Unbundling the Global Commons

Abstract

Can Elinor Ostrom's design principles for governing local commons scale to global commons dilemmas? This paper argues that they can, but not as a template to be applied wholesale. The principles are diagnostic tools for decomposing global commons into governable sub-problems. The entry point is the structure of goods and property rights, which is institutionally contingent rather than fixed. The paper develops an unbundling framework that matches each sub-problem to its appropriate governance scale. Most can be governed at sub-global levels through markets, clubs, or polycentric arrangements. What remains is a residual that requires international coordination but is far narrower than the aggregate label implies. Where governance outcomes depend on co-production by local actors, top-down hegemonic alternatives fail for structural reasons. The residual is also structurally resistant for political-economy reasons. The policy implication is a recalibration. Governance should be assumed at the lowest scale where institutional prerequisites can be satisfied, and international coordination reserved for what cannot be governed there. Five empirical domains illustrate the argument, with orbital debris worked through in greater detail.