This introduction considers the overall character and impact of the work of Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012). Her work is not only inter-disciplinary in character; it also bridges ‘original’ and ‘new’ traditions within institutional economics. Her studies of the governance of common-pool resources inspired multiple lines of enquiry in economics and other social sciences. It also carves out a policy approach that surpasses the market–state dichotomy. This broad impact is evidenced in the seven essays collected and introduced here.

This article is a tribute to Elinor Ostrom. It explores two enduring lessons she taught: a substantive lesson that involves embracing complexity and context, and a methodological lesson that involves embracing a framework-driven approach to systematic, evolutionary learning through various interdisciplinary methodologies, theories, and empirical approaches. First, I discuss Ostrom's work on environmental commons. I illustrate the two lessons through a discussion of the tragedy of the commons. Next, I explain how the two lessons play a significant role in recent efforts to extend Ostrom's work on environmental commons to knowledge/cultural commons. I draw a parallel between the tragedy of the commons allegory and the free-rider allegory, and show how many of the problems Ostrom explored in the environmental context are manifest in the cultural environmental context. I discuss an ongoing research project that follows the path that Ostrom blazed and systematically studies commons in the cultural environment.

More than 40 years ago, Elinor Ostrom began her adventures with the police. In order to combat the conventional view that ‘bigger means better’, Ostrom pioneered a fieldwork-based framework for measuring police services that utilized consumer surveys and thereby created a community-centered model of analysis for public services. In this paper, we contend that although Ostrom's career demonstrated the importance of employing multiple methods, her most enduring contributions and legacy came from on-the-ground research. Her case studies and fieldwork proved to be necessary for examining complex systems beyond the state–market dichotomy, and these methods of analysis should be defended as critical for inquiry into the variety of institutional arrangements.

Elinor Ostrom was a leader in using multiple methods to perform institutional analysis. In this paper, we discuss how a multi-method approach she pioneered may be used to study the robustness of social–ecological systems. We synthesize lessons learned from a series of studies on small-scale irrigation systems in which we use case-study analysis, experimental methods in laboratory and field settings, and mathematical models. The accumulated insights show the importance of creating institutional arrangements that fit the human ecology within the biophysical constraints of the system. The examples of work based on multiple methods approaches presented here highlight several lessons. For example, experimental work helps us better understand the details of how the ability to maintain trust relationships, low levels of inequality, and low transaction costs of coordination are critical for success. Likewise, the integration of case-study analysis and modeling helps us better understand how systems that can leverage biophysical characteristics to help address challenges of monitoring, sanctioning, and coordination may be able to increase their chances of success.

This paper situates Elinor Ostrom's work on common-pool resource management in the tradition of ‘robust political economy’. Ostrom's analysis of bottom-up governance institutions is shown to recognise that such arrangements though imperfect are better placed to cope with bounded rationality and incentive compatibility problems in the management of smaller- and medium-scale common-pool resources. While Ostrom's work provides an analytical framework to explain the success of these arrangements, however, the paper argues that it lacks a robust account of when, if ever, top-down governance arrangements are to be preferred.

The absence of democracy in the Arab–Muslim world is a ‘striking anomaly’ for democratization scholars. This cannot be seen as caused by religion as such, as there are now several democratic Muslim-majority states. Popular explanations such as values, culture, economic development, natural resources, or colonial legacy have been refuted. Based on Ostrom's approach regarding local groups’ ability to establish institutions for ‘governing the commons’, we present a novel explanation for this puzzle, based on historical variations in institutions for financing religion. In Northwestern Europe, religion and secular services managed by local religious institutions have been financed ‘from below’, creating local systems for semi-democratic representation, transparency, and accountability. In the Arab–Muslim region, religion and local secular services have been financed ‘from above’, by private foundations lacking systems for representation and accountability. It is thus not religion, but how religion has been financed, that explains lacking successful democratization in the Arab–Muslim world.

The slow growth of the stock of human capital in Spain has been related to weak levels of economic development and a low commitment of Spanish institutions to primary education. This paper adds to these explanations by showing that common lands positively contributed to achieving significantly higher levels of both schooling expenditure and literacy rates. By supporting both municipal and households’ incomes, these collective resources sustained not only the local supply of education, but also the demand for it, although their influence decreased over time. Likewise, either low levels of economic development prevented human capital from growing endogenously or demand factors were not as important as previously argued. Lastly, even though the active intervention of the central government was crucial to promote education, its effort was not enough and human capital in Spain lagged behind other European countries in the early stages of economic development.

Despite the static image of formal common pool resource institutions (CPRIs), interest communities always attempted to adapt their institutional framework to their particular needs and interests. The hypothesis of Ensminger, that formal and informal institutional environments were steered by the interplay of external socioeconomic factors, ideology and bargaining power, will be tested by a comparative analysis of three regions within the North Sea area, namely the Campine, within the Low Countries, the Brecklands in England and the Geest area in Schleswig Holstein. Due to this scope, we will advance that especially the distribution of power was vital for the evolution of one specific aspect of CPRIs, namely accessibility. Only communities with relatively balanced distributions of power could retain an inclusive access regime throughout the early modern period, while polarised societies evolved towards more restrictive access to the common wastelands.