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Science 12 December 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5652, pp. 1907 - 1912
DOI: 10.1126/science.1091015
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Review

The Struggle to Govern the Commons

Thomas Dietz,1 Elinor Ostrom,2 Paul C. Stern3*

Human institutions—ways of organizing activities—affect the resilience of the environment. Locally evolved institutional arrangements governed by stable communities and buffered from outside forces have sustained resources successfully for centuries, although they often fail when rapid change occurs. Ideal conditions for governance are increasingly rare. Critical problems, such as transboundary pollution, tropical deforestation, and climate change, are at larger scales and involve nonlocal influences. Promising strategies for addressing these problems include dialogue among interested parties, officials, and scientists; complex, redundant, and layered institutions; a mix of institutional types; and designs that facilitate experimentation, learning, and change.

1 Environmental Science and Policy Program and Departments of Sociology and Crop and Soil Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
2 Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change and Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA.
3 Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Education, The National Academies, Washington, DC 20001, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: pstern{at}nas.edu

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