Technology-dependent commons: The radio spectrum
Erling Berge, Eda Fowlks Kranakis · International Journal of the Commons · 2011
Things owned in common -or jointly -as the case may be, abound.They abound today as they did in earlier times, in urban as well as in rural settings, and in high tech artefacts like Wikipedia as well as in traditional symbols.Usually such commonly held goods do not create any noteworthy problems for those who share an interest in them.But in some cases they do represent an intrinsically difficult situation for stakeholders: their governance and the distribution of benefits begin to pose a social dilemma.Unless the stakeholders find ways of overcoming the problems, the resource will stop yielding benefits.Such dilemmas appear in cases where the resource is subtractable (one appropriator's benefits diminish the benefits available for other appropriators), and where it is difficult or impossible to exclude any particular appropriator.Elinor Ostrom used traditional commons in irrigation water, pasture, and forestry to study how communities were able to overcome such dilemmas, in part through the creation of appropriate institutions for resource management.She suggested eight design principles that could assist in constructing such management institutions (Ostrom 1990(Ostrom , 2005)).Technology did not enter into Ostrom's principles.Yet it is clear today that technological developments often alter the conditions of exploitation of resources, necessitating changes in management strategies, even though it is not always clear which strategies offer the best solution.Technology has, for example, changed fishing practices to such an extent that a dilemma of global depletion of fish stocks, not present a century ago, has now become a pressing concern.Moreover, technology creates new resources, or allows existing resources to be used in quite