Book Chapter: Citizenship, Political Competence, and Civic Studies

In Chapter 4 (pp. 33-44) of this work, Paul Dragos Aligica places in sharp relief the Bloomington scholars’ recognition of the pivotal role of citizenship and civic competence as core themes of politics and political theory. The literature on common-pool resources suggests that, though self-enforcement is extraordinarily difficult, individuals who constitute their own systems and interact repeatedly with one another can, and do, self-enforce constitutions and use scarce resources in common without the degradation of the environment symbolized by the expression “the tragedy of the commons,” which was popularized by Garrett Hardin’s challenging article in Science. Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues have found that “a group of principals can organize themselves voluntarily to retain the residuals of their own efforts.” To paraphrase Hobbes, covenants can be without a sword, just as self-governance may also be self-enforcing.6 Equally important is the recognition that various forms of collective action can, and do, take place simultaneously and for different reasons at the micro-level and macro-level of society. Recognition that we live in a multi-constitutional world helped lead Vincent Ostrom to develop what remains his single most important legacy, the core concept of polycentricity.

Read the Chapter from AACU.org.