ABSTRACT
This volume focuses on how, in Europe, the debate on the commons is discussed in regard to historical and contemporary dimensions, critically referencing the work of Elinor Ostrom. It also explores from the perspective of new institutional political ecology (NIPE) how Europe directly and indirectly affected and affects the commons globally.
Most of the research on the management of commons pool resources is limited to dealing with one of two topics: either the interaction between local participatory governance and development of institutions for commons management, or a political- economy approach that focuses on global change as it is related to the increasingly globalised expansion of capitalist modes of production, consumption and societal reproduction. This volume bridges the two, addressing how global players affect the commons worldwide and how they relate to responses emerging from within the commons in a global- local (glocal) world. Authors from a range of academic disciplines present research findings on recent developments on the commons, including: historical insights; new innovations for participatory institutions building in Europe or several types of commons grabbing, especially in Africa related to European investments; and restrictions on the management of commons at the international level. European case studies are included, providing interesting examples of local participation in commons resource management, while simultaneously showing Europe as a centre for globalized capitalism and its norms and values, affecting the rest of the world, particularly developing countries.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers from a wide range of disciplines including natural resource management, environmental governance, political geography and environmental history.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|2 pages
Key reflections
chapter 1|11 pages
Shared ownership as a key issue of Swiss history
chapter 2|20 pages
Social causality of our common climate crisis
chapter 3|18 pages
Disruption, community, and resilient governance
chapter 5|31 pages
Towards a new institutional political ecology
part II|2 pages
European examples from past and present
chapter 6|18 pages
Common challenges, different fates. The causal factors of failure or success in the commons
chapter 8|17 pages
The commons in highland and lowland Switzerland over time
chapter 9|19 pages
From natural supply to financial yields
chapter 10|18 pages
Universal values and the protection of commons
chapter 11|23 pages
Constitutionality and identity
chapter 12|22 pages
Swiss alpine pastures as common property
part III|2 pages
Features and effects of global (e.g. European) investments on commons in the world
chapter 13|23 pages
Impacts of large-scale land acquisitions on common-pool resources
chapter 14|21 pages
“They said they were bringing a development project”
chapter 15|17 pages
Grabbing the female commons
chapter 18|24 pages
Are green energy investments levelled by the ‘new commons’?
chapter 19|16 pages
Global changes in local governance of the commons
chapter 20|22 pages
Discourse and entanglement in a transnational conservation arena
chapter 21|21 pages
Rain forest anomy
part IV|2 pages
Commons, privatisation and international law