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Item All CPR's Are Not Created Equal: Two Important Physical Characteristics and Their Relation to the Resolution of Commons Dilemmas(International Association for the Study of Common Property, 1991) Blomquist, William; Schlager, Edella; Tang, Shui-YanWorkshop Abstract: "Policy prescriptions offered in the now-voluminous literature on common-pool resources (CPRs) frequently focus upon the strategic situation of resource users, paying relatively less attention (or none at all) to the characteristics of the common-pool resources themselves. In short, most contributions to the policy literature presume that all CPRs are alike. Based on our reconsideration of the strategic situations users face, and our empirical observation of three kinds of CPRs fisheries, irrigation systems, and groundwater basins we conclude that two physical characteristics of CPRs have vital implications for the likelihood of successful resolution of difficulties over resource use, and for the types of resolutions users develop. Those physical characteristics are the degree of stationarity of flow units and the existence of storage capacity. Speaking generally, fisheries are CPRs with fugitive flow units and without storage capacity, irrigation systems have fugitive flow units but possible availability of storage, and groundwater basins have relatively stationary flow units and storage capacity. Using comparisons among these types of CPRs, we analyze the effects of these physical characteristics upon the. prospects for the emergence- of successful cooperation in resource use."Item Common Property's Role in Water Resource Management(Second International Conference on Property Rights, Economics and Environment, 1998) Blomquist, WilliamSince I was invited to speak about common-property arrangements in the management of water resources, I shall begin with a description of common-property arrangements. I will then turn to the relationship between the common property and regulatory-agency approaches to water resource management, addressing both its empirical manifestations and some theoretical bases for understanding them. Then I will consider the relationship between common-property and private-property or market arrangements, again analyzing that relationship from empirical and theoretical perspectives. When I use examples or illustrations in this brief presentation, they will have to do with groundwater basins in the United States since those are the empirical cases with which I am familiar. And throughout my remarks, I will be applying the analytical approach of institutional rational-choice analysis, and restating the work of many scholars who have worked in the field of common-property resources.Item Getting Out of the Commons Trap: Variables, Process, and Results in Four Groundwater Basins(Social Science Perspectives Journal, 1987) Blomquist, William"Jointly-accessible resources used by multiple individuals are often endangered. Indeed, we call the supposedly inevitable destruction of such resources 'the tragedy of the commons'. Commons problems have been classified with other 'social traps' such as the collective action problem and the Prisoner's Dilemma game. Reasoning by analogy and metaphor from these other 'traps' has yielded a general prognosis of doom for the commons, escapable only via privatization of the resource or centralized public management. In fact, alternative organizations of resource use exist, and have led to resource preservation and even to resource enhancement. The question is how, and under what conditions, users of a common resource might collectively coordinate their behavior to avoid impending doom and enhance resource use without resort to either of the forms prescribed in the prevailing literature. Drawing upon the methods of institutional analysis and the experience of actual cases of commons management, this paper presents descriptive and quantitative evidence on: (a) the relevant characteristics of the settings in which resource users operate, (b) the steps taken in a process of resolution of a commons dilemma, and (c) the results obtained thus far by the users of groundwater basins in arid and heavily populated portions of southern California. The likelihood of successful resolution is compared across different settings, and the efficiency and equity of different public/private organizational form mixes are compared, as well."Item The Local Groundwater Economy in Los Angeles County, California(Indiana University, 1994) Blomquist, William"The governance and management of water use in the United States generally, and in southern California in particular, are not organized as an ideal legal-rational centralized administration or as a perfectly competitive private market. This fact poses challenges to analysis that the local public economies (LPE) framework developed at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis helps to resolve. "The LPE framework enlarges the possibilities for descriptive and prescriptive analysis of interorganizational relations. It is based on the idea that an understanding of current arrangements is an important prerequisite to the issuance of prescriptions for reform. That view, which has informed work on metropolitan area governmental organization (e.g., ACIR, 1987), suggests that analysts 'begin to search for the nature of the order which exists in the complex of relationships among governmental units and abandon the assumption that all of these relationships are unique or random.' By searching for 'the nature of the order which exists' and 'an analysis of how the system works,' (Ostrom and Ostrom, 1965: 138) one can arrive at descriptions of current arrangements. Discussion of shortcomings and recommendations for improvements can follow, while the ultimate evaluations of the performance of public officials and governmental structures are left to citizens."Item Property Rights, Political Power, and the Management of Ground and Surface Water(Western Political Science Association, 1997) Blomquist, William; Schlager, EdellaAmong the more popular contemporary recommendations for improved watershed use and protection is conjunctive use of surface and underground water resources. Conjunctive use involves the coordination of surface water supplies and storage with groundwater supplies and storage, for purposes of sustainable watershed use and enhanced watershed protection. Among the several potential benefits that have been promoted by advocates of greater conjunctive use are: improved security of usable water supplies, lessened exposure to extreme events such as droughts and floods, reduced reliance on costly and environmentally disruptive surface water impoundments and distribution systems, and enhanced protection of aquatic life and habitat.Item Watershed Management from the Ground Up: Political Science and the Explanation of Regional Governance Arrangements(American Political Science Association, 1999) Blomquist, William; Schlager, EdellaThis paper responds to the meeting organizers' call to address the connection between political science and the challenges of problem solving in the 'real world,' and especially the relevance of political science knowledge to actual puzzles faced by policy makers. The context of the paper is water resources management in the western United States, which is both acutely 'real' and intensely political. "For at least the past 25 years (since the publication of the National Water Commission's final report, Water Policies for the Future) and perhaps longer, prescriptions of the water policy literature have centered upon two themes. Political scientists and public administration scholars have contributed to both themes, as they did to the commission study and report. The first theme is that 'the watershed' is the appropriate scale for organizing water resource management, because all water sources and uses within a watershed are interrelated. The second is that since watersheds are regions to which political jurisdictions almost never correspond, and watershed-scale decision making structures do not usually exist, they should be created. Watershed-scale decision making organizations would bring together all 'stakeholders' and produce integrated watershed management policies that can be implemented efficiently, preferably through some form of watershed authority.