prisoner's dilemma," the "tragedy of the commons" and the "logic of collective action."

From there she goes on to explain how a common-pool resource differs from a public good like national defence or public safety: First, if my cow is grazing on a meadow, it's eating grass that won't be there for your cow to eat. Second, by dint of competing with one another to extract fish from a lake, we could be doing so at the expense of our future ability to fish from the lake. National defence, on the other hand (a public good, rather than a common-pool resource) is there for all of us to fully take advantage of and does not perish through the tragedy of the commons. A common-pool resource is thus defined (p.30) as a "stock" of variables that can produce a maximum quantity of "flow" variable without harming the "stock" or the system, with the added complications that 1. it could be costly to monitor / police / limit the "appropriation" of the "flow" 2. it could be costly to ensure the continued "provision" of this common-pool resource itself (for example, a community might need to keep a dam in good shape)

Next, the author politely points out that the three game-theoretical constructs which predict the demise of all common-poor resources are far too abstract and proceeds to disprove them by counterexample, listing a number of thriving examples of common-pool resources that 1. have stood the test of time and 2. are isolated and simple enough for us to examine without having any second thoughts as to whether our analysis is complete: High mountain meadows and forests in Switzerland and Japan, irrigation institutions in Spain and the Philippines are described in great detail, and their common characteristics are summarized as follows:

1. Clearly defined boundaries
2. Congruence between local conditions and the rules governing "provision" and "appropriation" of the common-pool resource
3. Collective choice arrangements whereby those who use the common-pool resource have voice in establishing or modifying the rules
4. Monitoring that is, at a minimum, accountable to the appropriators
5. Graduated sanctions for rule-breakers
6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms
7. The right of appropriators to organise must not be challenged by outside authorities
8. For larger common-pool resources there is a need for multiple layers of nested enterprises to take care of "provision," "appropriation," "monitoring," "enforcement," "resolution," "government" etc.

It's a formidable list, but it's not exhaustive. In the spirit of Douglass North and Mancur Olson, the author next introduces a further factor in the equation, and that's the contribution that government institutions have to make to common-pool resources by means of providing technological expertise and a helpful legal framework that will jointly act to support, help shape and enforce the decisions of the agents who engage in the provision and appropriation of the common-pool resource. The example here comes from a very thorough examination of how institutional change was made possible in the case of a number of rather diverse groundwater basins in California in the 1950's and 60's.

A long list of failures comes under the microscope next: two Turkish fisheries, yet another Californian groundwater basin, a (totally fascinating) Sri Lankan fishery (p.151), followed by a couple borderline cases in Sri Lanka and Canada. They are all checked against the list, with a summary (p.180) of successes and failures that makes for some very persuasive reading.

Rather than declare some type of "breakthrough," the book closes with an extremely humble assessment of the quandary facing participants in common-pool resources and an attempt to describe a general framework for assessing the potential for success through their eyes: the size, variability, quality and longevity of the benefits that will flow to the potential appropriators must be weighed against the costs inherent in helping out with "provision," the transformation costs, the monitoring and enforcement costs, the information costs and the potential for positive institutional change. The author submits that in her opinion the following factors are most conducive to a positive decision to adopt a new rule / participate in a proposed solution:

1. Looming harm if the rule is not adopted/changed to save the resource
2. Appropriators will be affected in similar ways if a rule is adopted/changed
3. Low discount rates
4. Low information, transformation, monitoring and enforcement costs
5. Pre-existing social capital (e.g.in the form of norms or reciprocity and trust)
6. A relatively small and stable group appropriating from the common-pool resource

I'll be totally honest, I read this entire book with an eye toward analysing the European common currency as a common-pool resource, but in the end I was captivated by the theory itself. Even if I never apply this knowledge to anything, I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Governing the Commons." I was entertained and challenged in equal measure.

5 people found this helpful

P. J. Krause

Landmark change in view

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 16, 2009

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Many discussions and "authorities" on the management of common pool resources (CPR) refer to the "tragedy of the commons" as something that is inescapable - that whenever there is a public common pool resource (alpine meadows, fisheries, groundwater,...) humans will always act collectively to over-exploit it. Indeed, this is not the case, as Elinor Ostrom clearly describes. Instead, she analyses a range of case studies where local institutions have been developed to successfully manage CPR's, sometimes for a thousand years or more. At the end of the book she proposes a framework for the analysis of CPRs, which should be required reading for anyone who wishes to put in place, or see put in place, an effective management strategy for a CPR.
Most of the CPRs she has studied are within reasonably well-scoped geographic regions. She does offer guidance on, and examples of, scaling their management through nested enterprises. However, further work is needed to extend this framework to the management of global CPRs.
Although targeted more at the academic community, this book is very clearly written and quite accessible. I really wish it could be much more widely read. If you are interested in this book, do also take a look at Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems and Navigating Social-Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change .

9 people found this helpful

MR RICHARD MORLAND

Noble Prize winner’s must useful book for the non-specialist

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 23, 2013

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Ostrom explains her concept of the institutions needed to manage common pool resources e.g. fisheries, water supplies, and alpine grazing. This book is quite easy to read and the cases are interesting. The ideas are very important and novel (hence the Noble Prize for Economics for the author). The novelty of the ideas makes the book quite challenging. It could be used as a text for an advanced undergraduate or post graduate course in Business or Economics or Public Affairs. The ideas may also apply to the management an allocation of welfare and healthcare resources provided by the state (community)

2 people found this helpful

David Keith Oliver

a must re ad

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 5, 2022

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