The Dilemma of the Commoners

Moor, Tine De

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139135450

Cited by 48 publications

(39 citation statements)

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“…As a consequence of this gradual shift, questions such as what the driving forces were behind the expansion of commons in western Europe from the late medieval period onwards, how communities were able to maintain these collective organizations, or which adjustments and changes they witnessed throughout time are becoming increasingly attractive for economic, agrarian and environmental historians. To this date, however, the number of works addressing these questions has remained relatively small (Van Zanden 1999;De Moor et al 2002;Casari 2007;De Moor 2009;Rodgers et al 2011;Laborda and De Moor 2013;De Moor 2015;Grüne et al 2015). With our project, our aim has been to push these recent efforts among historians forward -initiating a line of research which systematically sheds light on the internal workings of what until recent times has largely remained the 'black box' of historical commons.…”

Section: Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ruling the Commons. Introducing a new methodology for the analysis of historical commons

et al. 2016

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Despite significant progress in recent years, the evolution of commons over the long run remains an under-explored area. During the last years an international team of historians has 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 debates in three different fronts. Theoretically, it explicitly draws the attention to 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' regulations 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.

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Section: Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ruling the Commons. Introducing a new methodology for the analysis of historical commons

et al. 2016

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“…Understanding commons is important as the underlying social dilemma situation may lead to resource overuse and ultimately depletion if not appropriately managed (Hardin 1968). However, long-term processes of rule-making (which we refer to as 'regulatory activities') in commons as institutions for collective action are poorly understood (Ostrom 2014;De Moor 2015;Boyd et al 2018). We present a quantitative analysis of eighteen European commons in two countries across seven centuries offering a unique picture of long-term institutional dynamics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Empirical research based on multiple methods has shown how commoners themselves can coordinate their actions around certain sets of rules in order to increase both their welfare and the sustainability of the resource use (Dietz et al 2003;Bravo and De Moor 2008;Poteete et al 2010). The resulting self-governed regimes often exhibited high levels of resilience, and were able to survive for centuries in front of internal changes and external shocks (Ostrom 2005;De Moor 2015). However, the process of rule change underlying this institutional longevity is poorly understood (Ostrom 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Shared Patterns in Long-Term Dynamics of Commons as Institutions for Collective Action

Farjam¹,

Moor²,

Weeren³

et al. 2020

International Journal of the Commons

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We present an analysis of regulatory activities in historical commons offering a unique picture of their long-term institutional dynamics. The analysis took into account almost 3,800 regulatory activities in eighteen European commons in two countries across seven centuries. Despite differences in time and space, we found a shared pattern where an initial, highly-dynamic institutional-definition phase was followed by a relatively long period of stability and a final burst of activities, possibly in an attempt to respond to new challenges. In addition, most of the initial regulatory activities focused on resource use, while towards the end other activities prevailed. Our approach allows for a better understanding of institutional dynamics and our findings also provide important insights about how to regulate the use of current natural resources.

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“…The courts became more professionalised and judicial reforms reduced the influence of custom law in favour of legal positivism. In addition, at that time, changes in property rights had reduced the commons, and communities that depended on collective agriculture had to find ways to operate other than using the court as a means for solving collective-action problems (Larsson 2014a;De Moor 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflict-resolution mechanisms maintaining an agricultural system. Early modern local courts as an arena for solving collective-action problems within Scandinavian Civil Law

Larsson

2016

Int J Commons

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Rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators is one of the principles that characterise robust common-pool resource (CPR) institutions. In spite of this insight, we have little knowledge about how such institutions solved collective-action problems in early modern Scandinavia, when CPRs were an important part of production. Arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators range from informal meetings among users to formal court cases. This paper focuses on local courts, rather than laws and by-laws, within the Scandinavian legal origin and how these courts developed as arenas for CPR conflict resolution. Court rulings from Leksand Parish in central Sweden were the backbone for this study. The results indicate that access to a low-cost arena was more important to the peasants than rapid access to the courts. Successful conflict resolution could take years to accomplish and it was more important for the court to embed their decisions in people's minds than to come to a quick resolution. Further, I demonstrate that the court laid the foundation for disputing parties to solve conflicts among themselves. Lay judges -peasants from the region -came to play an important role in conflict resolution. Thus, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the court played a central role in maintaining agricultural CPRs.

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The Dilemma of the Commoners

Cited by 48 publications

References 0 publications

Ruling the Commons. Introducing a new methodology for the analysis of historical commons

Ruling the Commons. Introducing a new methodology for the analysis of historical commons

Shared Patterns in Long-Term Dynamics of Commons as Institutions for Collective Action

Conflict-resolution mechanisms maintaining an agricultural system. Early modern local courts as an arena for solving collective-action problems within Scandinavian Civil Law

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