Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons: Institutional Diversity, Self-Governance, and Tragedy Diverted

Just thirty years ago, virtually every common-pool resource (CPR) setting was viewed as a tragedy waiting to happen or an opportunity for the state to swoop in to save the day with a regulatory plan limiting individual choices or restructuring property rights (Hardin 1968). Elinor Ostrom's work Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (1990) changed the trajectory of CPR research and opened up the potential for institutional self-governance more broadly. Building on the important foundation Ostrom laid, scholars and policy makers today consider what might be needed to find sustainable, cooperative solutions to the "tragedy of the commons" and suggest how communities of individuals develop the capacity to create those conditions for themselves. As Governing entered the literature, it provided the analytic and empirical support to those who argued that individuals could address their common dilemmas locally, often working them out over time, without depending on Leviathan to enforce social outcomes.