Making the Commons Work: Theory, Practice, and Policy.

• Author: Parsons, George R.

Somewhere along a continuum running from private to state owned property lies common property ownership, what Daniel Bromley refers to as common property regimes. A common property regime is a group of individuals that own and manage a resource collectively, typically a small community. Such regimes, common in developing countries, manage common lands, forests, water resources, and fisheries. Making the Commons Work is a collection of articles by scholars concerned with understanding how these regimes operate. How did they evolve? What are their salient characteristics? Why do some fail and others not? Is it good economic policy to always replace such regimes with private property regimes?

The collection of articles was originally presented at a conference sponsored by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The sixteen contributing authors include economists, political scientists, geographers, and sociologists. The book is divided into three parts. Part I is a theoretical framework for analyzing common property regimes. Part II is a collection of diverse case studies. Part III is an assessment of methods used to study common property regimes and an effort toward developing a more general theory for common property institutions. The editorial work is superb. A large number of authors with diverse analytical approaches and what seem vastly different experiences have been brought together in a coherent and meaningful way. Such continuity and "tightness" is unusual for a case study collection. Perhaps I should not be surprised by a successful cooperative effort by a group studying common property.

Part I has three chapters. The first, by editor Bromley, is about concepts and misconceptions. Consider the following passage [p. 4]. "There is no such thing as a common property resource; there are only resources controlled and managed as common property, or as state property, or as private property. Or - and this is where confusion persists in the literature - there are resources over which no property rights have been recognized. We call these latter 'open-access resources'. . ." Open access resources and common property regimes are not the same as is often thought. The former institution (or noninstitution) is nearly certain to misuse a resource for well known reasons. The latter, in some circumstances, may be the most efficient institutional arrangement for managing a resource, and should be thought of as a class of...