Tragedy of the Commons

I hadn’t thought about the tragedy of the commons in years until at a rest stop on a recent road trip I watched a man neglect his duty to pick up after his two dogs. His off-leash dogs. This behavior irked me enough that my husband said, “Let it go,” before I swung myself out of our picnic table, intent on pointing out the rules to this dissident. The next scene was predictable. The man ran screaming out into the parking lot after his dogs. Who were nearly run over by a bus. Like they should know the rules.

Have you ever taken a shortcut off the sidewalk onto the grass? Your footsteps alone leave little trace. But what if others go behind you, seeing they can also shave some time off their walk? Soon bicycles will use the path to pass slow pedestrians. Before long, the grass is a downtrodden dirt path. Muddy when it rains. Your act of getting to your destination just a little faster ruins the nice grass for everyone.

Tragedy of the commons describes what happens when a shared resource is misused because each individual acts in their own short-term self-interest. The man at the rest stop (I could call him many names, but let’s call him Ace because it’s more polite) saves time and effort by using a public resource as a drive-through potty stop for his dogs (his property), to his sole benefit. Ace may never pass this way again. Why should he care if he or anyone else cleans up after their pets?

The rest of the public, unaware of Ace’s actions, unwittingly steps into the land mines, causing them time and effort in cleaning off their shoes. There are other Aces. Over time, there is no safe place to walk dogs or stretch your legs, and the resource becomes less usable.

Ace did not intend harm. He made the decision that made the most sense for him. The harm emerges from incentives. Here, Ace reasons that there is no harm in his actions. Why should he bend down? What harm can two little dogs do? After all, look at all this grass!

The classic examples of tragedy of the commons, a term popularized by ecologist Garrett Hardin in his essay of the same name (1) take issue with selfish individuals and free riders in areas like overfishing, air pollution, and overpopulation. And littering or damaging public spaces. He was thinking of Ace.

It isn’t just Ace and his little dogs and sidewalk sidesteppers that are bothering me. That would hardly be of interest. If we look at war through the lens of the tragedy of the commons, we can better see this idea of how short-term, self-interested behavior affects shared resources. We can use the model to see why this happens, why the situation escalates, and possible interventions.

Let’s make the shared resource “peace.”

Let’s make the shared resource “peace.” As leaders pursue their respective immediate national advantage, the shared system that makes peace possible-trust, economic interdependence, military restraint-is degraded. Like jealous siblings, no country wants to be left out of the game. Each actor believes restraint is risky, so escalation becomes the rational choice. Even at the expense of peace. Even when everyone loses.

The arms race is an easy example. If one nation builds up its military, others feel compelled to do the same. Who wants to be the one country exercising restraint? In isolation, there is no incentive for restraint, so what we get is a spiraling arms race that consumes resources and increases the likelihood of conflict.

Another example shows the logic behind preemptive war. A nation (or small group of nations) may decide the best defense is a good offense and strike before an adversary becomes stronger. This fear drives the decision to encroach upon the world’s stockpile of peace (some amount X at time t=0) by attacking the adversary, hoping to gain an advantage or avoid vulnerability. At time t=1, the stockpile of peace is at X-n, where n represents the escalation in war. Although the nation(s) may have acted to increase world security, overall security decreases by destabilizing peace.

We can see how this scenario could spread to other nations as they build weapons, mobilize troops, and launch their own preemptive or defensive strikes. The paradox arises from a desire to avoid being attacked. But when many actors follow this strategy simultaneously, a reduction in the common good of peace becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This tragedy is hard to avoid because under uncertainty, leaders often choose the option that seems safest in the short-term, even if it increases the long-term risk of war. Trading short-term benefits for long-term costs. Sounds political.

When stability of the shared commons holds, shipping routes stay open. Commodity prices remain predictable. Civilian populations are safer and wars remain localized. But this stability is fragile because there are individual incentives to escalate hostilities. Each actor has reasons that make escalation seem rational from their own perspective, and from each viewpoint, not responding may appear dangerous.

Because every side tries to protect its own security, the collective system of security deteriorates. Missile and drone strikes spread to neighboring countries as attacks and counterattacks expand the conflict geographically. Closures of trade routes and price increases of keystone commodities (oil) disrupt global economies. Although no single actor may have intended global instability, the combined incentives produce it anyway.

Hardin’s solution was limited. Turn the shared resource into private property or impose government regulation. This path has been workable for fishing or pollution, but how can you divide up parcels of peace, let alone “regulate” it?

In 2009, political economist Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2) for her “analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” Ostrom showed how communities can successfully manage shared resources by establishing clear rules, monitoring, imposing graduated sanctions, and collective decision-making. Whenever personal gain is separated from shared costs and coordination among actors is weak, conditions are ripe for treading on the common good.

Peace depends on trust. Trust is formed around norms and formalized by treaties or other agreements that bind actors to restrain individual actions that can, in a broader view, harm the overall good. When countries repeatedly violate these agreements or abandon these norms, the shared system of trust erodes. Conflict becomes more likely everywhere. Not just between the original adversaries.

The answer lies in collective restraint. But in the middle of a war, restraint feels irrational and dangerous to each actor. So the tragedy of reducing the supply of world peace continues. Maybe it’s X-2n by now because the war is twice as widespread. There are three potential outcomes. Mutual exhaustion, negotiation, or overwhelming destruction that causes a reset. We have seen all of these.

Ostrom’s contribution was her insight that tragedy of the commons occurs not because people are selfish, but because institutions-the structures that make society work-are poorly designed. From that lens, she determined several patterns that successful management of commons follows. Although she studied such diverse structures as irrigation systems in Nepal, alpine grazing lands in Switzerland, and groundwater systems in California, I think her findings are relevant to war and peace.

First, we must think of peace as a shared resource.

First, we must think of peace as a shared resource. A global commons that the participants themselves must actively govern. We all have to consider peace a valuable resource worth preserving. Simple but hard.

Successful commons have clear boundaries. Nations know the rules and the participants. This means clearly defined borders, agreements about military behavior, and recognized norms of conduct. Institutions like the United Nations attempt to create those shared rules, even if imperfectly. But sometimes we have to start small. Ceasefire agreements, prisoner exchanges, and humanitarian corridors that are enforceable. When boundaries or norms collapse, tragedy of the commons (trampling peace) becomes more likely.

Monitoring becomes a proxy for trust. In global security, this means arms inspections, satellite verification, and neutral observers. The commons are preserved when rule-breaking can be detected. A current example of this is the International Atomic Energy Agency’s role as watchdog over global nuclear activities. Monitoring reduces the fear of cheating, a major trigger of conflict.

Ostrom’s observation that successful systems rarely jump straight to extreme punishment (all-out attacks here) is seen when we look at world peace. Punishment for infractions escalates gradually. In geopolitics, this looks like diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, and limited acts of enforcement. The goal is to correct behavior-to restore an actor who has come out of alignment with agreed-upon global norms-before full-scale war becomes the “best” option.

Communities that administer commons most effectively interact constantly, leaving room for communication and negotiation. They leverage any trade relationships, security alliances, or reputation to encourage cooperation. Diplomatic channels remain open even during conflict, preventing misinterpretation and accidental escalation.

Rules work best when those who must abide by them help create them. Applied globally, this suggests that durable peace agreements require participation from regional actors, smaller states, and community groups. Not just the big and powerful countries.

War emerges from unmanaged commons. Peace emerges from institutional structures that facilitate cooperation and build trust before trust fully exists.

We can take several key insights from Ostrom. Peace fails when nations behave like isolated competitors exploiting the commons for their own interests. Peace becomes sustainable when nations behave more like members of a shared governance system. War emerges from unmanaged commons. Peace emerges from institutional structures that facilitate cooperation and build trust before trust fully exists.

I am not naïve to the reality that some actors may not subscribe to the global definition of peace. Or will continue to trample it instead of preserving it. These actors have no motivation to take part in rule-making, boundary-setting, or monitoring. In fact, they reject these. Any communication is inflammatory and threatening. Negotiations are strained or lacking. Leadership is oppressive, and participation by that nation’s own people is not permitted, let alone participation with other nations’ peoples. These actors insist on behaving like isolated competitors exploiting peace for their own purposes, often with long-standing, egregious human rights violations.

Maybe the tragedy part of the commons is inevitable.

(1) Hardin, Garrett. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162, no. 3859 (1968): 1243-1248.

(2) Dr. Ostrom shared the Nobel with Oliver E. Williamson. She was the first woman to win the prize.

Love, Alice