The Tragedy of the Commons and the International Governance of Common-Pool Resources

A Special Issue Proposal

Veronica Anghel (King’s College London/European University Institute) and Erik Jones (European University Institute)

In 1994, Robert O. Keohane and Elinor Ostrom published a special issue of the Journal of Theoretical Politics to apply Ostrom’s work on the management of common-pool resources at the local level to international organisations. Under the title, Local Commons and Global Interdependence, the contributors to that collection – including many of the top scholars studying international relations – explored how actors operating at different levels of aggregation face the same challenges in organising collective action to address major problems as do local actors: without hierarchical governance and relying primarily on self-enforcing agreements.

We believe it is time to update that application and so we are calling for contributions to a new collection. There are three compelling reasons for updating the original insights.

Continue reading →