Institutions for Collective Action

Peer-to-peer networks, distributed communication, and social accounting systems enable new strategies for avoiding the tragedy of the commons.

Real World Application

Communities create common-pool resources
Common-pool resources (e.g. grazing land and fisheries), are non-excludable and subtractable—that means everyone has access to them and individual users can deplete or damage the resources if it they are not managed properly. Elinor Ostrom’s pioneering work shows there are principles for creating institutions for collective action that maintain and nurture successful commons. Innovative communities, like the eLearning city in Espoo, Finland, treat their educational resources as a commons—a resource maintained by the community that sustains the community’s innovative drive. How would public educational and learning resources (teachers, facilities, students, funding) change if they were treated as common-pool resources?