Table 1
Labels defining two camps of commons scholars. Since 1997 and through 2017, authors (listed in the right column) continue to differentiate between two camps of commons scholarship, a critical one and a mainstream one. This review avoids these binary labels.
| Year(s) published | Mainstream | Critical | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | economic-institutional explanations | sociological-historical explanations | Mosse 1997 |
| 2001 | mainstream approach | emerging or post-institutionalist approach | Mehta, Leach et al. 2001 |
| 2004 | collective action scholars | entitlement scholars | Johnson 2004 |
| 2005 | common property scholars | political ecology scholars | Agrawal 2005 |
| 2009 | mainstream institutional economics approach | alternative social anthropological approach | Roth 2009 |
| 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017 | mainstream institutionalism | critical institutionalism | Cleaver 2012, Hall et al. 2014, Cleaver and De Koning 2015, Whaley and Cleaver 2017 |
Table 2
Summary of the four types of critiques of commons scholarship.
| Type | Name | Main Idea |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Functional | By focusing narrowly on institutions and property rights, CPR scholars are misattributing resource successes and/or failures. Their analyses are functionally incorrect in diagnosing commons sustainability. |
| 2 | Apolitical | By focusing on institutions and property rights, CPR scholars ignore the politics that created and maintain those institutions, with the associated costs and benefits for different groups of people |
| 3 | Methodological | The generalizing, positivist methods that commons scholars use limit their analyses, and constrain their ability to address Type 1 and 2 critiques |
| 4 | Normative | Although commons scholars claim to re-envision management of common property, they operate under neoliberal assumptions and contribute to coercion and hegemony; they exist under the normative assumption that sustainable management is an objectively defined good |