Measuring the potential for self-governance: an approach for the community-based management of the common-pool resources

Self-governance can be a suitable instrument for the communitybased management of a common pool resource (CPR). Under self-governnce, individuals may organize themselves for the use of a CPR, a lake in our case study, to deal with problems of overexploitation and low profits that arise due to open access. Unlike most of previous research, which are ex-post in nature, this research explores the feasibility and desirability of carrying out an exante assessment of the potential for self-governance to manage a CPR. Taking a set of theoretical conditions, this research proposes a way to assess the CPR users’ perception on the adoption of self-governance. It represents a step toward understanding a priori whether self-governance would be feasible or not.