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Advances in the social sciences have emerged through a variety of research methods: field-based research, laboratory and field experiments, and agent-based models. However, which research method or approach is best suited to a particular inquiry is frequently debated and discussed.Working Togetherexamines how different methods have promoted various theoretical developments related to collective action and the commons, and demonstrates the importance of cross-fertilization involving multimethod research across traditional boundaries. The authors look at why cross-fertilization is difficult to achieve, and they show ways to overcome these challenges through collaboration. The authors provide numerous examples of collaborative, multimethod research related to collective action and the commons. They examine the pros and cons of case studies, meta-analyses, large-N field research, experiments and modeling, and empirically grounded agent-based models, and they consider how these methods contribute to research on collective action for the management of natural resources. Using their findings, the authors outline a revised theory of collective action that includes three elements: individual decision making, microsituational conditions, and features of the broader social-ecological context. Acknowledging the academic incentives that influence and constrain how research is conducted,Working Togetherreworks the theory of collective action and offers practical solutions for researchers and students across a spectrum of disciplines.

Despite increasing interest in transnational fields, transnational commons have received little attention. In contrast to economic models of commons, which argue that commons occur naturally and are prone to collective inaction and tragedy, we introduce a social constructionist account of commons. Specifically, we show that actor-level frame changes can eventually lead to the emergence of an overarching, hybrid “commons logic” at the field level. These frame shifts enable actors with different logics to reach a working consensus and avoid “tragedies of the commons.” Using a longitudinal analysis of key actors’ logics and frames, we tracked the evolution of the global climate change field over 40 years. We bracketed time periods demarcated by key field-configuring events, documented the different frame shifts in each time period, and identified five mechanisms (collective theorizing, issue linkage, active learning, legitimacy seeking, and catalytic amplification) that underpin how and why actors changed their frames at various points in time—enabling them to move toward greater consensus around a transnational commons logic. In conclusion, the emergence of a commons logic in a transnational field is a nonlinear process and involves satisfying three conditions: (1) key actors view their fates as being interconnected with respect to a problem issue, (2) these actors perceive their own behavior as contributing to the problem, and (3) they take collective action to address the problem. Our findings provide insights for multinational companies, nation-states, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders in both conventional and unconventional commons.

This article extends current theorizations of the ethics of the commons by drawing on feminist thought to propose a relational embodied ethics of the commons. Departing from abstract ethical principles, the proposed ethical theory reconsiders commoning as a process emerging through social actors' embodied interactions, resulting in the development of an ethics that accounts for their shared corporeal concerns. Such theorizing allows for inclusive alternative forms of organizing, while offering the ethical and political possibility of countering forms of economic competition and addressing the issues of viability that have long bedeviled commoning practices. This, we suggest, is achieved in the context of social organizing processes whereby social actors are able to reproduce their resource systems and communities based on recognition of their actual corporeal vulnerabilities, which drives reciprocity and embodied relationality with the other.

How can consumers be encouraged to take better care of public goods? Across four studies, including two experiments in the field and three documenting actual behaviors, the authors demonstrate that increasing consumers' individual psychological ownership facilitates stewardship of public goods. This effect occurs because feelings of ownership increase consumers' perceived responsibility, which then leads to active behavior to care for the good. Evidence from a variety of contexts, including a public lake with kayakers, a state park with skiers, and a public walking path, suggests that increasing psychological ownership enhances both effortful stewardship, such as picking up trash from a lake, and financial stewardship, such as donating money. This work further demonstrates that the relationship between psychological ownership and resulting stewardship behavior is attenuated when there are cues, such as an attendance sign, which diffuse responsibility among many people. This work offers implications for consumers, practitioners, and policy makers with simple interventions that can encourage consumers to be better stewards of public goods.

This paper introduces a refined approach to conceptualising the commons in order to shed new light on cooperative practices. Specifically, it proposes the novel concept of Common-Property Assets (CPAs). CPAs are exclusively human-made resources owned under common-property ownership regimes. Our CPA model combines quantity (the flow of resource units available to members) and quality (the impact produced on the community by the members' appropriation of the resource flow). While these two dimensions are largely pre-existing in the conventional case of natural common-pool resources, they directly depend on members' collective action in CPAs. We apply this theoretical framework to farm machinery sharing agreements—a widespread grassroots cooperative phenomenon in agriculture—using a systematic literature review to generalise the findings from a sample of 54 studies published from 1950 to 2018. Our findings show that in successful CPAs, members endorse and do not deviate from a quantity-quality equilibrium that is collectively agreed upon. Despite the existence of thresholds for both quantity and quality due to (axiological) membership heterogeneity, qualitative changes in respect of the common good are possible in CPAs that promote democratic practices. Our study has potentially strong implications for developing ethics in cooperatives and the sustainable development of communities worldwide.

Research on various distributed online information systems—including blogging, crowdsourcing, media sharing, online communities, online reviews, open source software development, social media, wikis, peer-to-peer file sharing, and two-sided electronic markets—shows that the level of user engagement and overall activity in most systems eventually decline substantially. Here, we draw on Hardin’s theory of the tragedy of the commons and Ostrom’s theory of polycentric governance to introduce a unifying theory of polycentric information commons that explains these phenomena. Further, our theory illuminates how polycentric governance principles, as manifested in system rules and infrastructure features, counterbalance various sustainability threats arising from unrestricted participation. By integrating previous research findings and offering new insights into information and governance practices, the theory, practically applied, can enhance the likelihood of sustained participation across diverse, decentralized online information systems. We conclude by discussing how researchers can use the theory in empirical investigations and how they can engage in theoretical elaborations.

Complex social-ecological systems (SES), especially systems with common pool resources, often exhibit system dynamics characterized by emergence, where system properties cannot be fully explained by input variables. This causes challenges when it comes to explaining resource use problems because problem dynamics can differ from case to case despite similar input variables. Archetype analysis with its focus on identifying building blocks of nature-society relations might provide a means to tackle emergence and complexity in the analysis of resource use problems in SES. Using data from inter- and transdisciplinary research investigating comparative case studies on common village pasture management in the Caucasus region, we use the archetype approach with a focus on system archetypes that place particular emphasis on recognizing recurrent structures and internal dynamics. We apply three system archetypes, the Tragedy of the Commons, Shifting the Burden, and Success to the Successful, to different aspects of interlinked management problems that occur repeatedly in the case study data. Using SES variables characterizing the cases, we discuss variable combinations that may trigger specific dynamics. Moreover, we explore interlinkages between archetypical problems and discuss possible solutions based on self-governance. We find that the archetype approach with a focus on system archetypes resulted in consistent explanations of problem dynamics leading to important additional insights into root causes and internal archetypical dynamics compared with existing knowledge. Regarding problem solutions and policy recommendations, we show that viewing archetypical problems as interlinked in their actual case-study context leads to different recommendations than when each archetype is viewed on its own.

In this editorial we assess 50 years’ worth of peer-reviewed publications to establish traditions and trends in the study of the commons. Based on this assessment, we provide a sketch of how IJC and its editors can continue to contribute to the development of the field.

Abstract Why do people often exhaust unregulated common (shared) natural resources but manage to preserve similar private resources? To answer this question, in this study we combine a neurobiological, economic and cognitive modeling approach. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging on 50 participants, we show that a sharp decrease of common and private resources is associated with deactivation of the ventral striatum, a brain region involved in the valuation of outcomes. Across individuals, when facing a common resource, ventral striatal activity is anticorrelated with resource preservation (less harvesting), whereas with private resources the opposite pattern is observed. This indicates that neural value signals distinctly modulate behavior in response to the depletion of common vs private resources. Computational modeling suggested that overharvesting of common resources was facilitated by the modulatory effect of social comparison on value signals. These results provide an explanation of people’s tendency to over-exploit unregulated common natural resources.

International audience