Constitution-As-Commons

The Bill of Rights as a Constitution

Framing the Sun and Buildings as Commons

This study frames integration of Solar Energy Conversion Systems (SECS) with the built environment, addressing on-site limitations for resource allocation in the urban context. The Sun, buildings, and solar technologies are investigated as resource systems within Ostrom’s framework of the commons and shared governance, with associated goods (as resource units) appropriated from light conversion...

Urban Informality as a Commons Dilemma

Puncturing the Myth of the Internet as a Commons

The notion that the Internet is a commons has gone viral. It features prominently in military thinking, including a 2011 report issued by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is also prevalent in journalistic thinking, in regards to the challenges of Internet governance; two recent examples from prominent news outlets illustrate the point. Bill Davidow wrote an article entitled “Th...

Modeling the commons as a game with vector payoffs

Since Hardin first formulated the tragedy of the commons, researchers have described various ways that commons problems are solved, all based on the model of individual rationality. Invariably, these institutional solutions involve creating some system of property rights. We formulate an alternative model, one not founded on property rights but on decision-making around socalled vector payoffs....