The Commons in a Glocal World

This volume focuses on how, in Europe, the debate on the commons is discussed in regard to historical and contemporary dimensions, critically referencing the work of Elinor Ostrom. It also explores from the perspective of new institutional political ecology (NIPE) how Europe directly and indirectly affected and affects the commons globally.
Most of the research on the management of commons pool resources is limited to dealing with one of two topics: either the interaction between local participatory governance and development of institutions for commons management, or a political- economy approach that focuses on global change as it is related to the increasingly globalised expansion of capitalist modes of production, consumption and societal reproduction. This volume bridges the two, addressing how global players affect the commons worldwide and how they relate to responses emerging from within the commons in a global- local (glocal) world. Authors from a range of academic disciplines present research findings on recent developments on the commons, including: historical insights; new innovations for participatory institutions building in Europe or several types of commons grabbing, especially in Africa related to European investments; and restrictions on the management of commons at the international level. European case studies are included, providing interesting examples of local participation in commons resource management, while simultaneously showing Europe as a centre for globalized capitalism and its norms and values, affecting the rest of the world, particularly developing countries.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers from a wide range of disciplines including natural resource management, environmental governance, political geography and environmental history.

Tobias Haller is Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland. Thomas Breu is Director, Centre for Development and Environment, and Executive Director, International Graduate School North- South, University of Bern, Switzerland. Tine De Moor is a Professor in the Department of Social and Economic History, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Christian Rohr is Professor of Environmental and Climate History, University of Bern, Switzerland. Heinzpeter Znoj is Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology and director of the Board of the Center for Development and Environment at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Introduction: commons in a 'glocal' world PART I Key reflections: new theoretical issues on the commons and their transformations 1 Shared ownership as a key issue of Swiss history: common-pool resources, common property institutions and their impact on the political culture of Switzerland from the beginnings to our days 2 Social causality of our common climate crisis: towards a sociodicy for the Anthropocene 3 Disruption, community, and resilient governance: environmental justice in the Anthropocene 4 A definition of the commons, between human rights, resistance, and social change 5 Towards a new institutional political ecology: how to marry external effects, institutional change and the role of power and ideology in commons studies PART II European examples from past and present SECTION 2.1 Historical approaches 6 Common challenges, different fates. The causal factors of failure or success in the commons: the pre-modern Brecklands (England) and the Campine (Southern Low Countries) compared 7 For the common good: regulating the Lake Constance fisheries from 1350 to 1800 8 The commons in highland and lowland Switzerland over time: transformations in their organisation and survival strategies (seventeenth to twentieth century) 9 From natural supply to financial yields: the common fields of the Bernese Civic Corporation since the seventeenth century SECTION 2.2 Current commons and innovation issues 10 Universal values and the protection of commons: fighting corruption with bottom- up process in Mallorca 11 Constitutionality and identity: bottom- up institution building and identity among Coastal Sami in Northern Norway 12 Swiss alpine pastures as common property: a success story of bottom-