Governance of Commons in a Large Nondemocratic Country: The Case of Forestry in the Russian Federation

A substantial portion of Elinor Ostrom’s work critically examines the interplay between decentralization and efficient governance of commons. Ostrom’s suggestion is to shift from the dichotomous view of decentralization versus centralization to a more complex picture, labeled “polycentric governance.” This article applies this theory and uses a novel data set to test how the allocation of jurisdictions between the center and the regions affects forest governance in the Russian Federation. The main finding confirms the central argument of polycentricity; that is, the combination of federal involvement and the involvement of subnational interest groups improves the efficiency of forestry management. However, when either federal government or subnational nongovernmental actors dominate forest governance, the efficiency of forest management decreases.

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