Cosmopolitan Commons ― Sharing Resources and Risks Across Borders

With the advent of modernity, the sharing of resources and infrastructures rapidlyexpanded beyond local communities into regional, national, and even transnational space -- nowhereas visibly as in Europe, with its small-scale political divisions. This volume views these sharedresource spaces as the seedbeds of a new generation of technology-rich bureaucratic andtransnational commons. Drawing on the theory of cosmopolitanism, which seeks to model the dynamicsof an increasingly interdependent world, and on the tradition of commons scholarship inspired by thelate Elinor Ostrom, the book develops a new theory of "cosmopolitan commons" that providesa framework for merging the study of technology with such issues as risk, moral order, andsustainability at levels beyond the nation-state.

After laying out thetheoretical framework, the book presents case studies that explore the empirical nuances: airspaceas transport commons, radio broadcasting, hydropower, weather forecasting and genetic diversity asinformation commons, transboundary air pollution, and two "capstone" studies ofinterlinked, temporally layered commons: one on overlapping commons within the North Sea forfreight, fishing, and fossil fuels; and one on commons for transport, salmon fishing, and cleanwater in the Rhine.

Contributors:Hakon With Andersen, NilDisco, Paul N. Edwards, Arne Kaijser, Eda Kranakis, Kristiina Korjonen-Kuusipuro, Tiago Saraiva,Nina Wormbs

The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket.