When it comes to managing common pool resources (land, water, labour,..) will decentralising facilitate the process?
I feel a lot depends on the particular resource. If you are looking at managing local water supply or even forests, there is evidence that community management works better than state level control, simply because you they have more accountability and are able to monitor better. But when it comes to issues such as global warming then obviously we need global cooperation. But for some of the resources that come in between, like rivers for instance; we need more decentralisation and also coordination between governments at various levels. In the case of issues pertaining to river water and atmospheric pollution, I think what you need is an Ostrom type approach which is not top down but bottom up. Do you think co-operatives would work in this context? Co-operative in India has a lot of connotations but I like Ostrom’s term of ‘user association’; a mechanism that involves participation from people but still has some control agency, depending on the specific circumstances. There are things
