Elinor Ostrom’s Eight Commons Governance Design Principles

Description

Following her studies of innumerable long-enduring Commons, Ostrom concluded that the following eight “design principles” were essential elements which were always to be found in the way these sustainable CPRs organise themselves.

1. Clearly defined boundaries, which define who has access to the CPR.
2. Appropriation and provision rules which are tailored to local conditions.
3. Collective-choice arrangements, that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process.
4. Effective monitoring (monitors accountable to the appropriators, or are the appropriators )
5. Graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate operational community rules.
6. Conflict resolution mechanisms that are cheap and rapidly accessed.
7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities.
8. Nested enterprises. Larger CPRs are organised in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level."

More Information

• Elinor Ostrom
• See also the three additional principles referred to in Commons of Capability