Governing the Commons is a landmark study by Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom, who helped debunk the notion of the “tragedy of the commons” by showing how rules can emerge from the bottom up to ensure an efficient, sustainable and shared management of resources. In a similar vein, the title under review here attempts to define and explain the rules governing common resources in China.
The book first provides a limited review of the commons literature before explicating a Chinese understanding of the concept. In the second half of the text, Zhang uses the case of the Lancang River, which runs predominately through Yunnan, to illustrate her claims, focusing on water management systems and the socio-economic effects of building hydropower plants along the river basin. The case study relies on archival sources and fieldwork, carried out in 2012–13, focusing mainly on the Huaneng Hydro-Lancang Company, a state-owned enterprise. Although the data is presented in general terms (without any specific quotations from interviewees), these chapters provide a good example of how central and local authorities operate through both formal and informal institutions to govern water resources and supply electricity to the region. Drawing from this example, the author presents a theoretical framework of the commons (translated here as gonggong) using the concepts of tianxia (all under heaven) and the Grand Union (da tong). She argues that the Chinese commons has a dual structure: public authority and communal sharing. The former refers to state bureaucracy, which in the author's view is an inescapable fact of Chinese history and society; the latter concerns a “people oriented philosophy” of sharing in common (p. 52). Together, Zhang argues, these concepts provide us with a feasible approach to global governance.
The author promotes the idea of an integrated commons including natural resources, institutional commons which deliver public goods, and more intangible commons such as culture and identity. Zhang argues that when investigating a commons, such as Lancang, it is inappropriate to consider welfare or security arrangements within the area as exogenous factors. Throughout the text she is highly critical of the commons literature, writing, for example “that homo economicus features in commons literature, stripped of social and cultural attributes” (p. 34), and that institutional and intangible commons have been “largely forgotten” by commons scholars (p. 33). It is telling that Zhang gives no citations to indicate who perpetuates these flaws. In fact, a well-known adage from the commons literature is that there are no commons without commoners. In other words, there is a widespread understanding that the commons are a social system, not just a resource – that is, despite the author's understanding, most commons scholars would assert that the commons refer to a resource plus the values and norms devised by a defined community to manage a resource for collective benefit.
A dominant theme in the book is that Western understandings of the commons are not appropriate for the Chinese context. A key aspect of the author's argument is that Western concepts of the commons fail to appreciate how, in China, state authority plays a significant role in managing common pool resources. Zhang claims that studies on civil society and collective action in China are foreign given that they are rooted in Western civilization and thus cannot account for Chinese particularities. This seems to ignore the ample body of literature on civil society in China which recognizes the role of the state. Anthony Spires’ notion of contingent symbiosis is one example of how the literature has not, contrary to Zhang, tried to premise Chinese civil sphere on Western theories. Similarly, the author argues that Ostrom's work “does not apply to China” (p. 252). One of Ostrom's principles for governing the commons was polycentrism, which refers to a plurality of interdependent decision-making centres. Yet only three pages after dismissing Ostrom, Zhang proclaims that one of the key features of the Grand Union is “polycentric governance” (p. 255). The author makes no attempt to reconcile these statements. Her claims are further undermined by insisting that commons studies have focused on the West and that “all modern theories of the commons originated from a Western locality and philosophy” (p. 34). In fact, Ostrom conducted her fieldwork in Japan, Nepal and Indonesia.
One gets the sense in reading this book that the author's real target is not the commons per se but rather providing a justification for the utility of tianxia and Grand Union as alternatives to the nation-state system. Zhang claims that “the concept of tianxia and Grand Union are culturally acceptable in the great Asian circle” (p. 253). She seems to base this claim on the family-oriented nature of the region. But one wonders how those in Southeast Asia, with historical memory of the tributary system, would feel about this or whether ethnic minorities in China today find state intrusions on their religion and language “culturally acceptable” or not. This is one of the many problems with tianxia: it seeks to incorporate difference through forced assimilation. Although Zhang cites some of the problems from forced migration as a result of hydropower plants in Yunnan, she never really pauses to acknowledge, much less explore, the limits of a hierarchical worldview which theories such as tianxia rely upon.
Despite these issues, the book is not without merit. The author has identified an important area of study in need of further work. It is quite likely that the Chinese commons requires a re-think of existing concepts and theories. One size does not necessarily fit all as the author highlights. But whether tianxia and Grand Union are the keys to understanding the commons in China requires a far more critical investigation than presented here. Nonetheless, the book will appeal to those interested in these concepts and to those who research water management policies and hydropower in China.
