DU PUBLIC AUX COMMONS REGARDS CROISÉS SUR OSTROM ET SIMON

Abstract

The study of the governance of Elinor Ostrom’s commons explores the rules of governance of collective action
which, precisely because they are collective action, do not allow the reference to the concept of optimum;
However the establishment of these governance rules may borrow exploring areas explored by Herbert Simon
restoring procedural rationality and decision satisficing. If all players maximized their “expected subjective
utility” (according to Simon), when exploiting a natural resource such as water, pastures or forests, there
would be indeed the phenomenon of stowaway which lead to the tragedy of Hardin. But this hypothesis does
not reflect a pragmatic view of human behavior. Besides the fact that humans are neither totally selfish or
totally altruistic, they are highly constrained by the limits of their cognitive ability, computational and
communicational showed by the work of H. Simon. E. Ostrom also recognizes that these works have “strongly
influenced”him. There are thus potentially fruitful teachings in this crossover works of E.Ostrom and H.A.
Simon on the governance of collective action. It is the deepening of the correspondence of their work that we
will work, proposing to clarify the process and the evolving governance of multiple forms of collective action.