Elinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (1990)

“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 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 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.”

Keywords and phrases
Alanya, Gal Oya, irrigation, acre-feet, prisoner’s dilemma, Alicante, Orihuela, Bodrum, acre-foot, common-pool resources, Turia River, Izmir, Sri Lanka, Valencia, water rights, saltwater intrusion, WBWA, zanjera, self-organization, Murcia

Publisher Cambridge University Press, 1990
ISBN 0521405998, 9780521405997
280 pages

Publisher

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Elinor Ostrom: Neither Market Nor State: Governance of Common-Pool Resources in the Twenty-First Century (1994)

“Property rights and tenure issues are important to assure success in efforts to combine appropriate management of natural resources with productivity increases in developing-country agriculture. Failure to understand existing and alternative property-rights arrangements and how they work may result in inappropriate action by governments and nongovernmental organizations. Research to enhance such understanding is of critical importance and occupies high priority within the current five-year plan of IFPRI. While much attention is paid to the negative effects of free access to natural resources and the potential benefits from privatization of natural resource ownership, this lecture describes common-property institutions and illustrates how they may be superior to both free access and private ownership to achieve appropriate natural resource management and sustainability in agricultural production. Professor Ostrom demonstrates how well-meaning government action aimed at environmental protection may destroy existing community-level arrangements to the detriment of both natural resources and the people living in the community. Action by governments and nongovernmental organizations should enhance rather than replace social capital, which has been built up at the community level over generations. Professor Ostrom argues convincingly that local common-property institutions are effective if not essential components of successful future management of natural resources. While some things are best done by governments or the market, others are more appropriately done by community-level institutions, that is, ‘neither market nor state.'”

Lecture given June 2, 1994.

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Lecture Series no. 2
Washington, DC: IFPRI, 1994.
33 pages

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