Commons

A commons is a resource system in which a community governs shared access and use. Its rules and institutions shape how people maintain, allocate, and benefit from the resource.

Common-pool resource: A resource from which excluding users is difficult and one person's use can reduce what remains for others. Many commons govern resources with these defining access and use problems.
Open-access resource: A resource from which access is effectively unrestricted and no authority can enforce use limits. Unlike a governed commons, open access lacks enforceable rules limiting use.
Community forestry: The management of forests by local communities that hold or exercise rights over them. Forests show how local users can govern extraction and stewardship together.
Garrett Hardin: An American ecologist whose 1968 essay popularized the tragedy-of-the-commons argument. His influential account prompted debate over whether shared resources could be governed sustainably.
Elinor Ostrom's design principles: A set of institutional principles associated with durable, self-governed common-pool resources. They describe recurring features of commons that communities successfully manage.
Privatization: The transfer of property or services from public or collective control to private ownership. Privatization assigns control to owners rather than a community of users.
Irrigation management: The allocation and maintenance of water delivery systems used to irrigate land. Shared canals require users to coordinate water allocation and upkeep.
Elinor Ostrom: An American political economist who studied how communities govern shared resources without relying solely on markets or states. Her research established a major empirical account of successful commons institutions.
Common-property regime: A property arrangement in which a defined group holds rights to manage and use a resource. It specifies the rights structure behind many community-governed commons.
State ownership: A property arrangement in which a government holds legal title and authority over an asset. State control is a distinct alternative to community governance.

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