Governing the Commons for two decades: a complex story

Abstract

In complex systems, the elements are interrelated in ways that ensure that one element cannot be studied without accounting for the others. We take as a fact that the world over time has become more and more complex. The story of Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons is among other things a story with a protagonist role for complexity. It is also a tale of the emergence and development of a complex of diverse but interrelated disciplines, and subsequently, angles, perspectives, methods, themes, insights, and lessons-learned.