Review to Elinor Ostrom's Book ''Governing the Commons''

The Common Pool Resources have been a widely discussed topic all over the world (recall the Italian Referendum for the privatization of water, in June 12th/13th, 2011) and for a very long period of time (actually, since the Middle Age).
Over the past 45 years, researchers in many fields showed that common property can work, if a suitable institutional design is followed. Elinor Ostrom (the first and only woman who has been awarded with a Nobel Memorial Prize forEconomics in 2009 - together with Oliver E. Williamson) gave a first overview of the characteristics of such a "design" in her seminal work Governing the commons (1990).
The debate about Common-Properties started in the 1970s as a reaction to Hardin's (1968) "Tragedy of the commons" and focused only on the management of natural resources. During the 1990s the debate has also broadened to the so-called Global commons (water, air, etc.) and on the virtual commons (which will not be treated in this dissertation). Ostrom (1990) can be considered as an example of heterodoxy, for taking into account heterogeneous fields like anthropology and sociology, and collecting many cases studies all around the world, such as

. irrigation systems in the Philippines/Spain/Nepal and Sri Lanka;
. Canadian/Turkish and Sinhalese fishermen's communities;
. breeding systems in a Nepalese and Swiss villages;
. groundwater basins in California.

In this dissertation, the first chapter will explain the definitions of Commons and Common Pool Resources (CPRs), then it will focus on the overcoming of the traditional private and public systems, the distinction between the existing type of goods, A historic overview of the subject of Commons and finally, the debate which dates back to Hardin (1968).
In the second chapter will the so-called Third Way of Ostrom will be presented,starting from the role Communities should play, proceeding with the explanation of the IAD (Institutional Analyzing and Developmental) Framework and the Design Principles and concluding with the analysis of all the cases included in the book.
In the third and last chapter, several conclusions and critiques to the model will be held.