DLC

Permanent link for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/10535/1

Browse By

Now showing 1 - 60 of 10979

Open-Field Farms and Pasture Commons (1793-1815)
(Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd, 1912) Prothero, R. E.
"It might perhaps be supposed that in 1793 the agricultural defects of the ancient system of open arable fields and common pasture had been remedied by experience; that open-field farmers had shared in the general progress of farming; that time alone was needed to raise them to the higher level of an improved standard; that, therefore, enclosures had ceased to be an economic necessity. In 1773, an important Act of Parliament had been passed, which attempted to help open-field farmers in adapting their inconvenient system of occupation to the improved practices of recent agriculture. Three-fourths of the partners in village-farms were empowered, with the consent of the landowner and the tithe owner, to appoint field-reeves, and through them to regulate and improve the cultivation of the open arable fields. But any arrangement made under these powers was only to last six years, and, partly for this reason, the Act seems to have been from the first almost a dead letter. At Hunmanby, on the wolds of the East Riding of Yorkshire, the provisions of the Act were certainly put in force, and it is possible that it was also applied at Wilburton in Cambridgeshire. With these exceptions, little, if any, use seems to have been made of a well-intentioned piece of legislation."
Government and Water: A Study of the Influence of Water Upon Governmental Institutions and Practices in the Development of Los Angeles
(1950) Ostrom, Vincent
"The balmy mediterranean climate of Southern California has attracted millions of people to its coastal plain; but nature has imposed a critical limit upon local development by failing to provide an adequate water supply. Water, as the crucial barrier, has been a most significant determinant of both the extent and the pattern of municipal growth and development. "Los Angeles, deriving its basic policies and institutional patterns from its Spanish foundation, continues to retain the control and ownership of its water resources in the municipal community except the distribution of water for domestic purposes. Private entrepreneurs, contractors and leaseholders distributed the domestic water supply until the city acquired full ownership and control in 1902. "The water rights derived from the Spanish pueblo gave Los Angeles prior use to the water of the Los Angeles River. With this water supply, Los Angeles assumed early leadership as the principal city in Southern California and expanded its boundaries by absorbing thirsty suburban areas. "Municipal administration of the water and power utilities required a bureaucracy to perform the necessary services and operations. Organized in a single department, the administration of the water and power systems has been divided between two nearly autonomous bureaus. The Department of Water and Power has attained great freedom of action within the Los Angeles city administration except for civil service regulations. "Where water is vital to community growth and development, public policies relating to it inevitably become crucial political issues for the community and its government. Politics is an essential tool of administrators to realize their program of water resources development. "To construct and administer the necessary water works, and to transport a new supply of water from the Colorado River to the Southern California coastal plain, Los Angeles joined with other municipalities to devise a special agency, the Metropolitan Water district of Southern California, to govern this metropolitan water supply system. "Water intimately involves Los Angeles in a complex of important inter-governmental relations with other units of local government, the government of California, other neighboring states, and the government of the United States. The administration of city-owned lands in water supply areas has created special problems of tenancy and absentee ownership. "Overcoming the natural shortage of water has taxed the ingenuity of citizens, civic leaders and public officials of Los Angeles to determine proper policies and to devise adequate institutions to meet future needs. An appreciation of the potentials of water as a catalyst in community growth, a mold for political institutions and an influence upon political practice can enable imaginative leaders to better shape the future of a Greater Los Angeles."
Exchange of Water Supply
(1960) Ostrom, Vincent
"California's water 'problem' arises from a personal preference congeries relevant to an area yielding limited water supplies. Semi-arid Mediterranean Southern California coastal regions provide climatic amenities attractive to population. These same weather conditions are expensive to water resources. By contrast, more abundantly supplied Northern California has not attracted large populations. Yet in the modern metropolis a relatively abundant water supply is essential to meet a variety of requirements. The resolution of this paradox is central to California water resource development. Marked contrasts in water yield and population distribution can be noted in comparisons of the south and north coastal areas of California. The south coastal area comprising Ventura basin and the Southern California coastal plain contains over one-half of the state's population with less than two percent of the state's natural run-off. By contrast, the north coastal area has less than three per cent of the state's population with nearly forty per cent of the state's water crop. The problem of geographic redistribution of water supplies is further complicated by extreme seasonal and cyclical variations in floods and droughts."
100 Years of Indian Forestry. Volume 2: Forests
(Manager Government of India Press, 1961) Forest Research Institute
"This volume, 'The Forests', which is a companion volume to the Souvenir issued on 18th November, 1961 to commemorate the Centenary of Forest Administration in India, is intended to give a bird's-eye view of forestry in India at the present time. The forest types of India, the protective, productive and industrial aspects of forestry, forest management and working plans, forest education and research, wild like, etc., have all been briefly reviewed, neccessarily in a restricted compass. It will be seen that the achievements of forestry in India have been remarkable indeed, more so in the context of the handicaps, particularly the apathy of the general public, that impedes progress. It is the hope that these achievements will help to inspire added confidence in the workers in the field and spur them on to fresh efforts in tackling the vast problems before us."
100 Years of Indian Forestry. Volume 1: Souvenir
(Manager Government of India Press, 1961) Forest Research Institute
"This Souvenir is a brief survey of the growth ol Indian Forest Administration from a small beginning and gives a general picture of its outstanding achievements in various fields during the last 100 years. The period between 1856 and 1864 was one of intense activity in the organisation of Forest Department, and the year 1961 has therefore been selected as a representative year for celebrating the Centenary of Forest Administration."
Water Resource Management: Regional Planning
(1963) Ostrom, Vincent
"An analysis of American experience in water resource management and regional planning afford a useful opportunity to examine the development of American institutions in an important segment of American society. The ways that resources are exploited for human purposes is an important key to an understanding of institutional arrangements and public policies in any society. New institutional arrangements and accommodations are initiated as new problems and opportunities arise in the development of water resource potentials. At the same time, many of the earlier institutional arrangements maintain their continuity of operation within the changing social scene. "This analysis will first turn to a consideration of patterns of local development undertaken by individual proprietors, private agencies, and by local government agencies. These developments largely involved single- purpose projects concerned with the consumptive use of water for on-the-land developments. The fullest development of water resource management by local agencies can be illustrated by reference to the experience of the Southern California metropolitan region. Efforts to develop regional solutions in some of the large inter-state watershed basins will then be explored. Specific references will be made to experience in the Tennessee valley and in the Columbia basin."
Property, Proprietorship and Politics: Law and the Structure of Strategic Opportunities in the California Water Industry
(1963) Ostrom, Vincent
"In any going society, the patterns of economic behavior are maintained by virtue of certain rule of conduct or law which formulate the range of strategic opportunities that are available to those who function within that society. Law places parameters upon conduct by indicating the boundaries of lawful and unlawful behavior, provides a basic structure of incentives for ordering the behavior of all persons in a society, and affords certain facilities for the pursuit of opportunities. Such legal concepts as 'rights' in relations to 'goods' and 'remedies' in relation to 'injuries' or 'wrongs' clearly reflect a structure of incentives with reference to an implicit moral order. The existence of arrangement for the negotiation and adjudication of interest, in relation to such concepts, constitute the institutional facilities that shape the strategic opportunities available in any society. "If law is to be effective, it must be enforceable. An unenforceable rule enunciating a 'Thou shall not' proposition is no more than a pious platitude. On the other hand, the imposition of unarticulated rile of conduct without recourse to the formal rules of law may be an exercise of irresponsible power, tyranny, or brute force. A rule of law exists only when enforceable rules of conduct are made explicit and when the behavior of all participants in a social structure can be held accountable in reference to the explicit standards of the law."
Western Water Institutions in a Contemporary Perspective
(1964) Ostrom, Vincent
"The imperative necessity of today in considering western water institutions is a critical assessment of where we are and a careful identification of some of the problems which must be faced if we are to make intelligent use of the region's water resources. In this essay, I would like to begin a critical reconsideration of basic water policies and institutional arrangements by pointing up some of the incongruities between transitional formulations and contemporary requirements. I have the profoundest respect for the intelligence and imagination that went into the formulation of the institutional arrangements which have done so much to facilitate the development of the American West. But, the achievements of former generations do not remove the responsibility for using our best intelligence in analyizing contemporary developments and for using our most effective imagination in considering the future course of events. At the risk of oversimplification, I would like to challenge a few implicit assumptions and basic commitments which seem to pervade much of our traditional approach to contemporary water problems."
Economics of Competition for Water
(1965) Davis, Robert K.
"Each day something like 300 billion gallons of fresh water is withdrawn for use in homes, factories, businesses, or on irrigated farmland. These quantities are withdrawn from water courses, kept in circulation sometimes for several cycles of re-use, and then either returned to a water course, which may be a ground water aquifer, or depleted into the atmosphere. Some water is, of course, embodied in the products of manufacture. There is both immensity and great diversity in the uses we make of the water we withdrawn from our lakes, streams and underground aquifers."
Public Entrepreneurship: A Case Study in Ground Water Basin Management
(1965) Ostrom, Elinor
"The traditional literature of political science and economics has given little consideration to the strategy used by individuals in organizing public enterprises to provide public goods and services. Economists have long been concerned with entrepreneurship, but have largely confined their analysis of entrepreneurship to the private market economy. Political scientists most often take a governmental agency as given and rarely investigate the problems of undertaking new public enterprises. The perspective of public entrepreneurship was taken in this study in order to better understand the process of launching new public enterprises and of devising a public enterprise system to undertake a ground water basin management program. The study was based primarily upon the use of documentary materials. Increasing salt water intrusion in a ground water basin was the stimulus which evoked the efforts of entrepreneurs to seek public solutions to their common problem. The physical and institutional conditions confronting water producers in the West Coastal Basin of southern California as they began to organize for public action in 1945 is described in an introductory section. Next, the strategies of those who functioned as public entrepreneurs are examined in a case study which involves (1)the organization of a water producers' and users' association to function as a forum for the consideration of common problems, (2) the creation of a municipal water district to provide a supplemental surface supply, (3)the use of litigation to achieve a limited pro-rata rationing of the local ground water resources, (4) the development of institutional arrangements to test the effectiveness of a fresh-water barrier against the sea and to place a prototype barrier into operation along a one-mile section of the exposed coastline, (5) the design and creation of a water replenishment district as a ground water basin management enterprise and (6) the development of a management plan involving the coordinated action of several public water agencies to assure the continued use of ground water supplies in conjunction with imported surface supplies. Finally, the performance of this public enterprise system was evaluated in relation to its capacity (1) to realize its physical objectives, (2) to secure operational agreements with other agencies and (3) to develop an optimal program in terms of economic efficiency. Physical objectives and operating agreements have been attained but a non- optimum program has been developed. The institutional arrangements implicit in the structure of this ground water basin management system have not motivated ground water producers to take full account of the social costs of their actions. By developing a more economic source of water supply than the alternative sources now being developed by state agencies this local ground water basin management program will, to that extent, be an important long-term force contributing to the more efficient use of water resources in Southern California."
Institutional Failure and Reform: A Problem in Economic and Political Analysis of Water Resource Development
(1967) Ostrom, Vincent
(From pp. 1, 2, & 8): "The purpose of this conference is to consider the question of what special contribution, if any, can political scientists make to the analysis and formulation of public policy? At an earlier time, essentially the same question might have been posed by inquiring about What special contribution can political scientists make to political reform? More recently, the reform motif has become something of an anathema to the more scientifically rigorous political scientists. Yet, we keep returning to the problems of reform like moths drawn to a candle flame. Perhaps we will be able to make a special contribution as political scientists to the analysis and formulation of public policy only when we develop the capability for analyzing the issue of reform with some measure of professional competence. "My invitation to participate in this meeting was to direct attention to the tangible and practical problems of public policy associated with water resource development and not to discourse about political reform as such. Yet, contemporary studies of water resource development persistently turn to allegations of institutional failure among resource development and management agencies and conclude by either explicitly or implicitly proposing a program of reform. Most of these studies have been made by economists, those done by political scientists have a similar, albeit, variant approach to institutional failure and reform. The studies by economists are both more systematic and more consistent in their critique, and I shall use their work as the principal point of departure. "There are quite tangible and practical reasons, unrelated to the wiles of politicians, for problems of water resource development to become deeply involved in the political process. The water problem is, in fact, a multitude of problems, but most of these are problems of fluidity. Whenever water behaves as a liquid, it has the characteristics of 1) a common pool, flow resource involving; 2) a complex bundle of potential goods and bads which sustain; 3) a high level of interaction or interdependency among the various joint and alternative uses. The interrelationships among all three of these characteristics of a water resource situation simply compounds the difficulties in settling upon stable, long-term institutional arrangements for the economics development of water resources."
Khumbu: Country of the Sherpas
(1967) Willan, R.G.M.
"For many years the highest mountain in the world remained unconquered. During the 1920s and 1930s numerous expeditions attempted to climb the huge peak called Mount Everest by English geographers but without success; at last in 1953 the news was flashed to the world that the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had set foot on the summit. Long before this, however, members of the various climbing expeditions in the Himalayas had become acquainted with the Sherpas who live in the high country below Everest, a people of Tibetan origin who are believed to have crossed the high passes of the Himalayas into the region now known as Khumbu about two centuries ago."
Strategy and the Structure of Interdependent Decision-Making Mechanisms
(1967) Ostrom, Elinor
From p. 54: The paradigm presented ... begins to sketch in the type of analysis that one could undertake when examining the affect of decision-making structures on individual behavior. It is hoped that the paradigm will be of help in stimulating further theoretical and empirical work on the relation between the structure of decision-making mechanisms and the strategies of individuals employ when attempting to reach solutions to problems through the utilization of different structures."
Symposium: Papers on Alternative Regimes for the Sea; Submarine Zones of Special Jurisdiction Under the High Seas -- Some Military Aspects
(1967) Goldie, L.F.E.
"At the outset I wish to offer a definition and make two preliminary points. Following the position I took in my earlier study 'Special Regimes and Pre-emptive Activities in International Law' I propose that the word 'regime' be used to indicate: 'A system of rules operating within a given legal framework or with respect to a stipulated group of related objects to allocate effective rights and resolve conflicting claims on the basis of common values'. To this definition I should add the observation that within the regime governing the allocation and evidencing of submarine zones of special jurisdiction I propose to discuss there are systems of priorities between types of envisaged uses (and especially military uses) of the sea."
Toward a Policy Model of World Economic Development with Special Attention to the Agricultural Sector
(1967) Fox, Karl A.
"Two major virtues of J.A.C. Brown's model are comprehensiveness and consistency. It reminds us very clearly that the world economy is a closed system. The exports of one country are imports of other countries. Inconsistencies among the export plans of different countries can be clearly exposed and quantified only within a complete model which includes all countries (or, as in Brown's model, all multicountry regions.)"
Deep-Sea Mining: Comments from the Floor
(1968) Goldie, L.F.E.
"This Association has, since its foundation, participated honorably and effectively in the 'progressive development of international law and its codification'. Thus, long before the United Nations General Assembly was given this function, the International Law Association was called into being as a scientific group above the contest of sectional interests and as an entity whose deliberations would clarify problems both de lege lata (questions of legal analysis and codification) and de lege ferenda (questions of law reform and justice)."
Organization of Decision-Making Arrangements and the Development of Atmospheric Resources
(1968) Ostrom, Vincent
From pp. 53-54: More than a century ago, pioneers advancing into the arid regions of the American West, found it necessary to design and organize new institutional arrangements for the development and use of water resources. Some of their solutions were drawn from the concepts of mining law; some were drawn from the law of municipal corporations and adapted to the problems of human enterprise in a desert region. The institutional arrangements which form the contemporary structure of the California water industry were fashioned as incremental solutions to water problems over the course of more than a century of experience with life in a desert region. The deserts have been watered by human enterprise and the improbable prospect of a major megapolis developing in a desert has become a reality. The realm of the noosphere as characterized by Teilhard and Huxley represents the incremental accumulation of piece-meal solutions in the building of civilization as men have advanced through time along their diverse paths of learning and development. The most that men can do is to use the best of their capabilities in building upon the knowledge and technology that is available in fashioning workable environment which affords the promise of a better life. The bits and pieces become a part of a whole fabric by virtue of a coordinated unfolding of the works, the technology and the operations that affect the physical transformation of resource systems, and by virtue of the incremental addition of agreements, decisions and their implementing actions which affect a social transformation in the organization of human society. Every new physical solution, every new technological development must be accompanied by a new political solution, a new institutional arrangement. Meeting the criteria of technical feasibility is only one condition to be met in developing any resource system as part of the human endeavor. The criteria of economic feasibility, financial feasibility, legal feasibility, and political feasibility must all be met. These criteria relate primarily to the coordination and integration of each new enterprise into the institutional configuration of human society as a going concern. The organization of appropriate institutional arrangements to undertake the development of atmospheric resources will undoubtedly require pioneering into new political realms. In the long-run, national arrangements will not suffice. International arrangements will be required to deal with the continental and global dimensions of atmospheric phenomena. These innovations will have to be fashioned from the familiar tools at hand. New institutions must always be fashioned from the old if we are to sustain the continuity of human enterprise and human civilization."
Constitutional Decision-Making: A Logic for the Organization of Collective Enterprises
(1968) Ostrom, Elinor
"In examining the outcomes of constitution making at the local level, political scientists and economists have often despaired at the resultant crazy-quilt pattern of local governmental units. One might also argue that despair should be directed at the lack of an appropriate logic to explain behavior in the on-going political process. Market behavior also appears as highly disorganized, until viewed with the help of a logic for explaining the order resulting from simultaneous, inter-related decision making in a market place. When we have developed an adequate logic or calculus to explain the behavior of local governmental systems, we may be surprised at the extent of order we can discover. We should then be better prpared to propose improvements in the on-going political process. For some time now a literature has been growing at the fringes of political science and economics which provides the beginnings of a new logic of collective action. From these theoretical foundations, one can begin to develop a relatively coherent logic of constitutional behavior at the local level. During this discussion of the logic of establishing collective enterprises, illustrations related to the management of a ground water basin will be used. The problem of ground water basin management is particularly useful in helping to understand the logic of constitution making since it is a classic example of a common-pool resource--the actions of any producer affect all other producers utilizing the basin. Secondly, the issues are relatively clear-cut and easily determined by an outside observer. Problems of ground water basin management are not in the main affected by party politics, race relations and other divisive issues of the day. In essence, one can assume all other things are held constant while examining the behavior of individuals related to this one set of events. This is as close to a laboratory situation as we can get when we are interested in the behavior of on-going systems. This type of analysis could also be applied to many others problems of metropolitan areas including housing, sanitation, recreation, and transportation."
The Tragedy of the Commons
(1968) Hardin, Garrett
"Technology is not the answer to the population problem. Rather, what is needed is 'mutual coercion mutually agreed upon'--everyone voluntarily giving up the freedom to breed without limit. If we all have an equal right to many 'commons' provided by nature and by the activities of modern governments, then by breeding freely we behave as do herders sharing a common pasture. Each herder acts rationally by adding yet one more beast to his/her herd, because each gains all the profit from that addition, while bearing only a fraction of its costs in overgrazing, which are shared by all the users. The logic of the system compels all herders to increase their herds without limit, with the 'tragic,' i.e. 'inevitable,' 'inescapable' result: ruin the commons. Appealing to individual conscience to exercise restraint in the use of social-welfare or natural commons is likewise self-defeating: the conscientious will restrict use (reproduction), the heedless will continue using (reproducing), and gradually but inevitably the selfish will out-compete the responsible. Temperance can be best accomplished through administrative law, and a 'great challenge...is to invent the corrective feedbacks..to keep custodians honest.'"
The Management of Social Stability: A Political Ethnography of the Hutterites of North America
(1969) Baden, John
"This is a study of the attempts of members of a small society, the Hutterians, to perpetuate their social and cultural systems in a setting they perceive as fundamentally alien and hostile. Collectively, the members of this group seek to be independent of the control of outsiders although perfect autonomy and self-sufficiency are, of course, precluded. The group stands inextricably involved in the political and economic affairs of the larger society."
Sociological Problems and Asian Forestry
(1969) Nowak, K.; Polycarpou, Andreas
"A seminar on social relations in the forestry sector for participants from Asian countries, sponsored by the Swedish International Development Authority, FAO and the Government of Cyprus was arranged in September-October 1969. A preparatory, fact-finding mission to selected countries in the region was undertaken early in 1969."
Organization
(1969) Ostrom, Vincent
"Every development--street sweeping, production of fertilizers, irrigation works, the development of new seed stocks--has a component to it that is concerned with how the activities of people are organized in relation to another. Our effort will be to clarify the essential structure of relationships that apply to institutions of all types and to indicates some of the variations that apply to institutions of different types. However, our focus will be upon the practical implications that are relevant to the man of action who is concerned with knowing what he is doing. As a result, we shall focus upon those who are attempting to do something which involves the activities of many other persons. We shall refer broadly to such individuals as organizers or entrepreneurs. Business entrepreneurs are only one type of organizer. In speaking of organizers we shall refer to all of those who struggle with the practical problems of how to organize the activities of the diverse individuals who become associated with the operation of diverse undertakings or enterprises. Enterprises may be organized as a family endeavour, individual proprietorship, business corporation or stock company, cooperative society, public enterprise, government agency, political party, outlaw society, or revolutionary group. In the rare case, individuals may be concerned with the organization of a nation-state or an international organization."
Land Reform and Political Change in the Countryside: The Mexican and Cuban Cases
(1969) Loveman, Brian
"The present essay is an effort to present an overview of change in the countryside in Mexico (1910-1960) and Cuba (1959-1968). Both cases are treated historically, with particular focus on 1) patterns of land tenure; 2)agricultural systems; 3)social stratification and 4)distribution of political power(authoritative decision-making capability with reference to scarce resources) in the pre and post-revolutionary Mexican and Cuban countryside."
Economic Efficiency in Common Property Natural Resource Use: A Case Study of the Ocean Fishery
(1969) Bromley, Daniel W.
"The common property ocean fishery is often cited as an example of economic inefficiency in production. The usual recommendation is to restrict entry of fishermen so that 'incomes' of those remaining are improved. Such logic would seem to indicate that the economic theory of common property natural resource use is not well developed. It was with this premise that the current investigation commenced. "A mathematical model of productive interdependence among firms in a common pool situation was developed. Following this, the concept of rising supply price for an industry exhibiting productive interdependence was introduced. The concept of a fishing-day was introduced and it was argued that the firm viewed a fishing-day as one of its variable inputs. "When the above concepts were combined With the biological model presented, a bioeconomic model of the fishery evolved. The model permitted illustration of the impact upon industry output from changes in: (1) technology; (2) demand for the product; and (3) fish population; and the chain of ramifications which result, when current production is something other than the sustained yield of the fish in stock. "The usual charge that a common property fishery is 'inevitably overexploited' was evaluated in the context of the bioeconomic model and seen to be false. The traditional recommendation, to restrict entry such that fleet marginal cost equals fleet marginal revenue, so as to maximize 'rent,' was shown, instead, to. merely create higher than competitive returns (profit) for remaining fishermen. The disregard for those: fishermen excluded, by such action was questioned on equity grounds, as well as on grounds of economic efficiency. It was also demonstrated that depending upon demand for the product and technology of the industry, equating, fleet marginal cost with fleet marginal revenue was not sufficient proof that the fish stock would not be overfished."
American Institutions and Ecological Ideals: Scientific and Literary Views of our Expansionary Life-style are Converging
(1970) Marx, Leo
"The chief question before us, then, is this: What are the prospects, given the character of America's dominant institutions, for the fulfillment of this ecological ideal? But first, what is the significance of the current 'environmental crusade'? Why should we be skeptical about its efficacy? How shall we account for the curious response of the scientific community? To answer these questions I will attempt to characterize certain of our key institutions from an ecological perspective. I want to suggest the striking convergence of the scientific and the literary criticism of our national life-style. In conclusion I will suggest a few responses to the ecological crisis indicated by that scientific-literary critique."
Enforcement of Water Pollution Control Laws
(1971) Wenner, Lettie M.
"Pollution control today is a favorite topic for campaign promises by American politicians. If the present public interest in the environment and problems of overpopulation continues, it may one day replace motherhood as the single safest subject for political rhetoric. Everyone, including polluters, is against pollution."
Institutional Arrangements for Water Resource Development
(1971) Ostrom, Vincent
"This report examines the structural elements that have entered into the development of the American water industry, with special reference to the California water industry. A variety of public and private enterprises engaged in water resource development and the rendering of water services are analyzed and evaluated in terms of the theory of organization used by public administration and administrative analysts, and the concepts of political economists. The level of productivity of the American water industry is examined as a consequence of opportunities for public entrepreneurship afforded by a system of overlapping jurisdictions and fragmentation of authority. The report sets forth problems in the assessment of organizational arrangements, examines the terms and conditions of political choice and reviews the choice of institutional arrangements in the development of the California water industry."
Land Reform, Development, and Institutional Design
(1972) Loveman, Brian
"Land reform has often been viewed as a major remedy for the ills afflicting developing societies. Like the elixirs of the traveling medicine man, no one knows all of the ingredients; no one knows the side effects. But, land reform is guaranteed to cure all--or most all--diseases of developing nations. As John Montgomery has observed, land reform is an example of 'a principle which has been tested and has survived, though its effects have rarely been reported or explained'."
Territories of the Lobstermen: Good Ocean Boundaries Make Good Neighbors... and Vice Versa
(1972) Acheson, James M.
"The rules for lobster fishing territories are especially critical because they control access to the lobsters and because they have important ecological implications at a time when some parts of the marine resource are being over exploited. "Growing up in an inland area of Maine, I was for a long time vaguely aware that territoriality existed among lobstermen. Only recently, however, did I find evidence of these territorial rules and investigate them systematically."
Polycentricity
(1972) Ostrom, Vincent
"Application of the concept of polycentricity to the organization of government in metropolitan areas is examined. A polycentric order is defined as one where many elements are capable of making mutual adjustments for ordering relationships with one another within a general system of rules where each element acts with independence of other elements. Spontaneity, in the sense that individuals will be led to organize elements in a polycentric order, initiate self-enforcing arrangements and alter basic rules, is explored as an attribute of a polycentric order. "Reliance upon polycentricity in the organization of various decision-making arenas is examined in relation to markets, judicial decision making, constitutional rule, selection of political leadership and formation of political coalitions and in the operation of a public service economy. The existence of polycentricty in each of these decision making arenas suggests that the governance of metropolitan areas can occur in a polycentric political system so long as no single set of decision makers is able to gain dominance over all decision-making structures. Polycentricity is not confined to market structures but can apply to the organization of diverse political processes and by implication can apply to the political process as a whole. A polycentric political system will be one where each actor participated in a series of simultaneous games and where each act has the potential for being a move in simultaneous games. "Implications of a theory of polycentric organization for research in the governance of metropolitan areas are considered in relation to problems of language and differences of approach as reflected in the use of different units of analysis. Advantage can be taken of these differences so long as contradictory hypotheses can be derived from different theoretical formulations and be used as political experiments if careful attention is given to difference in diagnostic assessments and to differences in the predictive inferences associated with different proposals for policy change. It is this circumstance that provides a challenging opportunity for the generation of empirical research on metropolitan governance being undertaken in the 1970s. We may be on the threshold where political science becomes a cumulative intellectual discipline grounded in analytical theory and when empirical research can be used to mobilize evidence for rejecting some of the propositions which now pass for political science. Theory can be improved only when erroneous conceptions can be abandoned and when weak conceptions can be replaced by stronger conceptions."
Institutional Analysis and Design
(1972) Ostrom, Vincent; Hennessey, Timothy
Note to the Reader: "This is a preliminary and incomplete draft of a manuscript that attempts to provide theoretical foundations for institutional analysis and design. We conceive of institutions to be nothing more nor less than decision-making arrangements. Institutional analysis is concerned with the effect of different decision-making arrangements upon human conduct and upon the well-being of the individuals who are involved. Institutional design is concerned with the choice of decision-making arrangements that will provide the means that are appropriate to the realization [of] specifiable objectives, consequences or ends in view. Any practical man of action who is concerned with organizing the efforts of many individuals in a joint enterprise is necessarily involved in problems of institutional analysis and design..."
On Selling the National Forests: A Preliminary Analysis
(1972) Stroup, Richard; Baden, John
"During the past few years the Sierra Club and its allies have come to an agreement with those in the forest products industry. It seems clear, in fact, that nearly all parties agree that the National Forests are not being 'properly' managed. In brief, this means that none of the various competing interests feel that the National Forests are managed for them. From this we can infer that the Forest Service has not been 'captured' by any single group. Thus, given that the Forest Service has responsibility for substantial and highly valued resources and that it has great managerial discretion, we may be confident that the various interested parties will continue efforts to impose their policy preferences upon the decisions of the Forest Service."
The Tropical Rain Forest: A Nonrenewable Resource
(1972) Gomez-Pompa, A.; Vazquez-Yanes, C.; Guevara, S.
"There is a popular opinion that the tropical rain forests because of their exuberant growth, their great number of species, and their wide distribution will never disappear from the face of the earth. "On the other hand, it has often been stated that the tropical rain forests (tall evergreen forests in tropical warm and humid regions) around the world must be protected and conserved for the future generations. It has also been stated that it is most important that knowledge about the structure, diversity, and function of these ecosystems has priority in future biological research. Unfortunately, either these voices have not been heard or their arguments have not been convincing enough to promote action in this direction. "It is the purpose of this article to provide a new argument that we think is of utmost importance: the incapacity of the rain forest throughout most of its extent to regenerate under present land-use practices."
Factor Rents, Sole Ownership, and the Optimum Level of Fisheries Exploitation
(1972) Copes, Parzival
"In the literature of fisheries economics there is a noticeable preoccupation with the phenomenon of resource rent dissipation. The common property nature of most fishery resources-with the attendant free entry of labour and capital-gives rise to 'problems' of 'overfishing'. If at any given level of fishing effort the resource should yield a rent to the marginal operator, additional factor inputs of labour and capital will be attracted that will depress the catch per unit of effort and lower returns to all operators. This process will continue until the revenue per unit of fishing effort is reduced to the level of its marginal opportunity cost. Thus the rent attributable to the resource, that formerly accounted for the excess of revenue over marginal opportunity cost, is eliminated."
A Model of the Congressional Committee Assignment Process: Constrained Maximization in an Institutional Setting
(1973) Shepsle, Kenneth A.
"The substantive focus of this paper is an institutionalized process in the U.S. House of Representatives known as the committee assignment process. There is, however, a wider class of problems of which this is a special case, namely the classification and selection of personnel. After reviewing the temporal sequence of events that constitute the committee assignment process, the principal actors and their goals are identified. This permits the process to be characterized by self-interested actors engaging in goal-seeking behavior. Institutional constraints, a consequence of formal rules and scarcity, restrict the form that goal-seeking takes. With the specification of goals and constraints the entire process is formalized as a special kind of linear programming problem, called (naturally enough) the assignment problem. Given this formal structure a number of theoretical properties are established in an effort to understand the operating characteristics of this important institutional process."
Primer on the Political Economy of Air Quality Management; for Engineers and Others with Low Tolerance for Mushy Data
(1973) Baden, John
"These essays were written for Professor Bob Gearheart's 'Air Quality Management' course in the Environmental Engineering Program at U.S.I. They were written from January 22 to February 18 of 1973. In no sense does this material constitute either research or even a review of the literature. This was essentially a sit-down-and-write-it-out effort. Further, I have made no systematic effort to learn about air pollution and its control. Hence, the following material is presented in a rather casual and perhaps cavalier manner. Ms. Virginia Ream's editing of my first drafts has cleaned up my residual illiteracy. "I have attempted to take the perspective of a political economist and examine a set of problems. If this effort is useful for engineers and others I would be willing to put the material into a more conventional form. I will, of course, be grateful to those who point out errors and/or make suggestions."
Public Roads and Private Interests: An Inquiry into the Erosion of Public Goods
(1973) Oakerson, Ronald J.
"The purpose of this essay is to set up a problem and pose a question. The problem will be characterized as the erosion of public goods, and the question will be directed at specifying (a) the conditions of institutional failure which lead to the erosion of public goods and (b) possible institutional remedies. The paper will focus empirically upon the decision making dynamics of a situation, still unresolved, surrounding the provision of public roads in the Cumberland Mountain coal region of Eastern Kentucky. The analysis will build upon a foundation initially advanced by James Buchanan, in which he attributes a number of public deficiencies to legal and political weaknesses, leading up to the erosion (i.e., inefficient utilization) of public supplies, rather than to a fiscal weakness, in the sense of insufficient expenditure on public supplies. The plan of the essay is to shape this formal analysis to the Kentucky case, in order to clarify and extend the lessons of each."
The Need for Multiple Indicators in Measuring the Output of Public Agencies
(1973) Ostrom, Elinor
"The need for more valid and realizable means of measuring the output of government services at all levels of government is a critical problem for policy analysts. It is particularly important at the municipal level, where such outputs and their variations have the most direct impact upon citizens, and where sophisticated measurement and evaluation capabilities are least likely to be found."
Property, Politics and Rural Labor: Agrarian Reform in Chile, 1919-1972
(1973) Loveman, Brian
"This study focuses on the political processes and forces that transformed the traditional system of property in rural land in Chile from 1919 to 1972. The central thesis of the study is that the transformation of rural Chile from 1919 to 1972 cannot be understood without reference to the long struggle of Chilean campesinos, aided by urban political parties, labor organizations, and the 'urbanization of the countryside,' to wrest control of the countryside from the Chilean hacendados."
Trouble Case Investigation of a Problem in Nigerien Rural Modernization: Forest Conservation
(University of California Press, 1973) Thomson, James T.; Charlick, R.
"This paper assesses the trouble case methodology as a research tool in the study of Nigerien rural modernization processes. As a vehicle to illustrate the methodology, I take the government forest conservation program, a critical if somewhat neglected component of the overall Nigerien rural modernization effort. "The paper comprises three parts: history of the forestry problem and attempts to solve it (sections I and II); theoretical framework, including a public goods analysis of the problem, a model of legal relationships, and a description of the trouble case methodology (sections III-V); and data and conclusions, consisting of forestry trouble cases, estimates of the effectiveness of current attempts to solve the problem and of other possible approaches, and an assessment of the merits of the trouble case methodology in this type of study (sections VI-VIII). "It is argued here that the Nigerian forest, from the viewpoint of most users, is an unregulated common property. In the absence of regulation it will be destroyed, with disastrous consequences for the environment and the local human ecologies. Regulation is thus a necessary condition for Nigeriens to sustain mutually productive relationship with each other concerning their forest resources. But current enforcement procedures, rendered ineffective by corruption and rule manipulation, fail to curb the developing negative dynamic in which users have little incentive to reorganize their demand patterns and no incentive to generate new supplies as existing ones are exhausted. A tragedy is therefore in the making."
Socio-economic Survey of Lower Rufiji Flood Plain: Rufiji Delta Agricultural System
(1974) Sandberg, Audun
"This report has been prepared by BRALUP researchers for planning officers and TANU cadres at the district and regional level, and for members of the Rufiji Basin Development Authority. It deals with the specific problem: how to implement the policy of ujamaa in the Rufiji Delta, which is the lower part of the Rufiji Flood Plain. (The upper part of the flood plain is called the Rufiji Valley.) Now that the Rufiji Flood Plain has been made a special National Development Area, there is a great need for data on natural and human resources. This report aims at providing such background data which can enable the planners to make realistic plans to further the development of peasants in the Rufiji Delta."
General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean: Report of the Twelfth Session
(1974) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
"The Twelfth Session of the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean (GFCM) was held from 11 to 15 March 1974 at Varna, Bulgaria, under the chairmanship of Mr. Z. Ben Mustapha, and with the attendance of the delegates from thirteen out of eighteen Member Nations, and observers from five international organizations."
Minor Forest Products: Their Total Value is of a Major Order
(1974) Robbins, S.R.J.; Matthews, W.S.A.
"The authors give a survey of minor forest products which are significant in the economies of tropical lands in particular. These include turpentine from pines, perfumery oils from roots, stumps and fruits of various tree species, and gums and exudates which go into products as different as confectioneries and golf balls. There are also spices, medicines, dyes and tannins. Most minor forest products are export currency earners and many are well suited for local processing industries."
Thailand's Forest Villages
(1974) Samapuddhi, Krit
"The forest village system, developed by Thailand's Forest Industry Organization, offers hill tribesmen and others who practice slash and-burn agriculture considerable inducements to settle down. One of its principal aims is to keep a steady labour force on hand for the long-term needs of forestry, while at the same time providing rural families with an income and other benefits from the kind of farming they choose to practice."
Change in Administrative Structures: A Case Study of Kenyan Agricultural Development
(1974) Trapman, Christopher
"Over recent years there has been a growing interest in the field of administrative strategies for developing countries and development administration has become recognised as a valid academic discipline. Theoretical models of public administration have been developed to include the special circumstances which are encountered in the development environment. Riggs has emphasised the underdeveloped nature of society as a factor influencing administrative performance and has tried to explain administrative behaviour in the light of general social and political characteristics of that society. Others have emphasised the importance of the development of organisations and an administrative structure which are properly adapted to the problems of development in alternative circumstances. This report is not intended to add to sociological theory or to analyse its corresponding significance in differing development situations. It is more concerned with the need for fashioning new and more appropriate administrative approaches in underdeveloped circumstances, where rising expectations, limited organisational capabilities and severe shortages of resources characterise the bureaucracy."
Where Forest Reserves Improve Agriculture
(1975) Adeyoju, S. Kolade
"The creation of forest reserves in the tropics can have a good effect on the quality of agriculture. The same people who destroy forests in order to carry out low-yield farming and grazing can be persuaded into better ways through sensible forest reserve policies. The author draws on Nigeria's experience."
Multi-Mode Measures: From Potholes to Police
(1975) Ostrom, Elinor
"On Palm Sunday one year ago, I found myself walking down an Indianapolis street, carrying a yardstick and dashing out between passing cars to measure the potholes in the street. Why would any sane person dash out onto a busy street to risk their life to measure some holes in the ground? I must confess that I asked myself that question several times that day and other days while I helped develop our 'unobtrusive' measures of road conditions. The answer to that question takes a somewhat long route but will be the focus of this presentation."
Urban Policy Analysis: An Institutional Approach
(1975) Ostrom, Elinor
From the introduction: The term 'study guide' is indefinite enough to require an explanation of who might find this volume useful and why. This study guide draws upon a large notebook of materials I originally prepared for the 1973-74 National Science Foundation Chautauqua-Type Short Course program for college teachers. I filled that notebook with materials college teachers could use in courses on public policy analysis, urban politics, and social sciences methodology. "During the summer of 1974, I was asked by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to prepare a study guide from the materials contained in the large notebook. This volume was then issued as a test edition and used in conjunction with the Chautauqua course I taught during the 1974-75 academic year. The comments of a number of readers of that edition have been helpful in substantially revising the study guide for the current version. "A variety of individuals may find this guide useful. The guide could be used as the textbook for a section of a course on urban politics, metropolitan government, public policy analysis, or social science methodology. The guide could be used for an independent readings course by an advanced undergraduate or entering graduate student. The guide might also be useful to a group of citizens appointed to a local government study commission who wish to do some basic readings before undertaking their own study in their own community."
Can Development Be Administered?
(1975) Loveman, Brian
"This paper raises some issues concerning the basic assumptions of Marxist-Leninist and American liberal democratic views on the process of 'development.' In particular it asks whether the assumption that development' can be administered is tenable. In approaching this question, the paper examines (l) the conception of development held by Marxist-Leninists and certain liberal democratic theorists, including those associated with the Comparative Administration Group; (2) the means proposed to achieve 'development' in each case; and then.(3) suggests' apparent contradictions in each of these formulations. The contradictions lead to the conclusion that in some important ways 'development administration' is antagonistic to development."
Rationing Wilderness Use: Some Administrative and Equity Implications
(1975) Baden, John; Stankey, George H.
"The issue of rationing Wilderness use is upon us. Nationally, Wilderness use has been growing at approximately 10 percent a year since about 1946. Although the current economic situation casts uncertainty as to future trends, it does not seem unreasonable to expect further growth, and as a consequence more problems. In the following discussion, we would like to explore one of the important aspects of rationing--the equity implications. Well-intentioned programs to control use that fail to fully weigh the equity costs imposed by such programs will certainly encounter stiff public resistances. One particularly serious consequence of such resistance might be the unwillingness of citizen groups to accept any rationing program, even when such a program is needed to prevent deterioration of the Wilderness resource."
Land Use and Tenure in the Tropics
(1976) Adeyoju, S. Kolade
"Tropical peoples are predominantly dependent upon agriculture for their livelihood. The prospects of significantly altering this economic pattern by bringing it to a level comparable with that of industrialized countries are, in the short run, not promising. It is therefore evident that overall development must include - indeed often must begin with activities that require and use land on a fairly large scale. Without the production of a surplus in agriculture and other rural enterprises, industrialization cannot occur, unless alternative sources of foreign exchange earnings are available from the export of minerals. However, the global consequences of 'mineral warfare' in recent years indicate quite clearly that over-dependence on exportation or importation of minerals is fraught with unpredictable hazards and sophisticated forms of blackmail. While it is desirable to have a diversity of resources and it is also necessary to prefer one type of economic activity to another, there is as yet no rationale for excluding agricultural development either in the developed or developing countries. The reasons for giving increasing attention to the agricultural sector, including forestry, are both explicit and compelling."
Population Pressure and Fertility Changes in Costa Rica, 1906-1970
(1976) Binger, Brian R.; Hoffman, Elizabeth; Newell, William H.
"The demographic history of Costa Rica in the twentieth century is examined in the context of a model of dynamic adjustment to changing child survival probabilities and micro-level population pressure. Micro-level population pressure is viewed as resulting from a couple having children beyond its current optimal family size, given current prices and its income. Cantonal regression analyses for the time periods, 1927-1950, 1951-1953 to 1961-1963, and 1961-1963 to 1970 lend support to the hypothesis that the secular fertility decline in Costa Rica is a dynamic adjustment to high completed family size and increasing child survival probabilities."
Offshore Oil: Costs and Benefits
(1976) Bradley, Tom; Byrne, Brendan; Cousteau, Jacques-Yves; Haynes, H.J.; Hughes, Royston
"Offshore Oil: Costs and Benefits provides the edited transcript of a Round Table that concluded AEI's two-day conference on the impact of offshore oil, held at Los Angeles, California, in March 1975. The participants were Governor Brendan Bryne of New Jersey, representing the eastern coastal states governors, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau for the environmentalists, Chairman of the Board H.J. Haynes of Standard Oil of California for the oil companies, and Assistant Secretary Royston Hughes, representing the Department of the Interior and the administration generally. The imperturbable moderator was Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles."
The Fragmentation of Public Policy Analysis: The Example of U.S. Regulatory Policy
(1976) Dubnick, Melvin J.
"This paper will concentrate on the change toward a public policy focus as it is manifested in the study of economic regulation. The state of analysis in the issue-area is examined and related to the fragmented condition of public policy analysis in general. Finally, consideration is given to the direction students of government regulation should take in meeting the challenge of policy analysis. What results is an agenda for research which is as much a personal statement of objectives for this writer as it is a plea for more work in this area by those interested in the policy sciences."
Communes: The Logic of the Commons and Institutional Design
(1976) Bullock, Kari; Baden, John
"Among the sources of tension in American society is a substantial ambivalence toward competition. American children, like those in most other modernized societies are given a dual behavioral standard. For most social interactions, competition is an accepted and even a favored mode of behavior. In the family, however, unselfish and altruistic behavior is upheld as the ideal. Thus, the child is expected to learn to adjust his behavior to differing situations. Careful discrimination, then, became very important in determining appropriate action in any given situation. "There is no society that is perfectly successful in its acculturation of its children. Further, no individual is capable of perfect discrimination. He cannot apply one standard with perfection outside the family context, and concurrently apply another within. These weaknesses invariably create problems and tensions."
On Dissemination
(1976) Ostrom, Elinor; Nevin, Gillian
From p. 3: "The Comprehensive Report for this project, Patterns of Metropolitan Policing, by Elinor Ostrom, Roger B. Parks, and Gordon P. Whitaker with chapters by Frances Bish, John McIver, Steven Mastrofski, and Elaine Sharp has been accepted for publication by two commercial publishers, Ballinger Books and Lexington Books. Indiana University Foundation is currently negotiating a final contract for this volume with the NSF legal staff. The final volume will be published early in 1977. This section contains a summary of the Comprehensive Report."
Population, Ethnicity, and Public Goods: The Logic of Interest Group Strategy
(1976) Baden, John
From Introduction: "Population control Is essentially a problem of choice. Societies face the necessity of choosing their level of population; we note that not to choose Is In Itself a choice. "There has been controversy, particularly between Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner, centered around the methods to be employed in any attempt at population control. There are those who baulk at any suggestions that lead to Institutionalized coercion methods as a threatening form of political repression. Barry Commoner, in his book The Closing Circle (Knopf, 1971), has advanced the argument that if a substantial majority of the members of a society were to voluntarily accept a program for birth control, then coercion would be rendered unnecessary. However, there seems to be a flaw In this position. The error became apparent when Garret Hardin demonstrated that leaders of subgroups within a society have a vested interest to admonish their followers to outbreed other subgroups. Admonitions of this nature possess the potentiality for undermining voluntary cooperation in birth control, if loyalties to the subgroup can be so directed. This brings us to the application of theories of population dynamics to issues of human population policy."
Southern California Recreational and Commercial Marine Fisheries
(1976) MacCall, Alec D.; Stauffer, Gary D.; Troadec, Jean-Paul
"This work should provide significant information for the formulation of positions and plans for regulatory agencies managing these resources. We have attempted to avoid making recommendations regarding the course of future exploitation of southern California fish resources except for the determination of approximate limits of sustainable yields and lower limits on age at first capture. However, where resources are or appear to be exploited beyond maximum sustainable yield, reduction of catch and/or effort is strongly recommended."
Revelation, Rationality and Institutional Design
(1976) Bullock, Kari; Baden, John
"Among the sources of tension in American society is a substantial ambivalence toward competition. American children, like those in most other modernized societies are given a dual behavioral standard. For most social interactions, competition is an accepted and even a favored mode of behavior. In the family, however, unselfish and altruistic behavior is upheld as the ideal. Thus, the child is expected to learn to adjust his behavior to differing situations. Careful discrimination, then, becomes very important in determining appropriate action in any given situation. "There is no society that is perfectly successful in its acculturation of its children. Further, no individual is capable of perfect discrimination. He cannot apply one standard with perfection outside the family context, and concurrently apply another within. These weaknesses invariably create problems and tensions. "One effort to resolve the problem involves the establishment of a communally organized society. Such a society is noted for its relative absence of individual property rights. Material wealth is dispersed equally among the members of the group and property is held in common. Since all share equally in group assets, the opportunity for discrimination among individuals on the basis of wealth is reduced, if not entirely absent."
Competition and the Integration of Agriculture and Cattle Raising in Sahelian and Soudano-Sahelian Africa
(1977) Pelissier, Paul
"Situated between the Sahara, traditionally the domain of pastoral nomadism, and the Sudanian zone, the Sahel zone has long been a place of encounter, of competition--even confrontation--between herders and farmers. But is it not also a center for unique modes of production based on techniques specific to Africa and capable of explaining some of the most noteworthy aspects characteristic of Africa south of the Sahara?"

Browse By

Browsing DLC by Issue Date