Adding Environment to the Collective Action Problem: Individuals, Civil Society, and the Mangrove-Fishery Commons in Ecuador
摘要
| Figures/TablesFigures/Tables | ReferencesReferencesSummaryResearch on the commons suggests a more robust understanding of human-resource interactions is needed to strengthen theories about collective action and sustainable governance. I combine ethnographic and fishery data to explore how resource characteristics and institutions influence people鈥檚 behavior toward common pool resources in coastal Ecuador. This comparative study of the commons at two levels (mangroves and the cockle fishery) highlights how trust, communication, and social obligation depend on social histories of resource systems and types of collective action problems, largely explaining why local institutions encourage individuals to uphold mangrove forest conservation but have little effect on cooperation in fisheries.