From fish to land grabbing - a note on the transition of the concept of “common property” in property rights research under two traditions

Abstract

This essay begins with a trialogue on the definitions of “common property” and introduces two “traditions” of interpreting property rights. The older, traced to Gordon (1954) and propagated by Cheung (1970), distinguishes common from communal property; the younger, to Ciriacy-Wantrup & Bishop (1975) and made popular by Ostrom (2000), calls “commons” (communal in the sense of the older tradition) “common property. With the help of three matrices, the essay summarises the two traditions and explains that property rights and access are two distinct dimensions, respectively de jure and de facto, of resource enjoyment.