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The "tragedy of the commons" is a central concept in human ecology and the study of the environment. It has had tremendous value for stimulating research, but it only describes the reality of human-environment interactions in special situations. Research over the past thirty years has helped clarify how human motivations, rules governing access to resources, the structure of social organizations, and the resource systems themselves interact to determine whether or not the many dramas of the commons end happily. In this book, leaders in the field review the evidence from several disciplines and many lines of research and present a state-of-the-art assessment. They summarize lessons learned and identify the major challenges facing any system of governance for resource management. They also highlight the major challenges for the next decade: making knowledge development more systematic; understanding institutions dynamically; considering a broader range of resources (such as global and technological commons); and taking into account the effects of social and historical context. This book will be a valuable and accessible introduction to the field for students and a resource for advanced researchers.

David Bollier outlines some possible online governing strategies for the commons.

"If Planet Earth is to survive in the coming decades as we know it, we must find new ways to protect our planet from the unsustainable growth imperatives of neoliberal economics and politics. This will require a new architecture of "green governance"―laws, public policies, and social practices that can honor human rights and commons-based management of natural resources large and small"

The following sites and resources are "insanely useful Web sites" for government transparency.

"The LiquidFeedback mission statement concludes, "All the experience we have gained over the past months shows people participate if they think it makes sense and representatives at least acknowledge the will of the participants rather than arguing with silent majorities." It concludes with a ringing line from Thomas Jefferson: … every man is a sharer… and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day." "

The History Commons website is an experiment in open-content civic journalism. It provides a space for people to conduct grassroots-level investigations on any issue, providing the public with a useful tool to conduct oversight of government and private sector entities.

A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports.

But the distinction between "common" and "public" is not one that most people in most circumstances wish to preserve. Indeed, one of the functions of democratically-grounded government is to seek to functionally eliminate that distinction for its citizenry as much as possible in terms of their day-to-day lives.

"The most significant connection between land-grant institutions and commons-based organizations and movements exists in their shared interest for the public community. How their interests have been applied or expressed may differ, yet their common theme could be a catalyst for future partnership and collaboration. "

Keynote by David Bollier at Economies of the Commons Conference, April 12, 2008, Amsterdam.