Title: Tragedy of Commons from Garret Hardin to Elinor Ostrom: a governance perspective, drawing excerpts from India

Authors: Natalie West Kharkongor; Abhay Vir Singh Kanwar

Addresses: IIM Shillong, Mayurbhanj Complex, Nongthymmai, Shillong 793014, Meghalaya, India ' Doctoral Students Office, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai Deonar, Mumbai 400088, India

Abstract: The increase in the population level, followed by a subsequent expansion in national and international markets, has resulted in a rampant exploitation of public and common resources. Primarily, the paper addresses and analyses examples of the 'land grabbing' cases in Noida and West Bengal, 'Kaveri river water dispute' between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and the 'Bhopal gas tragedy' in Madhya Pradesh. The paper also emphasises the regulation and governance of the legitimate right of citizens over their own commons resources, using the methodology and concepts of the classical contributions of Garret Hardin's important work, the "Tragedy of Commons". The paper will suggest alternative ideas which might help to reduce the tragedy of commons by introducing Elinor Ostrom's conflict resolving mechanisms. Furthermore, the paper would facilitate the design of strategies to promote and ensure more environmental justice and a more sustainable and reliable pattern of the development of the environment.

Keywords: commons; sustainable development; environmental justice; active citizenship; participatory governance; environmental security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGE.2018.097865

International Journal of Green Economics, 2018 Vol.12 No.3/4, pp.182 - 191

Accepted: 03 Oct 2018
Published online: 20 Feb 2019 *

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