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

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