Berlin Commons Conference/Workshops/PolycentricGovernance
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Governing the commons - Polycentric governance
Matrix for defining Common Pool Resources
Subtractability - low or high
Rivalry - difficulty of excluding potential beneficiaries - low (easy to exclude) - high (hard to exclude)
Low S - Low R - toll or Club Goods
High S - Low R - Private Goods
Low S - High R - Public Goods (national security, clean air, education
High S - High R - Common Pool Resources -forests, fisheries, atmosphere,
Open Access v. The Commons
Hardin
- ungoverned open-access regimes - which not on can be excluded
Resource Attributes v. Property Regimes (or governing arrangements)
- There is a difference between the resource and the legal regimes that govern them
Resource System v. Resource Units
Systems - irrigation, fisheries, forests - out of these come units (timber, fish, water, crop, etc.)
Hardin - pasture open to all, cattle introduced, disparity of benefits and costs - benefit flow to herder
Hardin's Solutions - Privatization, Central Gov't Control
Hardin's argument ahs inspired 4 decades of policy making with regard to natural resources
Hardin's scenario - the tragedy... occurs when - participants don't know each other - they lack property rights - cannot communicate - have no long term interest...
Governing the Commons -
Elinor Ostrom - looked at fisheries in Turkey, irrigation in Philippines, Spain, forestry
What makes for success or failure of the commons
Basically comes down to making rules
Mancur Olson - collective action is the pursuit of the goal or set of goals by more than one person
One person cannot (very difficult) achieve the goal
Problem when the benefits of the goal cannot be made exclusive
Others - free riders- who have not participated can benefit as well
Tocqueville - democracy in America - talked about governance...
Fritz Scharpf - unlikely or impossible that public policy can result from choice of process of a single actor... policy formation and implementation is the result of interactions by many actors with different strategies and goals
Eric Swyngedouw - Jan Kooiman - similar ideas on governance
Governance - trust and cooperation that centrally articulates networks... price articulates markets - hierarchy articulates government
Types of organization -
Hierarchy - Coercive - public goods , easy tasks, few actors - problem is principal agent problems challenges are authority and information
Market - Competitive - produce elements of public goods that can be brought to market - problem, imperfect markets - institutional challenges - prices, contracts
Network - Collaboration - trust and cooperation
Polycentric governance - dynamic and fluid process, level of decision making adjusts to particular characteristics of the problem
Old v. New commons - Normative v. Analytical
Water Commons -
Reclaiming what is our right and demanding these from governments.
2030 - Demand for water outstrip supply by 40%
Moving, polluting, desertification - diminishes our access
Juxtaposing - water as a commons and as a commodity
Trade agreements, Land grabs, water trading/markets (property)
Develop water as a commons but as a collaborative and carefully managed commons - talk of allocation of access, not a free-for-all
Working towards implementing Public Trust and equitable access to be codified
Resolution at the UN and Human Rights Council that drinking water and sanitation are human rights
Watershed restoration - conservation - must be part of the movement
Tangible legal system to protect nature - Rights of Nature, see nature having own rights. Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth
Tangible example of way governments are giving away their water commons - Australia, draining the Murray-Darling River.
Australia government converted licenses to water rights at no cost - used efficiency as the rationale - 2005 new government trying to buy back water rights but have to compete with hedge funds, banks etc.
Vermont brought in legislation for water as a public trust - not directly referred to as a commons but represents a commons - conservation built into the legislation,
Discussion
Discussion of how to deal with customary law and rights in context of markets
Community level discussion of water - gives it power to transform relationships
Look at all different governing structures- how do we look at them - appropriate role
Discussion of state versus community - governance should be on a continuum
Distrust that state alone is sufficient
Commons gives us collective agency - reroute decision-making so people have power
Often cannot trust government - change is language, changing our relationship - needs to be legal strategy, political strategy and grassroots strategy
Need state, but also need to know how government operates - operates in relation to interest groups (business is powerful interest group)
Many ways to govern commons - group of commoners in most circumstances do better job than market or state.
Not enough to declare a rule, must have a system of monitoring and enforcement, this is done best done by commoners.
Understand nature of problem of collective action -
Scale up from small group of commoners to national level - then there is a problem - we need to find a new way to do this, need supporting institutions.
How to make decisions?
Stuttgart 21 brought forward - also don't know how to make good decisions
Need for reallocation of power - depends on where you live.... Either need to regain or maintain control, has to do with basic democracy.
Liberal model is converting many societies into same mess - need to have a dialogue with Global South (though not a monolith because the elites of the GS are complicit).
Concern about fact the market-state is controlled by powerful and corporate interests
Question about Elinor Ostrom's work - boundary and scale - polycentric governance
Social Charter, how that could be used?
Appropriate scale,
Resource has to be clearly defined- set of actors - problems caused by dealing with commons - boundaries of groups and resources
Rules must be in line with scale - monitoring system and enforcement must follow from the rules - how to deal with conflict resolution
Need more governments rather than fewer - need special purpose as well as general governments
Governments can fail and we must allow for their failure - this allows us to improve on the rules and also allow us to change institutions
Question - what happened to representative democracy? Does this give away our responsibility? Discussion of the commons without discussion of representative democracy is a problem.
Power is diffused - rather than a problem, is that we have a plurality of solutions. What is the next step? This is an evolution. What is the current hegemony, can we come up with groups to change policy. Must connect local with global. Must consider current hegemony to propose counter hegemony. Look at this in terms of abundance.
Governing the commons - Polycentric governance
Matrix for defining Common Pool Resources
Subtractability - low or high
Rivalry - difficulty of excluding potential beneficiaries - low (easy to exclude) - high (hard to exclude)
Low S - Low R - toll or Club Goods
High S - Low R - Private Goods
Low S - High R - Public Goods (national security, clean air, education
High S - High R - Common Pool Resources -forests, fisheries, atmosphere,
Open Access v. The Commons
Hardin
- ungoverned open-access regimes - which not on can be excluded
Resource Attributes v. Property Regimes (or governing arrangements)
- There is a difference between the resource and the legal regimes that govern them
Resource System v. Resource Units
Systems - irrigation, fisheries, forests - out of these come units (timber, fish, water, crop, etc.)
Hardin - pasture open to all, cattle introduced, disparity of benefits and costs - benefit flow to herder
Hardin's Solutions - Privatization, Central Gov't Control
Hardin's argument ahs inspired 4 decades of policy making with regard to natural resources
Hardin's scenario - the tragedy... occurs when - participants don't know each other - they lack property rights - cannot communicate - have no long term interest...
Governing the Commons -
Elinor Ostrom - looked at fisheries in Turkey, irrigation in Philippines, Spain, forestry
What makes for success or failure of the commons
Basically comes down to making rules
Mancur Olson - collective action is the pursuit of the goal or set of goals by more than one person
One person cannot (very difficult) achieve the goal
Problem when the benefits of the goal cannot be made exclusive
Others - free riders- who have not participated can benefit as well
Tocqueville - democracy in America - talked about governance...
Fritz Scharpf - unlikely or impossible that public policy can result from choice of process of a single actor... policy formation and implementation is the result of interactions by many actors with different strategies and goals
Eric Swyngedouw - Jan Kooiman - similar ideas on governance
Governance - trust and cooperation that centrally articulates networks... price articulates markets - hierarchy articulates government
Types of organization -
Hierarchy - Coercive - public goods , easy tasks, few actors - problem is principal agent problems challenges are authority and information
Market - Competitive - produce elements of public goods that can be brought to market - problem, imperfect markets - institutional challenges - prices, contracts
Network - Collaboration - trust and cooperation
Polycentric governance - dynamic and fluid process, level of decision making adjusts to particular characteristics of the problem
Old v. New commons - Normative v. Analytical
Water Commons -
Reclaiming what is our right and demanding these from governments.
2030 - Demand for water outstrip supply by 40%
Moving, polluting, desertification - diminishes our access
Juxtaposing - water as a commons and as a commodity
Trade agreements, Land grabs, water trading/markets (property)
Develop water as a commons but as a collaborative and carefully managed commons - talk of allocation of access, not a free-for-all
Working towards implementing Public Trust and equitable access to be codified
Resolution at the UN and Human Rights Council that drinking water and sanitation are human rights
Watershed restoration - conservation - must be part of the movement
Tangible legal system to protect nature - Rights of Nature, see nature having own rights. Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth
Tangible example of way governments are giving away their water commons - Australia, draining the Murray-Darling River.
Australia government converted licenses to water rights at no cost - used efficiency as the rationale - 2005 new government trying to buy back water rights but have to compete with hedge funds, banks etc.
Vermont brought in legislation for water as a public trust - not directly referred to as a commons but represents a commons - conservation built into the legislation,
Discussion
Discussion of how to deal with customary law and rights in context of markets
Community level discussion of water - gives it power to transform relationships
Look at all different governing structures- how do we look at them - appropriate role
Discussion of state versus community - governance should be on a continuum
Distrust that state alone is sufficient
Commons gives us collective agency - reroute decision-making so people have power
Often cannot trust government - change is language, changing our relationship - needs to be legal strategy, political strategy and grassroots strategy
Need state, but also need to know how government operates - operates in relation to interest groups (business is powerful interest group)
Many ways to govern commons - group of commoners in most circumstances do better job than market or state.
Not enough to declare a rule, must have a system of monitoring and enforcement, this is done best done by commoners.
Understand nature of problem of collective action -
Scale up from small group of commoners to national level - then there is a problem - we need to find a new way to do this, need supporting institutions.
How to make decisions?
Stuttgart 21 brought forward - also don't know how to make good decisions
Need for reallocation of power - depends on where you live.... Either need to regain or maintain control, has to do with basic democracy.
Liberal model is converting many societies into same mess - need to have a dialogue with Global South (though not a monolith because the elites of the GS are complicit).
Concern about fact the market-state is controlled by powerful and corporate interests
Question about Elinor Ostrom's work - boundary and scale - polycentric governance
Social Charter, how that could be used?
Appropriate scale,
Resource has to be clearly defined- set of actors - problems caused by dealing with commons - boundaries of groups and resources
Rules must be in line with scale - monitoring system and enforcement must follow from the rules - how to deal with conflict resolution
Need more governments rather than fewer - need special purpose as well as general governments
Governments can fail and we must allow for their failure - this allows us to improve on the rules and also allow us to change institutions
Question - what happened to representative democracy? Does this give away our responsibility? Discussion of the commons without discussion of representative democracy is a problem.
Power is diffused - rather than a problem, is that we have a plurality of solutions. What is the next step? This is an evolution. What is the current hegemony, can we come up with groups to change policy. Must connect local with global. Must consider current hegemony to propose counter hegemony. Look at this in terms of abundance.
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e.V.
Dr. Heike Löschmann
Referentin Internationale Politik
Head of Department for International Politics
Loeschmann (AT) boell.de
Schumannstr. 8, 10117 Berlin
http://www.openstreetmap.de/karte.html?zoom=17&lat=52.52234&lon=13.38422&layers=B0
Fon:+49-30-285 34-318
Fax: +49-30-285 34-309