Table 1
Design principles of successful property rights institutions for governing the commons.
| DP1 | Clearly defined boundaries: The boundaries of the resource system and the individuals or households with rights to harvest resource units are clearly defined. |
| DP2 | Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions [the local culture and ecology]: Rules specifying the amount of resource products that a user is allocated are related to local conditions and to rules requiring labor, materials, and/or money inputs. According to Fennell (2011, 11), the success of congruence between rules and the local culture “depends to some extent on cultural factors, such as the existence of shared norms and reputational stakes, the expectation of repeat play, and the absence of marked divisions among members of the community sharing the resource.” |
| DP3 | Collective choice arrangements: Most individuals affected by harvesting and protection rules are included in the group that can modify these rules. |
| DP4 | Monitoring: Monitors, who actively audit biophysical conditions and user behavior, are at least partially accountable to the users and/or are the users themselves. |
| DP5 | Graduated sanctions: Users who violate rules in use are likely to receive graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) from other users, from officials accountable to these users, or from both. |
| DP6 | Conflict resolution mechanisms: Users and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflict among users or between users and officials. |
| DP7 | Minimal recognition of rights to organize: The rights of users to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities, and users have long-term tenure rights to the resource. |
| DP8 | Nested enterprises: Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises. |
[i] DP = Design Principle.
Sources: Ostrom (1990, 90; 2009, 18–43) and Fennell (2011, 10–12).