Description
Book SynopsisElinor (Lin) Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her pathbreaking research on economic governance, especially the commons, but she also made important contributions to several other fields of political economy and public policy. The range of topics she covered and the multiple methods she used might convey the mistaken impression that her body of work is disjointed and incoherent. This four-volume compendium of papers written by Lin, alone or with various coauthors (most notably including her husband and partner, Vincent), supplemented by others expanding on their work, brings together the common strands of research that serve to tie her impressive oeuvre together. That oeuvre, together with Vincent''s own impressive body of work, has come to define a distinctive school of political-economic thought, the Bloomington School. Each of the four volumes is organized around a central theme of Lin''s work. The fourth and final volume, Policy Applications
Trade ReviewThis volume completes and brings to a climax this definitive compendium of readings in honor of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. It contains pathbreaking essays by the Ostroms and others on polycentric governance, climate change, sustainability and other vital issues. It travels well beyond Lin’s famous work on common-pool resources, but it extends analytical frameworks that she originally developed in that context. This work is on the frontier of discovery in social science and it addresses several of the most urgent problems of our time. It is a magnificent memorial to the Ostroms and their legacy. -- Geoffrey M. Hodgson, University of Hertfordshire
With this volume, Daniel H. Cole and Michael D. McGinnis complete the task they set for themselves, to bring out a four-volume compendium of readings in honor of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. This is truly an admirable achievement, conveying a might lesson on empirically informed theory as the touchstone of good social science. By its very nature, then, the volume is not the final volume of Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School of Political Economy but a point of departure for new avenues of inquiry. The message is clear: the Ostrom ideas and research methods can flourish and expand without the Ostroms—just as Vincent and Lin hoped. -- Filippo Sabetti, McGill University
This is a remarkable collection that includes a beautiful mix of classics and less-known papers. The volume promises to become an extremely valuable reference for public policy scholars in years to come. Despite the diversity of contributions, all papers demonstrate, in their own unique ways, how relevant and valuable the Workshop approach to institutional analysis is for public policy applications. -- Krister Andersson, University of Colorado
Table of ContentsIntroduction to Volume 4 Part I: Climate Change and Sustainability Chapter 1: Organization of Decision-Making Arrangements and the Development of Atmospheric Resources, by Vincent Ostrom Chapter 2: Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, by Elinor Ostrom, Joanna Burger, Christopher B. Field, Richard B. Norgaard, and David Policansky Chapter 3: Earth System Science for Global Sustainability: Grand Challenges, by W. Reid, D. Chen, L. Goldfarb, H. Hackmann, Y. Lee, K. Mokhele, E. Ostrom, K. Raivio, J. Rockstrom, H. Schellnhuber, and A. Whyte Chapter 4: A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change, by Elinor Ostrom Chapter 5: Advantages of a Polycentric Approach to Climate Change Policy, by Daniel H. Cole Part II: The Artifactual Commons: Information, Infrastructure, and Public Health Chapter 6: Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as a Common-Pool Resource, by Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom Chapter 7: Constructing Commons in the Cultural Environment, by Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann, and Katherine J. Strandburg Chapter 8: Learning from Lin: Lessons and Cautions from the Natural Commons for the Knowledge Commons, by Daniel H. Cole Chapter 9: The governance of Infrastructures as Common-Pool Resources, by Rolf Kunneke and Mattias Finger Chapter 10: The Science Commons in Health Research: STructure, Function, and Value, by Robert Cook-Deegan Chapter 11: Commons, Institutional Diversity, and Polycentric Governance in US Health Policy, by Michael D. McGinnis Part III: Continuing Projects Chapter 12: Digging Deeper into Hardin's Pasture: The Complex Institutional Structure of "The Tragedy of the Commons" by Daniel H. Cole, Graham Epstein, and Michael D. McGinn Chapter 13: Building a Diagnostic Ontology of Social-Ecological Systems, by Ulrich J. Frey and Michael Cox Chapter 14: Polycentric Transformation in Kenyan Water governance: A Dynamic Analysis of Institutional and Social-Ecological Change, by Paul McCord, Jampel Dell'Angelo, Elizabeth Baldwin, and Tom Evans Part IV: Persisting Challenges Chapter 15: Coevolving Relationships between Political Science Economics, by Elinor Ostrom Chapter 16: Policy Analysis in the Future of Good Societies, by Elinor Ostrom About the Contributors
