Title: Solving Collective Action Problems | GEOG 30N: Environment and Society in a Changing World
Headings: Solving Collective Action Problems
Solving Collective Action Problems
Solving Collective Action Problems
Reading Assignment: "Tragedy of the Commons, Revisited"
Reading Assignment: The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative
Social Norms
Consider This: Cycling as a Social Norm in Copenhagen
Copenhagen’s Climate-Friendly, Bike-Friendly Streets
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Content: Groups of individuals can work together to foster cooperation. Historically, academic research on collective action problems focused on government regulation and private ownership. Researchers often assumed that without the formalized mechanisms of government and private property, individuals could not come together to cooperate. As we noted in the last section, Garrett Hardin - author of The Tragedy of the Commons - was advocating for privatization (he was also, incidentally, a neomalthusian). However, over recent years, research has shown that community self-organization can be successful – and often is. Furthermore, we now know that in many cases government regulation and private ownership fail to solve collective action problems. Much of what we know about community self-organization comes from the research of Elinor Ostrom. Ostrom was a political scientist who spent most of her career at Indiana University and Arizona State University before she passed away in 2012. For her work, Ostrom was a co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics – the first woman ever to receive this award. Reading Assignment: "