Linking Local and Global Orderings?: The Skagit System Cooperative (A Research Proposal)

Abstract

"Fish stocks are classic common pool resources (CPRs) because they are available to multiple users and are subtractible (a fish caught by one person cannot be caught by another). CPRs present unique challenges to resource users and managers. If access to a commonly held resource is unregulated, each user has the incentive to maximize his harvest, but the cumulative effect of such action by all users often leads to resource destruction and conflict. These outcomes are hallmarks of the 'tragedy of the commons' (Hardin 1968). They reflect a disjuncture between individual and collective rationality that scholars have termed a 'commons dilemma.'

"The standard solution to such problems emphasizes a technological fix imposed by an external, centralized authority. Measures include regulation of catch, effort, and gear types, habitat restoration, and stock enhancement. However, mandated technological solutions often fail to avert and may even exacerbate conflict among resource users over allocation of the shared resource. An alternative lies in locally created and implemented institutional solutions. Resource users can avert or resolve commons dilemmas through cooperation to create and maintain local, self-governing institutions for CPR management. However, institutions are not a panacea. Their provision poses a further collective action problem in which individuals must contribute to their creation and maintenance; and, once created, many institutions fail because they do not fit the social, cultural, and economic, as well as the physical conditions of a given situation."