FYI.
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Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 22:50:56 -0500
From: "Dolsak, Nives" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: International Conference Announcement
Please excuse cross-posting.
CONSTITUTING THE COMMONS:
Crafting Sustainable Commons in the New Millennium
The Eighth Conference of the
International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP)
Bloomington, Indiana, USA, May 31 - June 4, 2000
We are pleased to invite you to attend the eighth biennial IASCP conference.
The conference will take place from May 31-June 4, 2000, at the Indiana
Memorial Union, Bloomington, Indiana.
We have planned an exciting program of panels, workshops, and fieldtrips.
The panels will cover a wide range of topics from traditional common pool
resources (such as forests, surface and groundwater, and fisheries), to
global commons (oceans and atmosphere), new commons (Internet, genetic pool,
and others), and theoretical issues that apply across various commons. The
deadline for paper and panel proposals is October 31, 1999. We have
organized a set of pre-conference workshops focused on traditional and new
research and teaching approaches. You will have an opportunity to examine a
collection of books and other publications on commons along with the latest
edition of the CPR Bibliography. The IASCP is an interdisciplinary
association with more than 800 individual members from over 108 countries.
The conference will provide an opportunity for networking with colleagues
from all over the world.
Nives Dolsak and Elinor Ostrom
Program Committee Co-chairs
http://www.indiana.edu/~iascp/2000.html
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University
513 N. Park Avenue, Bloomington,
IN 47408-3895 U.S.A.
Phone: (812) 855-7704, Fax: (812) 855-3150
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CONFERENCE THEME:
The conference will look at the long-standing and new commons. We propose
to explore common-property institutions of the past centuries-many of which
continue into current times-and examine how they adjust to technology
development and changes in the structure of the users as well as how they
respond to an ever-expanding global economy. The conference will examine
the role of donors as their ideas and incentives may shape the performance
of different institutional arrangements. Further, we will explore new
commons as they are created with invention of new institutions and
technology. The global commons will be examined as they continue to
increase in importance. We will look at a multitude of institutional
arrangements as they are likely to be used in complex, large-scale commons.
Market institutions will be looked at as they may exist side-by-side with
common property and governmental institutions, particularly when rights to
place greenhouse gases are paired with obligations to create carbon sinks in
forests that may be governed and managed by common property or governmental
arrangements. Thus, the long-standing and the new commons will be important
topics for serious research and continued policy analysis. A major
challenge is to provide a coherent theoretical analysis and synthesis of
prior and current empirical research so that scholars, citizens, and
officials are prepared for the future.
PAPER AND PANEL PROPOSALS DEADLINE:
The panel, paper, and poster abstracts of less than 500 words should be
submitted to the Program Co-Chairs, at [EMAIL PROTECTED], at the latest by
October 30, 1999. The final papers should be submitted by March 31, 2000.
Please send a Word or Word-Perfect file as an e-mail attachment.
SESSIONS TOPICS:
(1) New Commons
Technology development creates new common pool resources (Internet) and
enables codification and management of existing common pool resources
(genetic pool). How do issues of access, social exclusion, intellectual
property rights, and commercialization shape the governance of these common
pool resources (CPRs)? Population settlement creates common property that
has to be managed by all residents (condominiums). Budgets of private and
government corporations as well as international organizations (for example,
EU farm subsidies) and the allocation of their shares among competing
activities can also be analyzed as a common pool resource.
(2) Global Commons
The use of global environment (atmosphere, oceans, forests) and allocation
of resources in nobody's land exhibit high complexity, larger number, and
high heterogeneity of resource users. How can we then apply lessons learned
from selected international regimes to the design of governance of new
international problems?
(3) Natural Resources and Their Interlinkages
Fisheries, surface and groundwater, grazing lands, and forestry have
traditionally been the strongest topics in the work of IASCP members. How
can we incorporate the economic and the political context in the analysis of
these resources? When we analyze change over time, what is the time frame
we should examine? In addition to exploring the issues that pertain to
these resources, we propose to look at the interlinkages in the use of
different resources.
(4) Adaptation and Resilience to Change
What challenges do CPR managers face when technologies allow for more
efficient (and/or destructive) use of a resource and when demographics of
the resource users change? How do changes in macro-economic and
macro-political systems affect management of CPRs? Did the Asian financial
crisis affect local CPRs? Do common property regimes change as countries
exhibit drastic shifts from stable political systems to periods of flux and
a lack of well-functioning domestic macro-political institutions? What
aspects of these changes can be accommodated within common property regimes
and what kinds have detrimental effects?
(5) Theoretical Questions
A number of important theoretical questions will be addressed that will
enable a synthesis of the efforts in the empirical, case-study approach,
statistical analyses, as well as experimental research. The major
theoretical issues proposed to be addressed are: emergence and sustenance of
self-organized cooperation; property rights, markets, and CPRs; linkages of
higher-level organizations in CPR cooperation problems; heterogeneity and
change among resource users; uncertainty, variability, and shocks; adaptive
management of CPRs; experimental laboratories work.
(6) Experimental Economics
Given the initial experiments on common-pool resources that establish the
willingness of subjects to agree upon a distribution of appropriation
rights, sanction each other, and use communication for creating agreements
and for verbal sanctions, what have recent experiments added to our
knowledge about common pool resources? Has anyone explored multi-good
commons? How does heterogeneity of assets or information affect behavior?
We know that size of group tends to be positively related to contributions
to public goods. Is the opposite effect found in common-pool resources?
What else is going on in the study of experimental commons?
(7) Failures and What We Can Learn from Failing Institutions
What can we learn from the well-intended schemes to improve people's lives
and resource management that failed to do either? Were the managers too
optimistic about the capability of managing the system? Was the
institutional arrangement imposed on the resource users who lacked the
capability to resist a failing plan? Did the external shocks shake the CPR
beyond its ability to adapt?
(8) Privatization
Under what conditions will markets work most effectively in managing and
allocating the flow from CPRs? How we can apply lessons from selected
successful marketable permit schemes to other CPRs?
(9) Historical Communal Societies
Indiana and the Midwest experienced a strong history of communal societies.
New Harmony flourished in the mid-1800s and at its peak had nearly one
thousand members. Shakers' communities were common in the Midwest and
reached their peak by the mid-1800s. Both societies lost its importance
with the onset of the industrial revolution and with the decline of
popularity of their values.
(10) External Influences on Local Commons
How much autonomy can a common property regime have? What gives a common
property regime the autonomy-low importance for the national economy, its
superiority over other institutional arrangements, or others?
(11) Role of Donors
When outsiders donate financial and other resources to support common
property regimes, their action sometimes significantly affects the outcomes
both in positive and negative ways. Many of the problems come as a result of
the set of ideas that are being implemented as well as the incentives the
donors face. Academics share some of the responsibilities here since our
ideas have been the ones that they have tried to implement.
(12) Advocacy as a Means of Empowering Resource Managers
Advocacy may improve the ways the external environment views a common
property regime and empower the resource managers. However, if advocacy is
pursued by an organization, this may fundamentally change the nature of the
organization.
PRECONFERENCE WORKSHOPS:
On Wednesday, May 31, 2000, the day prior to the official opening of the
conference, we will organize a set of half-day workshops focused on various
research approaches and methodologies for the analysis of the commons. With
the help of our colleagues at various specialized research centers, we have
organized the following workshops:
- Participatory Rural Appraisal: Bob Fisher (Regional Community Forestry
Training Center, Kasetsart University, Thailand);
- Experimental Economics: James Walker (Workshop in Political Theory and
Policy Analysis, and Department of Economics, Indiana University,
Bloomington);
- Geographical Information systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing: Tom
Evans and Glen Green (Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and
Environmental Change, Indiana University, Bloomington);
- Review of the Common Property Literature over the last 15 years:
James Thomson (Associates in Rural Development, Burlington, Vermont);
Victoria Edwards (Faculty of the Environment, University of Portsmouth, UK);
and Nathalie Steins (Produktschap Vis Afdeling Natuur & Milieu, Rijswijk,
Netherlands)
- Agent Based Modeling, Joshua Epstein (Brookings Institution, Washington,
D.C.)
FIELD TRIPS:
This region offers possibilities for some important and intriguing field
trips. For Friday, June 2, 2000, we have planned four full-day field trips
and one half-day field trip:
- New Harmony B a 19th century town in Indiana of two early communal
societies. (Full-day)
- Angel Mounds B an archeological site of an ancient, well-preserved Native
American town on the Ohio River, focuses on early indigenous social
organization. (Full-day)
- Indianapolis B strong inner-city neighborhoods and other urban
commons. (Full-day)
- Lothlorien and May Creek B two contemporary communities that own their own
forests. (Full-day)
- Heartwood - tour of variously managed Indiana forests led by members of a
cooperative, regional environmental action group. (Full-day)
- Carbon Tower and Morgan-Monroe State Forest B state-of-the-art technology
in the middle of a state forest to study carbon sequestration
processes--global commons--and a look at a state-managed public forest.
(Half-day)
VENUE:
The conference will be held on the beautiful campus of Indiana University,
Bloomington, Indiana. The woodland campus hosts a towering library with a
collection of almost 6 million volumes; a Musical Arts Center with its stage
along the lines of European opera houses; an Art Museum designed by I.M.
Pei; a splendid art deco Auditorium; an outstanding rare books library; and
many more noteworthy attractions. The town of Bloomington is situated in
the lush, rolling hills of southern Indiana and is the home of many fine
restaurants and coffee houses.
ACCOMODATIONS:
By holding the meetings on a university campus, we are able to offer a
variety of housing arrangements, ranging from university dormitory rooms,
rooms in nearby motels, and antique furnished rooms in the Indiana Memorial
Union Building. The dormitories will offer housing at a much lower rate
than is feasible in a large city. Further details will be forthcoming.
REGISTRATION:
We are planning online registration as well as mail registration. The
online registration will be available on the conference web site
(http://www.indiana.edu/~iascp/2000.html) by November 15, 1999.
