Elinor Ostrom
Governing shared resources
The argument
Shared resources do not always require a choice between state control and private ownership. Ostrom studies how people who depend on the same forests, fisheries or water supplies can sometimes govern them together.
Governing the Commons compares arrangements that worked with ones that failed. The point is to understand the conditions that support cooperation, rather than assume that one form of ownership will solve every problem.
A question to consider
If several communities depend on the same water supply, who should help write its rules and how would they know whether those rules are being followed?
An illustration for this Library, not a policy recommendation attributed to Elinor Ostrom.
Keep in mind
Success in one community does not establish that the same arrangement will work across countries or at a larger scale.
This is a reading essay. It has no questionnaire scores or position on the Worldview Map.
Read the source
Governing the Commons (opens in another tab) ↗
Cambridge University Press · 1990
Publisher description and chapter contents for the 1990 book; not a review of every case study.