In the article Benefits of the Commons, Berkes et. al challenge the idea of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’, proposed by Garrett Hardin in 1968. The idea, that resources held in common are vulnerable to overexploitation as there is no Read More …
Simon Dalby castigates Richard Kaplan’s article “The Coming Anarchy”, a pessimistic view of societal collapse. Kaplan theorized that rapid population growth will overload resources, especially in urban slums, leading to an increase in crime. Beginning in Western Africa, he claims Read More …
Lisa Cliggett discusses the usefulness of the concept of carrying capacity in her article “Carrying Capacity’s New Guise”. Since the term came into use in the 1940s researchers have tried to measure carrying capacity as an exact value. Cliggett discusses Read More …
Like many countries in the region Lesotho has received countless development interventions from international organizations and industrialized countries, all of which have resulted in varying degrees of failure in achieving their own objectives. Ferguson discusses both the reasons for these Read More …
Using the metaphor of William Freudenburg, who compared short term policy makers to drug addicts, the authors address the fact that communities often benefit from resource extraction in the short run while faring far worse in the long run. Despite Read More …