Institutions and practices of the collective use of resources in the European agrarian economy: Comparative reflections and research perspectives

The last contribution sums up the major results of this volume. It adopts a comparative perspective by relating the various observations to each other and by placing them in the wider context of the recent relevant literature. It makes a case for the German notion ‘ländliche Gemeingüter’ as an umbrella term analogous to ‘rural commons’ in English. The following core section of the synthesis is organised according to the analytical framework laid out in the preface. The first part deals with ‘resource systems and institutional arrangements’; we then turn to ‘inclusion and exclusion’ and to corresponding cultures of conflict and consensus; afterwards, the political sphere in the narrow, state-centred sense is illuminated under the heading ‘constitutional structures’; we close with a review of those factors which fostered or hampered ‘processes of change’. In light of such considerations, we finally identify five dimensions of the study of rural commons that deserve more attention in the future: (1) language and terminology; (2) micro-dynamics and vertical interaction, especially prior to the mid-eighteenth century; (3) the effects of exclusion from common resources on conflicts and social inequality; (4) an agenda beyond the paradigms of tragedy and sustainability; (5) regional research disparities.The last contribution sums up the major results of this volume. It adopts a comparative perspective by relating the various observations to each other and by placing them in the wider context of the recent relevant literature. It makes a case for the German notion ‘ländliche Gemeingüter’ as an umbrella term analogous to ‘rural commons’ in English. The following core section of the synthesis is organised according to the analytical framework laid out in the preface. The first part deals with ‘resource systems and institutional arrangements’; we then turn to ‘inclusion and exclusion’ and to corresponding cultures of conflict and consensus; afterwards, the political sphere in the narrow, state-centred sense is illuminated under the heading ‘constitutional structures’; we close with a review of those factors which fostered or hampered ‘processes of change’. In light of such considerations, we finally identify five dimensions of the study of rural commons that deserve more attention in the future: (1) language and terminology; (2) micro-dynamics and vertical interaction, especially prior to the mid-eighteenth century; (3) the effects of exclusion from common resources on conflicts and social inequality; (4) an agenda beyond the paradigms of tragedy and sustainability; (5) regional research disparities