TY - JOUR

T1 - Ruling the commons

T2 - introducing a new methodology for the analysis of historical commons

AU - de Moor, Tine

AU - Laborda-Pemán, Miguel

AU - Lana-Berasain, José Miguel

AU - van Weeren, René

AU - Winchester, Angus James Logie

PY - 2016/10/18

Y1 - 2016/10/18

N2 - Despite significant progress in recent years, the evolution of commons over the long run remains an under-explored area within commons studies. During the last years an international team of historians have worked under the umbrella of the Common Rules Project in order to design and test a new methodology aimed at advancing our knowledge on the dynamics of institutions for collective action – in particular commons. This project aims to contribute to the current debate on commons on three different fronts. Theoretically, it explicitly draws our attention to issues of change and adaptation in the commons – contrasting with more static analyses. Empirically, it highlights the value of historical records as a rich source of information for longitudinal analysis of the functioning of commons. Methodologically, it develops a systematic way of analyzing and comparing commons’ regulations across regions and time, setting a number of variables that have been defined on the basis of the “most common denominators” in commons regulation across countries and time periods. In this paper we introduce the project, describe our sources and methodology, and present the preliminary results of our analysis.

AB - Despite significant progress in recent years, the evolution of commons over the long run remains an under-explored area within commons studies. During the last years an international team of historians have worked under the umbrella of the Common Rules Project in order to design and test a new methodology aimed at advancing our knowledge on the dynamics of institutions for collective action – in particular commons. This project aims to contribute to the current debate on commons on three different fronts. Theoretically, it explicitly draws our attention to issues of change and adaptation in the commons – contrasting with more static analyses. Empirically, it highlights the value of historical records as a rich source of information for longitudinal analysis of the functioning of commons. Methodologically, it develops a systematic way of analyzing and comparing commons’ regulations across regions and time, setting a number of variables that have been defined on the basis of the “most common denominators” in commons regulation across countries and time periods. In this paper we introduce the project, describe our sources and methodology, and present the preliminary results of our analysis.

KW - Common-Pool resource institutions

KW - rules

KW - institutional change

U2 - 10.18352/ijc.760

DO - 10.18352/ijc.760

M3 - Journal article

VL - 10

SP - 529

EP - 588

JO - International Journal of the Commons

JF - International Journal of the Commons

IS - 2

ER -