The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom: Essential Lessons for Collective Action by Erik Nordman

Author:Erik Nordman [Nordman, Erik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: nature, Environmental Conservation & Protection, political science, General, Public Policy, Environmental Policy
ISBN: 9781642831559
Google: FSQvEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2021-07-08T23:36:19.878445+00:00

In a 2009 interview, Elinor Ostrom said,

Collective action is the name for a lot of social dilemmas where if I’m a good guy and I really contribute but all the other people that I’m interacting with don’t, I become a sucker. And so, the theory earlier said because you’re worried about being a sucker, you won’t do anything. You’ll just be really narrow and selfish. Well, if I trust others to reciprocate, any action I make helps them, then all of us could be much better off!

This is the reason that social dilemmas are dilemmas. That if we are narrow and selfish we come out much worse than if we are interested in the common good. But we’ve got to somehow get over the problems that people will screw one another upon occasion. We have to find ways of using sanctions and other mechanisms to make sure that the people who are not trusting or trustworthy and using reciprocity are discovered and encouraged to change their ways or not participate—get out! So, trust and reciprocity are right smack dab in the core of the theoretical developments we’ve been taking.

One of the ways you build trust is monitoring and sanctioning so that people who are not trustworthy are made aware that they have to pay a price. And you may convince them to be trustworthy because they’ve been monitored. So, they are very closely linked. And if you have absolutely no monitoring and the son of a gun can get away with being a son of a gun, slowly but surely you unravel any level of collective action that others have taken. They just get mad.39

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