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Now showing 1 - 10 of 121
  • Book Chapter
    Common-Pool Resource Theory
    (MIT Press (Manuscript Draft), 2004) Schlager, Edella; Durant, R. F.; Fiorino, D. J.; O'Leary, R.
    From p. 146: "The Australian fishers are not like Hardin's herders. They have avoided a tragedy of the commons. Why have Australian, but not New England, fishers figured a way out of their tragedy? Hardin's model cannot account for such success; it predicts failure. Until recently, if one turned to the very best scholarly work, one would find only explanations and predictions of failure. This chapter argues, however, that this attitude is beginning to change. Over the past fifteen years, scholars and practitioners have concluded that the tragedy of the commons is no longer the only model available to account for human use of common-pool resources."
  • Book Chapter
    Enabling Policy Frameworks for Successful Community Based Resource Management Initiatives
    (East-West Center and Regional Community Forestry Training Center, 2001) Suryanata, Krisnawati; Dolcemascolo, Glenn; Fisher, Robert; Fox, Jefferson; Suryanata, Krisnawati; Dolcemascolo, Glenn; Fisher, Robert; Fox, Jefferson
    "The workshop is the ninth in a series on 'Community-Based Management of Forestlands'. Since 1986, the Ford Foundation and the East-West Center have attempted to document the changes taking place in the management of Asia's forests as national governments collaborate with local communities and civil society to design win-win land management scenarios. The workshops have engaged key actors in dialogue and debate over new policies and practices. These brief sabbaticals provided an opportunity for forestry practitioners to assess and anticipate these changes within their countries, and to compare their experience with other national efforts. The writing workshops are also an important venue for busy practitioners to the take time to reflect upon and document their experience for wider analysis and sharing. The 2001 writing workshop brought together fifteen participants from eight countries. These people have all been involved in promoting collaborative approaches to environmental management. Though emphasis is generally on forestland management, this year's workshop was expanded to include irrigation management (papers by Pangare, Parajuli and Tan KimYong) because of the long history of institutional development in the management of irrigation resources. In all cases, participants are operating within a policy framework that espouses varying degrees of decentralization. Although decentralization holds the promise of administrative efficiency and more equitable distribution of benefits (Cheema and Rondinelli 1983), many decentralization efforts have neither empowered local communities nor improved forest management. Agrawal and Ribot (1999) have argued that, in order to realize many of the lauded benefits of decentralization, powers need to be transferred to lower level actors who are both elected and downwardly accountable. Empirical analyses of the lines of accountability are key to our understanding of the nature of decentralization and community-based resource management initiatives. Equally important is an examination of the conditions that facilitate downward accountability such as policy environments and local socio-political institutions."
  • Book Chapter
    Population and Forest Dynamics in the Hills of Nepal: Institutional Remedies by Rural Communities
    (Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, 1999) Varughese, George
    "Projections of massive declines in Himalayan forest cover and dire predictions for the future of forests in Nepal initiated worldwide concern in the 1970s. Initially, the source of the problem was seen as domestic fuelwood use compounded by rapid population growth. Then expansion of agriculture, commercial logging, and tourism were blamed. However, the actual rates of deforestation, as well as its causes and consequences, remain very much in question. Studies indicate that while there is degradation from overharvesting in the hills, the total loss of forest cover has been relatively small. Others argue that losses have even been reversed in both forest area and tree density. Still others contend that while forest area is not decreasing in the hills, the quality of existing forests is suspect."
  • Book Chapter
    Multiorganizational Arrangements and Coordination: An Application of Institutional Analysis
    (Walter de Gruyter, 1986) Ostrom, Elinor; Kaufmann, F. X.; Majone, G.; Ostrom, Vincent
    "Two linked action situations are examined in this chapter using the method of Institutional analysis previously described in Chapter 22. The first arena is the one in which public officials are elected. The most influential model of this arena was developed by Anthony Downs. The second arena is the one in which elected officials bargain with the heads of administrative agencies (sponsors) over the amount of the budget to be allocated and the amount and type of goods or services to be produced. William Niskanen developed an important model of this process. The central question addressed in this chapter is how multiple organizations, competing according to sets of rules, tend to enhance the responsiveness of public officials and bureau chiefs to the preferences of the citizens they serve in both of these arenas. Empirical evidence supporting the proposition that competition among potential producers of a public good will enhance performance is presented related to the provision of solid waste removal services in American cities."
  • Book Chapter
    Europe: An Overview
    (Overseas Development Institute, 1998) Shepherd, Gill; Brown, D.; Richards, Michael; Schreckenberg, K.
    "This book provides an overview of the ways in which Europe offers support to tropical forests through aid and research. Each of the Member States' current programmes is examined, along with those of the various Directorates-General (DGs) in the European Commission which support tropical forestry. It is called a Sourcebook because it will probably be used more as a work of reference than as a book to read from start to finish. Its intended audience is threefold. Above all, its authors hope that it will be of value to the developing countries with which the European Union (EU) works. The book should make it simpler to understand the way in which aid to forestry is organised from country to country and within the Commission; it will indicate each donor's target countries for the funding of tropical forestry, and will suggest the particular interests of each."
  • Book Chapter
    Financial Transfers to Sustain Cooperative International Optimality in Stock Pollutant Abatement
    (Edward Elgar, 1998) Germain, Marc; Toint, Philippe; Tulkens, Henry; Faucheux, S.; Gowdy, J.; Nicolai, I.
    "It is well known that the transnational character of many environmental problems (for example, greenhouse gas emissions, acid rain, pollution of international waters) requires cooperation among the countries involved if a social optimum is to be achieved. The issues raised thereby have often been addressed, in the economic literature, using concepts borrowed from cooperative game theory."
  • Book Chapter
    People's Struggles for Water Rights over Kelo River Waters
    (Routledge, 2007) Kashwan, Prakash; Sharma, Ramesh Chandra; Joy, K. J.; Gujja, B.; Paranjape, S.; Goud, V.; Vispute, S.
    "At issue is the permission granted by the Chhattisgarh government (GoC) to Jindal Strips Limited, now called Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), to extract water through a combination of stop dams and intake wells from the Kelo, downstream of Raigarh town. According to the local population and activists, fourteen villages of Raigarh district in Chhattisgarh and nine villages in Orissa are affected, causing loss of livelihood, pollution of drinking water and increased drudgery for women. A writ petition against JSPL has been filed in the High Court of Chhattisgarh."
  • Book Chapter
    Governing Social-Ecological Systems
    (Elsevier, 2006) Janssen, Marco A.; Ostrom, Elinor; Tesfatsion, L.; Judd, K.L.
    "Social-ecological systems are complex adaptive systems where social and biophysical agents are interacting at multiple temporal and spatial scales. The main challenge for the study of governance of social-ecological systems is improving our understanding of the conditions under which cooperative solutions are sustained, how social actors can make robust decisions in the face of uncertainty and how the topology of interactions between social and biophysical actors affect governance. We review the contributions of agent-based modeling to these challenges for theoretical studies, studies which combines models with laboratory experiments and applications of practical case studies. "Empirical studies from laboratory experiments and field work have challenged the predictions of the conventional model of the selfish rational agent for common pool resources and public-good games. Agent-based models have been used to test alternative models of decision-making which are more in line with the empirical record. Those models include bounded rationality, other regarding preferences and heterogeneity among the attributes of agents. Uncertainty and incomplete knowledge are directly related to the study of governance of social-ecological systems. Agent-based models have been developed to explore the consequences of incomplete knowledge and to identify adaptive responses that limited the undesirable consequences of uncertainties. Finally, the studies on the topology of agent interactions mainly focus on land use change, in which models of decision-making are combined with geographical information systems. "Conventional approaches in environmental economics do not explicitly include nonconvex dynamics of ecosystems, non-random interactions of agents, incomplete understanding, and empirically based models of behavior in collective action. Although agent-based modeling for social-ecological systems is in its infancy, it addresses the above features explicitly and is therefore potentially useful to address the current challenges in the study of governance of social-ecological systems."
  • Book Chapter
    Considerations on Governing Heritage as a Commons Resource
    (Springer, 2017) Gould, Peter G.
    "The 'commons' is gaining attention as a possible alternative model for managing tangible and intangible heritage in a manner that devolves authority and responsibility to local communities through mechanisms that are democratic and privilege local over national or global interests. This chapter reviews the literature on the commons within archaeology and heritage management, evaluates theorizing on the commons in the context of heritage, and explores, through literature review and case studies from Belize and Peru, the challenges and opportunities that arise should archaeologists and heritage managers seek to adopt the commons as a guiding principle for community projects. The chapter emphasizes that the problem of governance—the rules under which the competing interests of stakeholders in a venture manage their activities and resolve their differences—is an underappreciated but critical ingredient in the design of effective commons-like models for heritage management."
  • Book Chapter
    Framework for Analyzing the Knowledge Commons (Draft)
    (MIT Press, 2005) Hess, Charlotte; Ostrom, Elinor
    "Who hasn't heard of the six blind men of Indostan encircled around an elephant? The six-one a political scientist, one a librarian, one an economist, one a law professor, one a computer scientist, and one an anthropologist-discover, based on their own investigations, that the object before them is a wall, spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, and a rope. The story fits well with the question that propelled this chapter: how can an interdisciplinary group of scholars best analyze a highly complex, rapidly evolving, elephantine resource such as knowledge? Trying to get one's hands around knowledge as a shared resource is even more challenging when we factor in the economic, legal, technological, political, social and psychological components-each complex in their own right-that make up this global commons."