Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012)

Academic theory is frequently a mess; the author needs to balance between correctly explaining the details of their case studies with sufficient power to be useful on other problems. And in the social sciences, where you can't really test theories, it's doubly hard.

With that in mind, Ostrom manages to synthesize a powerful and rigorous theory about how rules structure the use of common pool resources. Drawing from examples in political economy and game theory, she develops a model of how show more rules work (ADICO, on pg 139), and the kinds of institutions that lead to better outcomes than Hobbsian rational self-interest.

Her framework is rigorous enough to allow comparisons across diverse case studies, simple enough that most people can use it without being polymathic geniuses (*cough* Sheila Jasanoff *cough*), and flexible enough to accurately depicted the complexity of the real world.

Ostrom received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on common pool resources. I think any scholar working in this area who did not use Ostrom's framework would have some serious justification to do, so why only four stars? Well, first I'm not sure how well her framework can be extended beyond common pool resources; seeing everything as this kind of social dilemma is limited. Second, while this is a well-researched book, it's also a slog. I can't imagine sitting down and enjoying this book, which is not true of some academics. show less

The book makes no claim that it presents a concise model that describes decentralized commons resource management. I wish it did. I'm a little surprised that something that didn't take the work a little further would get the Nobel, but that is probably a failure of my expectations more than a failure of the work

The best thing about this book is reading the iea falling over themselves to insist that Elinor Ostrom's work does NOT countenance Socialism: we are reminded on nearly every page!

The book gives only the broadest view of Professor Ostrom's theories but, there does seem to be some basis to her views. Garret Hardin's role in the story gets the most fleeting mention: not a mention of the lack of any evidence for his statement.

Worth a read, it's only seventy pages.

I am surprised that there’s little review activity going on for this book, even though the author has won the “fake nobel” prize (i.e. the “price in memory of alfred nobel” for economy). Regardless of what one thinks about the fake nobel, the author is certainly someone whose achievements deserve recognition. This book is a pedagogical summary of the important work that she’s done in relation to “Common Pool Resources”.

It is written in an accurate and scientific style that show more never falls into the jargon trap. This gives a vivid impression of the author as someone open minded and keeping her thinking clear and focused on the facts.

After an introduction on her intentions and method, she presents the so called “tragedy of the commons” (and its close kin, the “prisoner’s dilemna”) as a situation where theoretical thinking sees central intervention as the only way to break the (self)destructive behaviour predicted and often observed: everyone tries to appropriate as much as they can get away from common resources until those resources collapse and everyone becomes worse off. She then calls attention to several field situations where individuals have been able to organize themselves to avoid falling into this trap without external intervention. The situations described are as diverse as mountain terrain in Switzerland, irrigation land in Spain and the Philippines or even fisheries in Turkey. Ostrom provides a detailed description of the salient features of these institutions before highlighting the common ground and the differences. She points out that these examples have institutions that have been stable for a long time and that we’re therefore unsure about the process through which the institutions themselves were created.

She then turns to more recent examples of successful institutions managing CPR where information is available regarding the institutional development that led to the current situation. The key examples are water management institutions in California and a project to improve local irrigation communities in Sri Lanka. She finally contrasts successful institutions with failing ones, with a view to identify whether factors that may have been thought of as being factors of success may not actually be irrelevant.

The overall message of the book is that it is possible for local communities to take care of themselves and to efficiently manage CPR. It is not easy though and certain type of government intervention actually makes the matter worse. Likewise privatization is also not a one size fits all solution. So she’s basically highlighting the need to consider each situation on its own, without ideological glasses. She provides a framework to analyze each specific case, but certainly avoids over-generalization.

The world needs more people like Ostrom, (i.e. lucid thinkers genuinely interested to understand what goes on). Too bad the typical social “scientist” seems to be more interested to bend the facts to fit to his theories and ideologies. show less