Choice, Rules and Collective Action : The Ostroms on the Study of Institutions and Governance

Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) received many high honors in her long and productive career, including a Nobel Prize. But perhaps her greatest legacy will be through the hundreds of students, researchers, and colleagues who learned from and were inspired by her. She was Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, and professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She was founding director and senior research director of The Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. She is the only woman to receive the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which she shared with Oliver Williamson in 2009. The Nobel committee awarded her the prize 'for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.' Ostrom was known for her remarkable energy and appetite for work, her down-to-earth manner, and her strong loyalty to students and colleagues. Born August 7, 1933, she worked her way through college and earned a PhD in political science from UCLA, despite being warned that women were unlikely to work in academia. After becoming a faculty member at the University of Indiana, Bloomington in 1965, she conducted research on topics ranging from urban police departments to groundwater basins, irrigation systems, pasture lands, forests, and fisheries. In her book Governing the Commons and in many other publications, she demonstrated that groups can effectively manage resources without resorting to government control or private ownership. Elinor and Vincent Ostrom received the University Medal, the highest award bestowed by Indiana University, in 2010. Elinor Ostrom was named in Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people in April 2012. About Vincent Ostrom Vincent Alfred Ostrom (1919–2012) was an internationally acclaimed scholar of democratic governance, whose work combined theory and practice, and yielded important insights about the management of natural resources, cities and villages, and international institutions. He was also a highly regarded teacher who, with his wife Elinor Ostrom, nurtured the network of collaborative, transdisciplinary scholars, faculty colleagues, and graduate students known as the Bloomington School. Vincent Ostrom was the Arthur F Bentley Professor Emeritus of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences. He was co-director of The Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis until his retirement in 2003. He was a pioneer of the 'polycentric' approach to government ― the idea that overlapping, concurrent decision making can make for the best choices in public economies. He was also among the founders of public choice theory, but soon came to disagree with some of its basic premises, leading to the creation of what has become known as the 'Bloomington School of Political-Economy,' which combines public choice theory with polycentrism and a strong measure of empiricism. He helped draft Article VIII of the Alaska Constitution, which enshrined the idea that the people of Alaska would own the state’s natural resources. Born September 25, 1919, in Nooksack, Washington, he attended Los Angeles City College and earned a BA, MA, and PhD from UCLA. He worked as a high school teacher; a professor at the University of Wyoming, the University of Oregon, and UCLA; and a resource associate at Resources for the Future. He came to Indiana University Bloomington as a professor of political science in 1965; eight years later, he and Elinor Ostrom founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. He received the American Political Science Association’s John Gaus Distinguished Lecturer Award, the Daniel Elazar Distinguished Scholar Award, IU’s University Medal and the Herman B Wells Visionary Award; the latter two were presented jointly to Vincent and Elinor Ostrom in 2010.