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Wednesday 11 April 2012 8.30 - 10.30
S-1 RUR01 Common Rules. The Functioning and Regulation of Institutions for Collective Action at the European Countryside
Maths Building: 204
Network: Rural Chair: Angus Winchester
Organizer: Tine De Moor Discussant: Guido Alfani
Francisco Beltrán Tapia : Collective Resources, Human and Social Capital: The Emergence of Agricultural Cooperatives in Early 20th Century Spain
The emergence of Spanish agricultural cooperatives from the end of the 19th century was a narrative of uneven regional development. It has been claimed that the cooperative movement succeeded in those areas where a relatively significant group of small and middle-sized farms was present. This paper seeks to complement this ... (Show more)
The emergence of Spanish agricultural cooperatives from the end of the 19th century was a narrative of uneven regional development. It has been claimed that the cooperative movement succeeded in those areas where a relatively significant group of small and middle-sized farms was present. This paper seeks to complement this explanation by analysing the role played by the pre-existing stock of human and social capital. The results show that the social networks built around the use and management of collective resources, such as common lands and irrigation communities, were a key element, together with relatively high levels of human capital, in facilitating the emergence of the cooperative movement in rural areas. It is also argued that the social capital formed around common lands was channelled either to promote agricultural associations or to migrate depending on the economic conditions faced by rural communities. Lastly, common land may have also indirectly contributed to these processes by promoting higher levels of human capital. (Show less)

Jose Miguel Lana : Neighborhood Rules: Natural Resources, Belonging and Regulation in Northern Spain before 1850
Pre-modern Europeans could avail themselves of a broad and variegated set of institutions for collective action such as guilds, commons, fraternities and waterboards. All these institutions used collective action as a method to create economies of scale and to avoid risks—both natural and market-related, and to restrict outsiders from accessing ... (Show more)
Pre-modern Europeans could avail themselves of a broad and variegated set of institutions for collective action such as guilds, commons, fraternities and waterboards. All these institutions used collective action as a method to create economies of scale and to avoid risks—both natural and market-related, and to restrict outsiders from accessing scarce resources. Commons were created for the collective management and use of natural resources and could limit the impact of harvest failures due to unpredictable weather, floods, or diseases, while on the other hand they saved on investments in, for example, fencing and drainage systems. Understanding the regulations of institutions for collective action is a key-aspect of the links between macro-social-economic changes and the day-to-day functioning of those institutions. First of all, the evolution of rules and sanctions over time can often be read as a reaction to external changes. What is written down in terms of rules governing such aspects as access, use, and management, and how misbehaviour is punished, defines the limits of the behavior of the members of an institution. Secondly, institutions can also influence the economy and society, in particular if they manage to survive long periods of time. The resilience of institutions has been attributed by political scientists and sociologists to factors such as self-governance and political embeddedness. Other factors which need to be taken into account in order to understand collective action institutions, include the property rights regimes within which they function, and the cultural context, particularly conceptions of the correct use of natural resources. Finding out how these institutions were regulated on the basis of these and other factors, will increase our understanding of what makes an institution resilient. The interplay across time between property rights, management institutions and cultural change will form a key feature of our longitudinal analysis.
This paper would like to explore these relations through some case studies refering to rural communities in Northern Spain. (Show less)

Claudio Tagliapietra : Evolving Rules in the Commons: an Empirical Analysis of the Regulation in the Italian Alps 1200-1800
This paper illustrates the evolution in the structure of regulation for the governance of common resources in the Italian Alps during c. 1200-1800. Some hundreds of village communities have been able to self-manage the commons for centuries under a common property regime using formal contracts called “Carte di Regola”, rural ... (Show more)
This paper illustrates the evolution in the structure of regulation for the governance of common resources in the Italian Alps during c. 1200-1800. Some hundreds of village communities have been able to self-manage the commons for centuries under a common property regime using formal contracts called “Carte di Regola”, rural charters. The Carte di Regola system was based on a system of village assemblies (Regole) and held in force until the invasion of the region by Napoleon in 1796. I analyze empirically a sample of Carte using statistical tools applied to the study of legislative and institutional behavior: I study the factors that influence the presence, the absence and the balance among different type of rules, and investigate the reasons that contributed to the long-endurance of such a system. This analysis puts forward a basis to understand an important number of social phenomena relevant for the solution of collective action problems, starting from the results in the realm of the governance of the commons. (Show less)

René Van Weeren, Tine De Moor : The Carrot and the Stick. An Exploration into the Sanctioning of Freeriders on the Dutch Commons in the Early Modern Period.
The comparison of commons' regulation is a most interesting, but also complex issue. Elinor Ostrom has made already in 1990 a start with the construction of a grammar of institutions (for collective action) on the basis of a very thorough comparison of present-day institutions for collective action, including mainly commons ... (Show more)
The comparison of commons' regulation is a most interesting, but also complex issue. Elinor Ostrom has made already in 1990 a start with the construction of a grammar of institutions (for collective action) on the basis of a very thorough comparison of present-day institutions for collective action, including mainly commons and collective irrigation systems. The result was a list of principles that –if followed- offer a higher guarantee of resilience of the institution for external and internal shocks. With our study we intend to analyse the long-term evolution of changes in the regulation of commons, starting with a number of case studies in the Netherlands. (Show less)



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