Ostrom 2009 - Summary Paper on common goods PDF

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Summary Paper on common goods...

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Elinor Ostrom (2009) – A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) Research Question: - General Consensus until recently has been that resource user will never self-organize to maintain their resource and governments must impose solutions (tragedy of commons) - What influences the likelihood of self-organization in efforts to achieve a sustainable social-ecological system? Or in other words when will the users of a resource invest time and energy to avert a tragedy of the commons? Theoretical Framework (4 first-level core subsystems and 10 second-level variables) - Subsystems: o Resource systems (e.g. a designated protected park encompassing a specified territory containing forested areas, wildlife, and water systems) o Resource units (e.g., trees, shrubs, and plants contained in the park, types of wildlife, and amount and flow of water) o Governance systems (e.g., the government and other organizations that manage the park, the specific rules related to the use of the park, and how these rules are made); o Users (e.g., individuals who use the park in diverse ways for sustenance, recreation, or commercial purposes) - Variables: Resource Systems: o Size of resource system (Small: not enough benefits, large: high monitoring costs => Moderate territorial size is most conducive to self-organisation) o Productivity of System (Abundant: no need to manage, exhausted: too late => Users need to observe some scarcity to self-organise) o Predictability of dynamic system (=> Needs to be sufficiently predictable; maybe chance to organize at higher level if it is unpredictable at small scale) Resource Units: o Resource unit mobility (=> Self-organisation more likely with stationary units such as trees than mobile resources such as unregulated waters) Users: o Number of users (large groups: high costs of assembling and agreeing, however, able to contribute more resources than smaller groups => relevant, but dependent on other variables and type of management tasks involved) o Leadership (=> if respected local leaders are among user, self-organisation is more likely) o Norms/social capital (=> if users share moral and ethical standards they are more likely to trust each other) o Knowledge of SES (=> if users share common knowledge of relevant SES attributes and how their actions affect each other, organizing costs are lower) o Importance of resource to users (=> if users are dependent on resource system regarding their livelihood or attach high value to the sustainability of resource) Governance Systems: o Collective-choice rules (if user groups have autonomy at the collective-choice level to craft and enforce their own rules they are likely to self-organise) Final remarks - Variables interact in non-linear way - If the initial set of rules established by the users, or by a government, are not congruent with local conditions, long-term sustainability may not be achieved - Simple blueprint policies do not work but framework variables have to be considered...