Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

Institutions define the rules of engagement.

There are essentially two definitions of the commons. It can be used to signify a resource that is freely available like water, air or land, at least before private property enforcement was used to prevent local populations from accessing land or water. Alternatively, as the work of Elinor Ostrom showed, it can also be seen as an institution. Ostro

In undisturbed ecosystems and traditional cultures, the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole. These systems and others are self-regulatory.

Fortunately, self-organization is such a basic property of living systems that even the most overbearing power structure can never fully kill it, although in the name of law and order, self-organization can be suppressed for long, barren, cruel, boring periods.

Plutôt que d’être laissés en « accès libre », ces communs à succès étaient gouvernés par des communautés clairement définies, avec des règles acceptées collectivement, et des sanctions punitives pour ceux qui les violaient38.

“Economic institutions shape economic incentives, the incentives to become educated, to save and invest, to innovate and adopt new technologies, and so on. Political institutions determine the ability of citizens to control politicians.”5