The tragedy of the commons is a metaphoric label for a concept that is widely discussed, and criticised, in economics, ecology and other sciences. According to the concept, should a number of people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource such as a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up destroying its value altogether. Even if some users exercised voluntary restraint, the other users would merely supplant them, the predictable result being a tragedy for all.
The Public Service Association, or PSA, is a democratic trade union with over 90,000 workers in the New Zealand public sector.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is an international collection of autonomous community-based organizations that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. They, along with a number of other community unions, are affiliated under ACORN International.
Sir Geoffrey John Mulgan CBE is Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London (UCL). From 2011 to 2019 he was chief executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and visiting professor at University College London, the London School of Economics, and the University of Melbourne.
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest.
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people manage for individual and collective benefit. Characteristically, this involves a variety of informal norms and values employed for a governance mechanism. Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates.
In economics, a common-pool resource (CPR) is a type of good consisting of a natural or human-made resource system, whose size or characteristics makes it costly, but not impossible, to exclude potential beneficiaries from obtaining benefits from its use. Unlike pure public goods, common pool resources face problems of congestion or overuse, because they are subtractable. A common-pool resource typically consists of a core resource, which defines the stock variable, while providing a limited quantity of extractable fringe units, which defines the flow variable. While the core resource is to be protected or nurtured in order to allow for its continuous exploitation, the fringe units can be harvested or consumed.
Policy Exchange is a British right-wing conservative think tank based in London. In 2007 it was described in The Daily Telegraph as "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right". Although Policy Exchange is a registered charity, it refuses to disclose the sources of its funding and is ranked as one of the least transparent think tanks in the UK. It was founded in 2002 by the Conservative MPs Francis Maude and Archie Norman, and Nick Boles, who later also became a Tory MP.
Elinor Claire "Lin" Ostrom was an American political scientist and political economist whose work was associated with New Institutional Economics and the resurgence of political economy. In 2009, she was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her "analysis of economic governance, especially the commons", which she shared with Oliver E. Williamson; she was the first woman to win the prize.
National Indigenous Television (NITV) is an Australian free-to-air television channel that broadcasts programming produced and presented largely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It includes the six-day-a-week NITV News Update, with programming including other news and current affairs programmes, sports coverage, entertainment for children and adults, films and documentaries covering a range of topics. Its primary audience is Indigenous Australians, but many non-Indigenous people tune in to learn more about the history of and issues affecting the country's First Nations peoples.
Unlock Democracy is a British pressure group, based in London. The organisation campaigns for a more participatory democracy in Britain, founded upon a written constitution. Unlock Democracy works to promote democratic reform across the political spectrum and is not aligned with any political party. The organisation's activities include producing a range of publications, lobbying politicians and political parties and working on projects to promote greater public involvement in politics, at both local and national levels.
Co-production is an approach in the development and delivery of public services and technology in which citizens and other key stakeholders and concepts in human society are implicitly involved in the process. In many countries, co-production is increasingly perceived as a new public administration paradigm as it involves a whole new thinking about public service delivery and policy development. In co-productive approaches, citizens are not only consulted, but are part of the conception, design, steering, and ongoing management of services. The concept has a long history, arising out of radical theories of knowledge in the 1970s, and can be applied in a range of sectors across society including health research, and science more broadly.
Vincent Alfred Ostrom was an American political economist and the Founding Director of the Ostrom Workshop based at Indiana University and the Arthur F. Bentley Professor Emeritus of Political Science. He and his wife, the political economist Elinor Ostrom, made numerous contributions to the field of political science, political economy, and public choice.
Water supply and sanitation in New Zealand is provided for most people by infrastructure owned by territorial authorities including city councils in urban areas and district councils in rural areas. As at 2021, there are 67 different asset-owning organisations.
Bright Blue is an independent centre-right think tank and pressure group with a mission statement of defending and improving liberal society, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2014 by British thinker Ryan Shorthouse, Bright Blue aims to "defend and champion liberal, open, democratic and meritocratic values, institutions and policies." Bright Blue is a membership-based think tank, with membership open to anyone who identifies as a liberal conservative. It publishes political research, recommends and vets public policy, and hosts political events.
Peter Beresford OBE, FAcSS, FRSA is a British academic, writer, researcher and activist best known for his work in the field of citizen participation and user involvement, areas of study he helped to create and develop. He is currently visiting professor and senior research fellow in the School of Health & Social Sciences at the University of East Anglia, emeritus professor of citizen participation at the University of Essex and emeritus professor of social policy at Brunel University London. Much of his work has centred on including the viewpoints, lived experience and knowledge of disabled people, mental health and other long term service users in public policy, practice and learning, and working for a more participatory politics.
The Kuhl irrigation system in the Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh is a remarkable example of traditional community-managed gravity flow irrigation. This system plays a crucial role in supporting agriculture in the region, allowing farmers to efficiently utilize water resources in the challenging Himalayan terrain.
Community power is an approach to public service design and delivery, primarily influential in British local government.
Silke Helfrich was a German author, activist and scholar, best known for her contributions to the commons as a socio-political paradigm. Along with her frequent coauthor David Bollier, she was considered one of the most important international voices on the commons. She was regional director for Latin America at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the think tank of the German Green Party.
Te Pūnaha Matatini is the New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence for complex systems. Te Pūnaha Matatini is funded by the Tertiary Education Commission, hosted by the University of Auckland, and works in partnership with fifteen universities and organisations. Te Pūnaha Matatini brings together 100 principal investigators from tertiary institutions, government institutes, private sector organisations and marae communities from throughout New Zealand.
