Innovations in commons research and extensions of the commons framework have moved far beyond the archetypal village grazing pasture.The dynamism of the field may therefore prompt some reflection on what “commons theory” or “the commons framework” means in non-territorially bounded commons.Fortunately, the origins of Elinor Ostrom’s framework are compatible with such innovations and extensions; indeed, reexamining the line of inquiry that gave rise to the Ostrom framework may benefit those working now on the field’s research frontiers.A political scientist, Ostrom was principally concerned throughout her career – and acutely in the period leading to Governing the Commons – with how people manage (and sometimes fail) to organize the governance of anything by creating and modifying institutional arrangements for coordinating their behavior and pursuing shared goals.In this chapter, those original questions that animated Ostrom’s work are reconsidered for the insights they can provide for current innovations in commons research.

This chapter presents an approach to assess the adaptive capacity of collaborative governance institutions. The approach links institutions and attributes believed to support societies in responding to social-ecological change. The application of such an approach to empirical studies demonstrates how adaptive capacity can be assessed and compared in a systematic fashion. It also sheds light on how different political, economic, and social factors enable or constrain adaptive capacity. By investigating the complex and interrelated nature of institutions and interdependence of adaptive capacity attributes, the chapter offers insights into the kinds of governance qualities that are conducive to adaptive capacity. Further, it underscores the role of contextual factors and power relations in shaping adaptive capacity and points out the need to consider such roles in future adaptive capacity assessments.

This chapter introduces the governance of the frontiers, with a special focus on cybersecurity and Internet governance, by first exploring the application of commons principles to these unique environments. This examination begins by defining key concepts such as “commons,” “pseudo commons,” “public goods,” “club goods,” and “common-pool resources,” before moving on to analyze commons governance through the lens of the economics, political science, and legal literatures. Specifically, the chapter discusses the applicability of law and economics concepts such as property rights, use rights, and transaction costs to the traditional global commons (including the deep seabed, Antarctica, outer space, and the atmosphere) as well as to cyberspace. The evolution of sovereignty in these areas is also summarized with a particular emphasis on how cyberspace is distinct from other commons spaces and what that portends for management. Finally, the field of polycentric institutional analysis is introduced along with its application to cyberspace. It is the purview of Chapter 1 to provide an introduction both to the primary characteristics involved in the governance of the managed and unmanaged global commons and to how these concepts apply (and do not apply) to cyberspace.