16 Feb 2015

What would Elinor do?



In 2009 Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics.  She was not, she told me when I met her in 2012, an economist, insisting she was a quite different species a political economist.  She was also quite clearly a political ecologist.  I believe that a careful study of her words and work provides much for inspiration for Green Parties.  From an attention to political strategy to a careful understanding of institutions to an acute awareness of the science of ecology to a respect for popular wisdom to a understanding for the slippery but shaping influence of norms, culture and words, her inspiration is both immense and immensely practical.  To achieve an effective green politics, we should ask what would Elinor do.  This is a paragraph, it will grow into an article and then become a book. 

2 comments:

Amanda said...

What would one start with reading on her work, Derek?

Derek Wall said...

You could try her book Governing the Commons and there is a reading list here http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/elinor-ostrom-reading-list/?_r=0

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