Air Quality as a Common Resource
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1 4 3
challenge of managing air quality as a renewable common resource. These
design principles also allow us to have a clearer view of some fundamental
issues underlying this challenge. The most general challenge is that the
relevant affected group is the entire world population, particularly when
the large- scale implications of air quality degradation (such as global climate change) are recognized. Ostrom’s design principles, however, make
very clear that a key factor for effective resource management is local- level
systems: Rules matched to local needs and conditions, local participation by
people in making or modifying rules, and local monitoring and enforcement
of rules. Thus, air quality is a global- level resource, but effective management needs to be driven at a local level. This is a manifestation, at the largest
of scales, of the design principle that the responsibility for governing the
common resource should be organized in nested tiers, from the lowest level
up to the entire interconnected system.
Most of the documentation of Ostrom’s design features actually
implemented to address issues have been on more discrete issues, and Cox
et al. (2010) note that there is a lack of use and evaluation of the principles on
“larger scale cases”. Although this may pose some limitations, it also is inherently consistent with design feature 8 of created nested tiers of responsibility.
This nested tier system just needs to be much more extensive, addressing
both nested layers of environmental problems and the nested nature of
government arrangements. There have been a number of theoretical works
outlining how to address air pollution and global climate change based on
Ostrom’s design principles as a polycentric approach (Ostrom, 2009, 2014;
Dorsch and Flachsland, 2017), and there have been economic analyses (e.g.
Zivin and Meidell, 2018) as well as political analyses (e.g. Chacksfield, 1993).
One of the most comprehensive treatments of this topic currently is the
edited volume by Jordan et al. (2018) on governing climate change.
What can be done at the highest level? Ostrom’s design features indicate
that international oversight of air quality as a common resource should
be kept to very broad criteria of compliance and results monitoring. This
restraint should be kept not because it is not possible to take a more active
and involved international stance, but rather because more local involvement will generally be more effective. An obvious candidate for organization
and oversight at this highest level is the United Nations, and some progress
has occurred in this direction. Thus, we see the development of international
regulatory efforts such as the United Nations Environment Programme and
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ostrom’s design principles
have been assessed and validated, with slight elaborations by Cox et al.
(2010), who heavily stress that the most effective processes are those that are
very local.
The application of Ostrom’s design features, though, is an inexorable
push for more local control. Principles 7 and 8 make that clear: Principle 8
is that activities entailed by the other principles (appropriation, provision,
monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities) are
143
1 4 3
challenge of managing air quality as a renewable common resource. These
design principles also allow us to have a clearer view of some fundamental
issues underlying this challenge. The most general challenge is that the
relevant affected group is the entire world population, particularly when
the large- scale implications of air quality degradation (such as global climate change) are recognized. Ostrom’s design principles, however, make
very clear that a key factor for effective resource management is local- level
systems: Rules matched to local needs and conditions, local participation by
people in making or modifying rules, and local monitoring and enforcement
of rules. Thus, air quality is a global- level resource, but effective management needs to be driven at a local level. This is a manifestation, at the largest
of scales, of the design principle that the responsibility for governing the
common resource should be organized in nested tiers, from the lowest level
up to the entire interconnected system.
Most of the documentation of Ostrom’s design features actually
implemented to address issues have been on more discrete issues, and Cox
et al. (2010) note that there is a lack of use and evaluation of the principles on
“larger scale cases”. Although this may pose some limitations, it also is inherently consistent with design feature 8 of created nested tiers of responsibility.
This nested tier system just needs to be much more extensive, addressing
both nested layers of environmental problems and the nested nature of
government arrangements. There have been a number of theoretical works
outlining how to address air pollution and global climate change based on
Ostrom’s design principles as a polycentric approach (Ostrom, 2009, 2014;
Dorsch and Flachsland, 2017), and there have been economic analyses (e.g.
Zivin and Meidell, 2018) as well as political analyses (e.g. Chacksfield, 1993).
One of the most comprehensive treatments of this topic currently is the
edited volume by Jordan et al. (2018) on governing climate change.
What can be done at the highest level? Ostrom’s design features indicate
that international oversight of air quality as a common resource should
be kept to very broad criteria of compliance and results monitoring. This
restraint should be kept not because it is not possible to take a more active
and involved international stance, but rather because more local involvement will generally be more effective. An obvious candidate for organization
and oversight at this highest level is the United Nations, and some progress
has occurred in this direction. Thus, we see the development of international
regulatory efforts such as the United Nations Environment Programme and
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ostrom’s design principles
have been assessed and validated, with slight elaborations by Cox et al.
(2010), who heavily stress that the most effective processes are those that are
very local.
The application of Ostrom’s design features, though, is an inexorable
push for more local control. Principles 7 and 8 make that clear: Principle 8
is that activities entailed by the other principles (appropriation, provision,
monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities) are