The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft, by Derek Wall (original) (raw)
The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom
2014
This document is the author's post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.
Nature, economics, property and commons. Subversive notes inspired by Elinor Ostrom
E3S Web of Conferences, 2014
Nature-economy relations also are the result of economics' concepts, ideas and paradigms. Heterodox economic views and paradigms are urgently needed to foster shifts towards the planet's future sustainability paths. Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel economics laureate, stands as one of the authors whose long neglected views are most inspiring in subverting mainstream paradigms on property regimes and natural resource management. Challenging the tragedy of the commons orthodoxy, she shows humans are able to escape the prisoner's dilemma, as well as the public vs private property, and state vs market modern dichotomy in natural resources' management models, by recognizing common property as a third option, and re-inventing the commons as indeed diverse and resilient institutions to foster more sustainable economy-nature relations. Brazil's indigenous territories are cited as a living example of commons' sustainability, although increasingly threatened by economic growth.
Environmental Conservation, 2004
The Future of the Commons - Beyond Market Failure and Government Regulation
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
ABSTRACT Traditional economic models of how to manage environmental problems relating to renewable natural resources, such as fisheries, have tended to recommend either government regulation or privatisation and the explicit definition of property rights.These traditional models ignore the practical reality of natural resource management. Many communities are able to spontaneously develop their own approaches to managing such common-pool resources. In the words of Mark Pennington: ‘[Professor Ostrom’s] book Governing the Commons is a superb testament to the understanding that can be gained when economists observe in close-up detail how people craft arrangements to solve problems in ways often beyond the imagination of textbook theorists.’In particular, communities are often able to find stable and effective ways to define the boundaries of a common-pool resource, define the rules for its use and effectively enforce those rules.The effective management of a natural resource often requires ‘polycentric’ systems of governance where various entities have some role in the process. Government may play a role in some circumstances, perhaps by providing information to resource users or by assisting enforcement processes through court systems.Elinor Ostrom’s work in this field, for which she won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009, was grounded in the detailed empirical study of how communities managed common-pool resources in practice.It is essential that we avoid the ‘panacea problem.’ There is no correct way to manage common-pool resources that will always be effective. Different ways of managing resources will be appropriate in different contexts – for example within different cultures or where there are different physical characteristics of a natural resource.Nevertheless, there are principles that we can draw from the detailed study of the salient features of different cases to help us understand how different common-pool resources might be best managed; which rules systems and systems of organisation have the best chance of success or failure; and so on.Elinor Ostrom’s approach has been praised by the left, who often see it as being opposed to free-market privatisation initiatives. In fact, her approach sits firmly within the classical liberal tradition of political economy. She observes communities freely choosing their own mechanisms to manage natural resource problems without government coercion or planning.In developing a viable approach to the management of the commons, it is important, among other things, that a resource can be clearly defined and that the rules governing the use of the resource are adapted to local conditions. This suggests that rules imposed from outside, such as by government agencies, are unlikely to be successful.There are important areas of natural resource management where Elinor Ostrom’s ideas should be adopted to avoid environmental catastrophe. Perhaps the most obvious example relevant to the UK is in European Union fisheries policy. Here, there is one centralised model for the management of the resource that is applied right across the European Union, ignoring all the evidence about the failure of that approach.
The Environmental Optimism of Elinor Ostrom
2020
Elinor Ostrom was the first woman awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Ostrom studied the management of shared environmental resources. Her work focused on how human beings come together to solve social dilemmas such as how a resource held in common should be managed. This edited volume builds on Ostrom's research with six chapters by renowned environmental scholars. Each chapter explores a particular issue in environmental policy by carefully analyzing how institutions impact environmental outcomes and considering what might be done to improve those outcomes. The volume begins with an examination of resource governance in the American West and how institutions developed to govern a complex and demanding landscape. It then explores the largely successful multi-stakeholder approach to the management of the greater sage grouse in the western U.S. The third chapter explores the role of American and Canadian indigenous groups in governing Pacific salmon fisheries. ...
2019
This paper proposes a geographic review of Elinor Ostrom's most famous book "Governing the commons. The evolution of Institutions for Collective Actions". Its goal is to identify what contribution geographical science can give to defining "the possibilities and limits" related to the use of commons. In the governance of commons, space and territory play a strategic role. Sometimes, however, this role is sacrificed to social, economic and political processes.