Description
Book SynopsisSince Garrett Hardin published ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ in 1968, critics have argued that population growth and capitalism contribute to overuse of natural resources and degradation of the global environment. They propose coercive, state-centric solutions. This book offers an alternative view. Employing insights from new institutional economics, the authors argue that property rights, competitive markets, polycentric political institutions, and social institutions such as trust, patience and individualism enable society to conserve natural resources and mitigate harms to the global environment.
The authors support their argument by considering several types of commons: forests, fisheries, minerals, and the global environment. The central lesson of these empirical studies is that following a simple set of rules – definition and enforcement of property rights in response to local conditions, creating and maintaining democracy at the local level, and establishing markets to allocate resources – improves ecological and environmental sustainability.
This book will appeal to scholars of natural resources, economics, political science and public policy as well as policymakers who ar
e interested in environmental governance and the ways markets contribute to sustainability.
Trade Review‘Toward a Political Economy of the Commons
is an excellent volume. The authors have managed the remarkable feat of writing a concise and yet thorough account of one of the most complex problems in political economy. The book offers a great balance between theoretical discussions and in-depth case studies. The book also showcases the great explanatory power of the Ostromian approach to political economy which weaves together property rights economics, polycentric governance, and attention to civil society alongside formal politics.’ -- Vlad Tarko, The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy
‘The cosmopolitan, self-governing, and dynamic vision provided in the book offers the most humane solution to some of society’s most challenging problems.’ -- Joshua Ammons, Public Choice
‘This book is a unique and masterful attempt to combine an introduction to the problem of the commons with a critical analysis of some of the most relevant and interesting aspects related to their nature, variety of forms, and governance arrangements. The book is made even more remarkable by the fact that, in the analysis, it engages into an exemplary methodical use of the institutional theory and political economy apparatus, within an interdisciplinary setting.’ -- Paul Dragos Aligica, University of Bucharest, Romania and George Mason University, US
‘This is a superb account of why discussions about sustainability cannot be divorced from an understanding of how alternative institutional arrangements condition the knowledge individuals and communities have about environmental dilemmas and their incentives to address them. Too often, debates about “commons problems” are clouded by analytical confusions and ideological blinders. While this book's authors have a point of view, their analysis does much to clear the confusion and to allow the sunlight of political economy to shine through.’ -- Mark Pennington, King's College London, UK
Table of ContentsContents: Preface 1. The puzzle of the commons 2. The political economy of the commons 3. Governing forests 4. Governing fisheries 5. Governing minerals 6. Governing the global environment 7. Simple rules to manage the commons References Index
