Elinor Ostrom: an Uncommon Woman for the Commons

RETROSPECTIVE Elinor Ostrom: An uncommon woman for the commons Kenneth J. Arrowa,1, Robert O. Keohaneb,1, and Simon A. Levinc,1 aDepartments of Economics and of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; bDepartment of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; and cDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 n June 12, 2012, Elinor Awan relevant not only to local commons issues Ostrom died of pancreatic can- but any situation characterized by an ab- Ocer after an illness of about 6 sence of authoritative hierarchies to en- months. Lin Ostrom, one of the force rules. It is relevant to world politics few political scientists to win the Nobel as well as irrigation systems in Nepal. Prize in Economic Sciences, showed that Ostrom showed, especially in her master- solutions to common resource problems piece Governing the Commons: The Evo- worked out by individuals directly involved lution of Institutions for Collective Action are often more successful and enduring (1), that, at vastly different scales, collec- than regimens imposed by central political tive action problems can, under some authorities. Under specified conditions, conditions, be overcome without hierar- common resources—forests, fisheries, oil chical government when participants pro- fields, or grazing lands—can be managed vide their own institutions. However, these successfully by the people who use them. institutions must be supported by self- She showed creatively and rigorously that Elinor Ostrom. enforcing agreements and maintained participatory decision-making can work: as through strategies that make the mainte- she said the day her Nobel Prize was an- research; she was a Distinguished Professor nance of such agreements consistent with nounced, “What we have ignored is what at Indiana University and the recipient of the perceived self-interest of participants. citizens can do and the importance of real the University Medal as well as scores Cooperation is maintained by the interac- involvement of the people involved.” Os- of other honors, including the Sveriges tion of reciprocity, reputation, and trust and trom’s pioneering work influenced and Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in not by altruism. It follows that we live in “ inspired researchers across many fields, Honor of Alfred Nobel. She is the only a world of possibility rather than of and she has scores of disciples around the woman to have been awarded the Nobel necessity. We are neither trapped in in- world, including innumerable young peo- Prize in Economic Sciences. She also exorable tragedies nor free of moral re- ple who she touched with her work or somehow found the energy to become, just sponsibility for creating and sustaining personally. She loved to welcome visitors, a few years before her death, the Founding incentives that facilitate our own achieve- ” but especially young scientists, into her Director of the Center for the Study of ment of mutually productive outcomes (2). Indiana workshop and made each one Institutional Diversity at Arizona State This insight led Ostrom to deep in- feel special. University, shuttling between Indiana and volvement with the application of game Elinor Ostrom was born Elinor Awan on Arizona as needed to get the new institute theoretic methods to problems of co- August 7, 1933, in Los Angeles, an only off the ground. operation, and game theory grew in im- child. She was educated at the University Her Indiana colleague Michael portance in her work after she and Vincent of California at Los Angeles, completing McGinnis commented after her death that decided to spend a sabbatical with Rein- her BA with honors in 1954. She then Ostrom donated her share of the $1.4 hard Selten in Bielefeld in the early 1980s. worked for a time before completing her million Nobel award money to the Work- The Ostroms remained close colleagues of MA in 1962 and her PhD in 1965. While at shop—the biggest, by far, of several aca- Selten, and her work took on a new and the University of California at Los Angeles, demic prizes with monetary awards that deeply mathematical dimension. The way she met and married Vincent Ostrom, the Ostroms had given to the center over in which she shifted the terms of the in- a distinguished political scientist who was the years. The couple had no children and stitutional challenges was truly revolution- 15 years her senior and who passed away few living relatives; all of Ostrom’s sub- ary but based on the most careful of methodologies. Indeed, in the last few years little more than 2 weeks after Elinor. The stantial parental instincts went into the of her life, she was actively using geographic Ostroms moved to Indiana in 1965 when nurturing of her students and younger information system technologies to map he got a job in the political science depart- colleagues. They, and the staff at the land use changes. In these respects and ment. Although Ostrom rarely mentioned Workshop, were absolutely devoted to her. others, she showed both continuing in- the discrimination that she faced as a We have rarely seen an academic leader novation and great intellectual courage. woman, she was not initially appointed to inspire such devotion. As Professor Ostrom also became fascinated with the the faculty at Indiana University but hired McGinnis commented, her family “was the perspectives that could be gleaned from the only 1 year later, because, she later said, group of people who worked around the study of complex adaptive systems more the department needed someone to teach Workshop. She was devoted to her stu- ” generally, which helped inform her em- a 7:30 AM class. In 1973, she and her dents, to her colleagues, to her staff. phasis on the need to take polycentric husband founded the Workshop in Politi- Ostrom’s demonstration that small-scale fi approaches. Polycentric governance had cal Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana farmers, herders, and shermen could been pioneered by her husband Vincent, University, an interdisciplinary institution devise and maintain institutional solutions that provided an intense but cooperative to commons problems challenges both setting in which she developed her ideas adherents of laissez faire and proponents Author contributions: K.J.A., R.O.K., and S.A.L. wrote and nurtured generations of younger col- of state action by showing that institutions the paper. leagues and graduate students. She became are essential to solve commons problems The authors declare no conflict of interest. a full professor in 1974 and, by the time but that these institutions need not be 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: slevin@ of her death, was still active in teaching and imposed by the state. Indeed, her work is princeton.edu. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210827109 PNAS | August 14, 2012 | vol. 109 | no. 33 | 13135–13136 Downloaded by guest on September 27, 2021 and it referred to systems in which in- versity of California at Berkeley, said in (ICSU) Planet Under Pressure meeting in dividual elements make decisions in- a statement that Ostrom was “a great hu- London in March, and Johan Rockstrom dependently but within a framework in man being” and that “she had a wonderful of the Stockholm Resilience Centre wrote which mutual adjustments are possible. sense of joy about the importance of her that “Lin, up until the very end, was This perspective was a major component of work that she successfully communicated heavily involved in our preparations for Ostrom’s research throughout her career to others” (3). Indeed, Ostrom was a great the Nobel Laureate dialogues on global beginning with her graduate studies, and human being and one of the most egali- sustainability we will be hosting in Rio in later years she wrote eloquently of the tarian academics that we have ever known. 17th and 18th of June during the UN need to implement such approaches in She never had to display her brilliance— Rio+20 Earth Summit. In the end, she dealing with global environmental prob- she was not interested in display or pres- decided she could not come in person, but lems, especially climate change. Ostrom tige and only in understanding important was contributing sharp, enthusiastically was fearless about venturing into new problems more deeply. She was especially charged, inputs, in the way only methodologies and reveled in what she welcoming and nurturing of young people, she could.” could learn from the very best people that and she was a frequent and gracious On the day that Elinor Ostrom died, she could find in one after another field. hostess to those people who wanted to Thomas Sterner of Gothenburg University Organizations such as the Beijer Institute visit and learn from her. Indeed, she al- wrote to a group of colleagues, including of Ecological Economics in Stockholm, of ways made them, and all with whom she one of us: which she was a Fellow, and the Resilience interacted, feel that she was grateful for Friends, I happened to visit Lin this last Alliance, of which she was a member, the opportunity to learn from them. She weekend. It was such an experience I must provided her with the opportunity to work was persuasive in communicating this share it. I can testify that she remained the closely with ecologists, economists, and view, because she truly believed it herself. same wonderful old Lin right up to days of others from diverse perspectives who Ostrom went to extraordinary lengths to dying. I started by trying to inquire about her shared her enthusiasm for multidisciplin- support less prestigious researchers and health but she brushed such questions aside: ary mingling. Noteworthy also was her role projects whose value she appreciated.

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