E28: /Governing the Commons/, part 4: creating a successful commons
I describe how the Gal Oya irrigation system got better. It's an example that might inspire hope. I also imagine how a software codebase and its team might have a similar improvement.
As with earlier episodes, I'm leaning on Elinor Ostrom’s 1990 book, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, and Erik Nordman’s 2021 book, The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom: Essential Lessons for Collective Action.
I also mention James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State, which I discuss starting with episode 17.
More about Gal Oya and similar projects
- Uphoff, N.T. "People's Participation in Water Management: Gal Oya, Sri Lanka". In Public Participation in Development Planning and Management: Cases from Africa and Asia, ed. J.C. Garcia-Samor, 1985
- Perera, J. "The Gal Oya Farmer Organization Programme: A Learning Process?" In Participatory Management in Sri Lanka's Irrigation Schemes, 1986.
- Korten, D. "Community Organization and Rural Development: a Learning Process Approach", Public Administration on Review 40, 1980 (Philippines, Bangladesh)
- Korten, F. "Building National Capacity to Develop Water Users' Associations: Experience from the Philippines, World Bank working paper 528, 1982
- Rahman, A. "Some Dimensions of People's Participation in the Bloomni Sena Movement", United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1981 (Nepal)
- Rabibhadena, A. The Transformation of Tambon Yokkrabat, Changwat Samut Sakorn, Thammasat University, 1980 (Thailand).
Refactoring books I have liked
- Martin Fowler, Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999
- William C. Wake, Refactoring Workbook, 2003
- Joshua Kerievsky, Refactoring to Patterns, 2004
- Scott W. Ambler and Pramod J. Sadalage, Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design, 2006
The Strangler Fig pattern
- Fowler's original blog post
- A case study I commissioned, way back when.
Credits
"Agriculture in Extreme Environments - Irrigation channel for wheat fields and date palms" by Richard Allaway is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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