The Role of Pseudo-Commons in Post-Socialist Countries

Abstract

"Since Garret Hardin published his 'Tragedy of the Commons', scholarship has revealed what Hardin did not recognize: that a wide range of shared agricultural resources can be sustainably managed through commons governance approaches. These governance forms are often embedded in a polycentric system. Yet, there are common-property regimes that only exist on paper not filled with activities, or may be set up purposefully to serve individual benefits. Alike, their embeddedness in a polycentric system might be used as a means of avoiding regulation, as some example in this paper indicate. I argue why we find these pseudo-commons increasingly in post-socialist countries. Findings from the agricultural water and forestry sector point to theoretical underpinnings and implementation of real socialism, dominant groups of political and economic elites, but also to the persisting socialist legacy and the prevailing Soviet-mentality as being responsible for the appearance of pseudo-commons in these countries. The tragedy is that these pseudo-commons manifest inequality between social groups in agrarian post-socialist societies and destroy the trust in this kind of otherwise proven successful management regimes. The theoretical question is whether we can find repeating causalities that allow for a theory building of pseudo-commons and polycentric governance in post-socialist countries and abroad."