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2 results

  • 6 - Self-governance, War, and the Commons

  • Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, University of Pittsburgh, Ilia Murtazashvili, University of Pittsburgh
  • Book:
    Land, the State, and War
    Published online:
    20 August 2021
    Print publication:
    09 September 2021, pp 120-138

  • Summary

    Chapter 6 considers self-governance of two important types of commons: water and forests. The mirab, or water manager, is a person who works on behalf of a group of communities to ensure members across villages have access to irrigation water. Forest shuras govern use and access to forests. Mirabs and forest shuras are often effective in governing commons, for reasons our theory predicts, but are vulnerable to outside threats that cannot be collectively countered by the community: irrigation infrastructure has often been destroyed during conflict and is too costly for communities to provide, and the Taliban, commanders, or warlords are often able to extract forest resources by force. Thus, our conclusion is that foreign aid and other government assistance should focus on threats from the outside while leaving daily management of the commons to communities. Our analysis thus extends the insights of Elinor Ostrom, who understood well the possibility of self-governance of property, to self-governance in especially fragile, war-ravaged states such as Afghanistan. In such contexts, war – and organizations that come about during war – can be a great destabilizing force for governance of the commons.

  • 13 - The End of Insularity

  • from Part Two - The Pacific Since 1941
  • Donald Denoon, Australian National University, Canberra, Malama Meleisea
  • With Stewart Firth, Jocelyn Linnekin, Karen Nero
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    28 August 1997, pp 439-467

  • Summary

    Pacific Islands, and their inhabitants, were always more inter-related than the literature about them recognised. The End of Insularity, then, signifies the end of colonial perceptions of insularity that belied reality. It also denotes the empirical reality of contemporary lives as Islanders renew and expand linkages across the Pacific. Webs of relationships span Pacific and continental societies. Two economists coined the term MIRAB to describe the dependent economies of Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau. It could also be applied to Tahiti, American Samoa, and throughout the former United States Trust Territory of Micronesia. The Marshallese have considerable experience with migrant and relocated communities. The colonial experience fragmented some wider linkages, and continues to shape present relationships. The history and nature of links to Pacific Rim countries significantly affect migration possibilities. Initial migration constraints, as well as the size, location, and time depth of the immigrant populations, have affected populations.