Elinor Ostrom

Indiana University Bloomington

Elinor Ostrom was an American political scientist and economist at Indiana University Bloomington who became the first woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, awarded in 2009 for her analysis of economic governance, particularly common-pool resources. Ostrom challenged Garrett Hardin's influential 'tragedy of the commons' argument, which claimed that resources held in common would inevitably be overexploited. Through extensive fieldwork and comparative case studies — studying irrigation systems, fisheries, forests, and grazing lands in diverse cultures — Ostrom identified conditions under which communities successfully develop institutions to sustainably manage shared resources without privatization or state control. Her Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and her identification of design principles for robust common-pool resource governance have directly influenced environmental policy, fisheries management, groundwater governance, and the design of international environmental agreements. Ostrom was a founding director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. She passed away in 2012.