How Ostrom's design principles apply to large-scale commons: Cooperation over international river basins

Abstract

Many conventional studies on common-pool resources (CPRs) have examined the governance of local resources such as fisheries, forests, grazing systems, irrigation systems, agriculture, water resources, and land tenure. However, a limited selection of recent studies has been interested in large-scale commons such as climate change, air pollution, and transboundary disputes. Despite Ostrom's design principles (DPs) providing a robust framework for solving CPR problems, there have been relatively few empirical challenges examining the effect of DPs on CPRs, especially in the large-scale commons. This paper examines how Ostrom's DPs are applied to international commons that may cause complicated disputes among states. The case being studied is international rivers as international commons. Based on binary logit analysis, this research found that four of Ostrom's DPs—clear boundary, operational rules, monitoring system, and multi-level governance—are positively associated with success in managing the international river commons (IRCs) as a CPR. Additionally, the results from fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) partially indicate that the co-occurrence of monitoring, conflict mechanisms, and multi-level governance would lead to more successful IRCs.