7

Exploring Ostrom’s approach to property rights and institutions is fundamental to any effort aimed at “reconsidering property” by discussing the existing “alternative conceptualizations.” Beyond the fact that Ostrom was the first to introduce a conceptualization of common property based on the notion of a “bundle of rights”, a crucial point is her rejection of the “atemporal and ahistorical perspective” of Alchian and Demsetz’s theory of the property right. Ostrom explicitly affirms the political dimension of any system of property rights or rules. Political dimension should be understood as the rejection of any spontaneous, natural, or individualist approach to property in favour of a view that has a system of rules that cannot be separated from permanent collective action and deliberation and that sees property rights as social relationships. The aim of this article is to highlight the contributions and limitations of Ostrom’s approach to our understanding of the political dimension of property rights and institutions. After briefly setting out the research program, the foundations, the conceptual tools, and the major results of this approach, I emphasize its three contributions: (1) overcoming the naturalistic bias in Samuelson’s taxonomy of goods by recognizing the social and political attributes of the notion of rivalry and exclusion; (2) understanding markets as diverse, complex, and institutional constructions in which collective action, law, and political deliberation are present at all stages, even at the level of the definition and delimitation of the object of exchange; (3) explaining the reflexivity of the appropriators or users of common-pool resources when they have to shape and apply a system of rules. The limitations of Ostrom’s approach to property and institutions concern the absence of any clear account of the nature of this political dimension. This is explained by the absence of a theory of institutional change in her approach. It has only recently started to deal with this issue. I show that the account of institutional change already provided is purely empirical and do not address the controversy that this issue has incited in several of the social sciences. This evasive approach to institutional change results in a weak historical view of the evolution of property rights and it undermines the ability to shape a theory that takes into account the structural factors—asymmetries of power, inequality, etc.—that drive the relationships that humans have with their environment.