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PDF
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Type:
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Conference Paper |
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Author:
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Ostrom, Elinor |
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Conference:
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46th National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration |
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Location:
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Indianapolis, Indiana |
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Conf. Date:
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March 23-27, 1985 |
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Date:
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1985 |
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URI:
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https://hdl.handle.net/10535/2274
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Sector:
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Social Organization
Theory
General & Multiple Resources |
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Region:
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Subject(s):
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Workshop
institutional analysis
common pool resources
resource management
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Abstract:
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"This paper seeks to demonstrate that private ownership or central governmental control are not the only means for solving the 'tragedy of the commons.' Evidence from Netting's study of the institutional arrangements developed in a Swiss alpine village and McKean's study of the institutional arrangements developed in several Japanese villages illustrate how 'communal ownership' of grazing, forest, and waste lands enabled peasants living in harsh environments to achieve effective regulation over delicately balanced commons. Access to the commons was tightly controlled in both settings. Village councils passed intricate regulations controlling the specific timing and amount of use that villagers could make of the communally owned land. Given the environment and economic activities, private ownership would not have enabled peasants to make as effective use of the land as communal ownership. Central public control could not have reflected the detailed knowledge about the commons held by villagers. Successful regulation over several centuries establish the stability of communal ownership patterns. The implications of these two empirical studies for our understanding of the relationship between institutional arrangements and the capacity to solve the commons is discussed."
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