English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The Remake of a Statethe essential factors which helped account for their success. She tried toestablish why it is that collective action groups in some common propertysystems create solutions and therefore resist the ‘tragedy of the commons’while others collapse. The key to long enduring common property systemsshe suggests is the existence of endogenous rules and regulations; thosecommunities which are able to set and enforce mutually acceptablerules will have a greater likelihood of instituting effective collectiveaction. Ostrom (1990) describes the eight ‘design principles’ which shebelieves are the essential elements or conditions that help to account forthe success of collective action. Such action occurs in institutions whichfunction to sustaining the common property resource and gain compliance(see Table 6.2). These design principles will affect incentives in such a waythat ‘appropriators’ (resource users) will be willing to commit themselvesto following rules and monitoring one another.Clearly defined resourceand user group boundariesOperational rules suited tolocal conditionsTable 6.2 Ostrom’s design principlesIndividuals or households who have the use rights must beclearly defined, as must the common property resourceitself.Operational rules governing time, place, technology and/orquality of the resource used and cost in terms of labour,materials and/or money need to make it appropriate to localconditions.CollectivearrangementschoiceIndividuals affected by the operational rules can participate inmodifying the operational rules.MonitoringGraduated sanctionsConflictmechanismsresolutionRecognition of the right toorganiseMultiple layers of nestedenterpriseSource: Ostrom (1990, p 90)Monitors, who actively audit common property resourceconditions and user behaviour, are the users, or areaccountable to them.Users who violate operational rules are subject to sanctionsdependent on the seriousness and the context of theoffence.Users and their officials have rapid access to low-cost localarenas to resolve conflicts among users, or between usersand officials.The right of users to devise their own institutions isacknowledged and therefore not challenged by externalgovernmental authorities.Institutional mechanisms of common property resources areorganised in multiple layers of nested enterprise.115