ABSTRACT
Of her many contributions to the social, behavioral and applied natural sciences, which title by Elinor ‘Lin’ Ostrom towers over all others? Answering this question is no simple task. The amount of vital authorship by Ostrom rivals that of any political scientist over the past 50 years. Indeed, it is confining to situate Ostrom in the discipline of political science. Her highest honor, the Nobel Memorial Prize, was earned in economic sciences. And her theories, discoveries, and casework shape fields and specializations as wide ranging as complex economic systems (Ostrom, 2010) to community forestry (Wollenberg, Merino, Agrawal, & Ostrom, 2007) and from local policing (Ostrom & Parks, 1973) to rule-making in sports (Castronova & Wagner, 2009). As a seminal figure in the study of institutions, her insights are far-reaching, considering that institutions are found almost everywhere in human affairs. Pervasive as well as diverse, Ostrom’s institutions are, Munger argues, akin to Darwin’s ‘endless forms’ of ecological niches and biological variation (Munger, 2010).
