Global Common Resources How to Manage Shared Properties Jesper - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Global Common Resources – How to Manage Shared Properties

Jesper Larsson Agrarian history, Department of Urban and Rural Development, SLU

The Global Economy | Environment, Development and Globalization CEMUS Education/Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development • Fall Semester 2015

The Tragedy of the Commons

• Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) seminal article 1968

coined the term

• Hardin an ecologist but were writing about ecology
• A time when people realized that resources were

not infinite

• Problem at the time was the threat of over

population, pollution,environmental degradation, etc.

The Tragedy of the Commons

• Nothing new in the article. Fisheries economics said the
• same. Main argument goes back to Aristotle. But

delivered a powerful story with a memorable name.

• Aristotle: “What is common to the greatest number gets

the least amount of care. Men pay most attention to what is their own; they care less for what is common”

• Enclosure in the seventeenth to nineteenth century.
• “Everybody’s property is nobody’s property” and “wealth

that is free for all is valued by none.” Gordon (1954, 135)

The Tragedy of the Commons

• “The tragedy of the commons develops in this way.

Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.”

(Hardin 1968)

The Tragedy of the Commons

• “As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize

his gain.”

• “…, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible

course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his

• herd. And another; and another... But this is the conclusion

reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a

• commons. Therein is the tragedy.
• “Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each

pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”

Hardin 1968

The Tragedy of the Commons

• “What shall we do? We have several options. We

might sell them off as private property. We might keep them as public property, but allocate the right to enter them.”

• The Solution: Private Property or Public Property
• In later articles Hardin favors State intervention, “a

Leviathan to use Hobbes term” (Hardin 1978, 314)

Hardin 1968

The Tragedy of the Commons

• Hobbes: Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by

an absolute sovereign. Top - down society

• Conclusion: Environmental problem can not be solved by

cooperation

• Impact:The tragedy of the commons became a metaphor

for a lot of problems in the 60s and 70s: overpopulation, firewood crises around the world, acid rain, urban crime, etc.

• An image of helpless individuals destroying their own

resources.

The Tragedy of the Commons

• Are the only solutions on environmental problems

privatization or state intervention? Adam Smith or Karl Marx?

• Is it impossible for people to cooperate? Does

collective action always lead to depletion of resources?

• In the 80s scholars started to question these

assumptions in systematic scientific way.

• Most prominent Elinor Ostrom

Elinor (Lin) Ostrom 1933-2012

Born in Beverly Hills , CA PhD UCLA 1965 Indiana University 1965 – 2012

Elinor Ostrom

• (Ostrom) Workshop for

Political Theory and Policy Analysis, 1973

• An inter-disciplinary research

group focused on the study of institutions, development, and governance.

Elinor Ostrom

• Governing the Commons 1990
• 29th Edition 2011
• Modern Classics
• Cited by 22,791 according to

Google Scholar (October 5, 2015) (compare 14 993 citation January 18, 2013 and 19,670 citations October 17, 2014)

• Translated to at least 13 different

languages.

• Self-Governing is possible

Governing the Commons

• Describes three models most frequently used as

the foundation for recommending state or market

• solutions. An explains why they are wrong.
• Tragedy of the commons
• The free rider problem
• Prisoners dilemma

Governing the Commons

• Tragedy of the commons. An pasture open to all..
• Most obvious flaw: The metaphor is wrong, the

pastures were not open to all.

• Not Open access
• User groups that could decide management rules

Governing the Commons

• The free rider problem
• Mancur Olson 1965: The Logic of Collective Action
• A self-interested individual will not act to achieve

their common interest. Their is always a temptation to free-ride.

• With monitoring and sanctions by a user group it is

possible to stop free riding.

Free-riding

Open Access

Governing the Commons

• Prisoner’s Dilemma
• A noncooperative game
• Shows the difficulty for

individuals to pursue their joint welfare as contrast to individual welfare.

• By choosing the best for the

individual they end up with the third best result for both.

http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/the-prisoners-dilemma-10293/

Governing the Commons

• The paradox: individually rational strategies lead to collectively

irrational outcomes.

• Challenge a fundamental faith that rational human beings can

achieve rational outcomes.

• Basic problem: People talk to each other in many management

situation with commons.

Other use cars They use public transportation I take my car Comfort and traffic jam Comfort and no traffic jam I travel by public transportation Less comfort and traffic jam Less comfort and no traffic jam

Peterson 2009

• Driving a car gives more comfort and more comfort

is better than less

• It is rational for every one to take their own car.
• However it creates huge traffic jams.
• Alternativ outcome better for all: accepting the

slightly lower comfort in public transportation and avoid all traffic jam (only if most people do).

Source: http://spinachinourteeth.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/traffic-cartoon.gif

Four different Goods

Subtractability of use Difficulty of excluding potential beneficiaries Low

(one person’s use doesn’t reduce what is left for others)

High

(use by any person reduces what is left for

• thers)

Low

Easy to Exclude

Toll Goods

cinemas, private parks, satellite television

Private Goods

food, clothing, cars, personal electronics

High

Difficult to Exclude

Public Goods

free-to-air television, air, national defense

Common-pool resources

fish stocks, timber, coal

Governing the Commons

• Design principles for Robust Governance of common-pool

resources (CPRs).

• Studied long enduring CPRs: High Mountain Meadows in

Töblen, Switzerland, Irrigation in Spain and The Philippines, Villages in Japan Governing Forests and Mountains Commons, Inshore Fisheries in Turkey, etc.

• Similarities between them.
• 8 Design principles.

Design Principles

• 1. Well-Defined Boundaries
• 1 A. User boundaries: Clear boundaries between

legitimate users and nonusers must be clearly defined.

• 1 A. Resource boundaries: Clear boundaries are

present that define a resource system and separate it from the larger biophysical environment.

Design Principles

• 2 A. Congruence with local conditions: Appropriation

and provision rules are congruent with local social and environmental conditions.

• 2 B Appropriation and provision: The benefits obtained

by users from a common-pool resource (CPR), as determined by appropriation rules, are proportional to the amount of inputs required in the form of labor, material, or money, as determined by provision rules.

• Fairness is a crucial attribute.

Design Principles

• 3 Collective-Choice Arrangements
• Most people that are affected by a resource regime

are authorized to participate in making and modifying their rules.

Design Principles

• 4 Monitoring
• Most long-surviving resource regimes select their
• wn monitors, who are accountable to the

appropriators or are appropriators themselves and keep an eye on resource conditions well as on harvesting activities.

Design Principles

• 5 Graduated Sanctions
• Users who violates rules-in-use are likely to receive

graduated sanctions.

• The initial sanction needs to be considered more

as information to the person who is “caught”.

Design Principles

• 6 Conflict resolution mechanisms
• Users had rapid access to low-cost, local arenas to

resolve conflict among users or between users and

• fficials.

Design Principles

• 7 Minimal recognition of rights to organize.
• The rights of users to devise their own institutions

are not challenged by external governmental authorities.

• Users have long-term tenure rights to the

resources.

Design Principles

• 8 Nested Enterprises
• For larger common-pool resources, like irrigation

systems.

• The presence of governing activities organized in

multiple layers of nested enterprises.

Institutions

• Rule of the Game, Do’s and Don’ts
• Formal and informal
• Douglass C. North
• Institutional Diversity
• No blue prints
• No Panaceas

IAD-Framework

• Institutional Analysis and Development Framework

Ostrom 2010

SES-Framework

Cole, Epstein, and McGinnis 2013

Polycentrism

• A system where citizens are able to organize not

just one but multiple governing authorities at different scales.

• An example: A farmer could be member of many

governing authorities for fisheries, hay-making, making fence (Horisontal) as well as vertical, villige meetings, parish meetings etc.

Trust

• Crucial to build trust between users
• For small as well as large commons
• “No one wants to be a ‘sucker’, keeping a promise

that everyone else i breaking” Ostrom 1990:44

Impact

• Not only market and state
• Self-Governing is possible
• Empower people
• Collective action can make change
• Institutional Diversity

Impact

• Large commons: Air, Oceans, Fresh Water
• The Globe as a Common
• Knowledge as commons: http://creativecommons.org
• Cities as commons
• Activist like David Bollier http://www.bollier.org
• and Silke Helfrich http://www.commonsblog.de

Common property regimes

• Often, but not always successful
• But private property regimes and state property

regimes has also failed many times

Anti-Commons

Heller 2013

The Tragedy of the anti-commons Fragmentation leads to wasteful underuse Patents - two many owner hard make new drugs

Climate Change

• The largest commons
• Climate change is a global public bad
• No one can be excluded
• Everyone has an incentive not to take costly action

to avoid negative externalities.

• Accept the theories of Olson and Hardin

Climate Change

• Is it possible to use the design principle for global

commons, to scale up.

• Neighborhood Comparison, compare your consumption

with your neighbors

• Is a polycentric approach possible
• Complexity of causes: polycentric solutions
• Multiple units can be strong not chaotic

Climate Change

• Instead of ONE Global remedy…
• local knowledge and local commitments are

important parts.

• Local level must be involved.
• If your not involved less likely you will comply

(design principle 3)

• Lin would say that we can’t wait for a global solution

–Elinor Ostrom

“We CAN, so we MUST.”