The Big Bois of RU? What About the Big GIRLS of RU?

The Big Bois of RU? What about the Big GIRLS of RU?! by Gwen Tummers

Elinor Ostrom did not pick up the rice from the church where the wedding had been (that was Eleanor Rigby), but she did a lot of other things that caused the building for the faculty of management sciences at the Radboud University to be named after her. It was built in 2018, 6 years after she died.

Elinor Ostrom was born in 1933 and became a political scientist and a Nobel prize winner. She is known for her analysis of economic governance and especially for, what she called, “commons.” While most economists thought that common use of natural sources (e.g. land, forests and irrigation waters) would lead to their excessive exhaust, Elinor Ostrom proved them wrong. She did this by doing research on small groups that did use natural sources in such a way without causing problems. This led to the following thesis being named after Elinor Ostrom:

A regulation of sources that works in practice can also work in theory.

She said that a stable management of common sources could succeed when working according to eight design principles, namely that people should:

• define clear group boundaries; • match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions; • ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules; • make sure the rule-making rights of community members are respected by outside authorities; • develop a system, carried out by community members, for monitoring members’ behavior; • use graduated sanctions for rule violators; • provide accessible, low-cost means for dispute resolution; • and that people build responsibility for governing the common resource in nested tiers from the lowest level up to the entire interconnected system.

One of Ostrom’s field researches which led to this list of conditions took place in a Swiss village where farmers shared a meadow for their cows. This did not lead to overgrazing. It worked perfectly fine because the farmers had set rules that prevented ruining the land. For example, the farmers agreed that they could graze more cows than they could care for over the winter. Ostrom found similar examples of common use of natural sources in amongst others Kenya, Guatemala, Nepal, Turkey, and Los Angeles.

She received her Nobel Prize in 2009 and, with this, became the first woman to win one in Economics. Her research plays an important role in debates today about the use of resources and public sphere and its influence on the future of the planet. Because of her, sharing property has become a new way to use natural resources, without ruining them, for many people that did not believe it was an option.