'Reinventing the Commons': New Metaphor or New Methodology?

Abstract

"Since the mid-1980's, there has been a rapid growth in studies concerned with common property management. It is argued that despite a hectic research activity, there is a tendency to refine and reuse familiar and well-worn arguments instead of questioning them. To move ahead, the study of common property regimes must proceed beyond rebutting or rephrasing Hardin's 'tragedy of the commons' parable. Instead of a further refinement along existing lines of scholarship, we need to ask ourselves what the object of study is? More than a conceptual confusion, 'common property' as an object of study is blurred: is it (a) primarily a behavioural relation between men; (b) a question of agents and choice which can be solved through balancing incentives; (c) a problem of markets and a question of 'getting the prices right'; or is it, finally, (d) a question of institutions and how institutions structure human action? It is argued that there is a need for 'rethinking the commons' and to recast old questions, reformulate research designs and add to this novel empirical studies which so far have been left out in our effort at theory building."