Ostrom’s main contribution is to point out “contextual variables” are “essential for understanding the initial growth and sustainability of collective action as well as the challenges that long surviving, self-organized regimes must try to overcome.” Ostrom identifies a list of threats to sustained collective action which includes migration, international aid that does not take account of indigenous knowledge and institutions, turning to external sources of help too frequently, growth of corruption, insurance mechanism to help when natural disasters strike at a local level. Overall, what do you think of her main thesis (that institutional, cultural and biophysical contexts affect the presence or absence of conditional cooperators and willing punishers and the likelihood that the norms held by these participants are adopted and strengthened by others) and the eight design principles of long-surviving, self-organized resource regimes?
