THE MANAGEMENT OF COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCES: Finding a Cooperative Solution

Abstract

When will villagers come together to supply themselves with goods and services that they all need but could not provide for themselves individually? Can locally based collective action be a viable way to manage common property resources? Many writers on collective action and common property are pressimistic about the ability of people who face problems with common property resources to organize sustainable patterns of use for themselves. Some writers favour privatization of the commons as the only viable solution; others, the imposition of state regulation. This article shows, with reference to Mancur Olson's “logic of collective action, ” that the analytical basis for this pessimism is weak for the village-based use of common property resources. There can thus be no general presumption that collective action will fail in the management of common property resources, any more than there can be a general presumption that it will work. The article suggests that the chances of success through collective action depend on the characteristics of the resources, the user group, and group-state relations.