Local Commons and Global Interdependence

by Robert O. Keohane (Editor), Elinor Ostrom (Editor)

This volume offers a synthesis of what is known about very large and very small common-pool resources. Individuals using commons at the global or local level may find themselves in a similar situation. At an international level, states cannot appeal to authoritative hierarchies to enforce agreements they make to cooperate with one another. In some small-scale settings, participants may be just as helpless in calling on distant public officials to monitor and enforce their agreements. Scholars have independently discovered self-organizing regimes which rely on implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and procedures rather than the command and control of a central authority. The contributors discuss the possibilities and

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Robert O. Keohane (b. 1941) is an American scholar of international relations, best known for his work on neoliberal institutionalism. His numerous books include After Hegemony (1984) and Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World (2002). Currently a professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, Keohane has received numerous awards for his scholarship. Among these, he was honored with the Centennial Medal of the Harvard Graduate School in 2012. Keohane received his bachelor's degree in 1961 from Shimer College, a Great Books school where he now sits on the Board of Trustees. He received his graduate education at Harvard, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1966. (from Shimer College Wiki)

Reviews

[Logan Streondj · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb collection of essays on tragedy of the commons and ways around it. Mainly the solutions seem to have been enforcing some sort of monopoly, or forming a nested hierarchy. Also there was a curious one about the irrigation problem and how people at the head get more water than at the tail, and it is only the tail helping with canal maintenance that motivates the head to share. I'd like to see more on nested hierarchies though.