Social Sciences after the crisis: a new start for interdisciplinary collaboration
About the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Elinor Ostrom
The decision to award the Nobel Prize to Elinor Ostrom has been greeted chiefly as the first time the Nobel Prize for Economics has been given to a woman. This is an important moment, indeed "epochal".
And we too greet this news with enthusiasm. For this fact, of course, but also for the woman who has been recognised, Elinor, whom we have known and admired for a long time for the scientific work performed over many years on subjects that for too long have remained on the sidelines, not only in the economic sphere but also in other disciplines. Estimation and admiration that led, three years ago, to the publication of the Italian translation of Elinor Ostrom's most influential work, Governing the Commons, at the initiative of the Consiglio italiano per le Scienze Sociali.
The lessons that can be learnt from Elinor Ostrom's scientific work (and from that of Oliver Williamson, the other Nobel recipient, in different but related fields) are many.
Firstly, her work points to and follows through with the retrieval of experiences that may lie outside the current confines of the contemporary world. Focusing on a subject such as the Commons, i.e. the collective ownership of land and forests, the origins of which go back to the Middle Ages, means rejecting all constraints binding us to the present, it also means asking why certain realities have developed over time, and their importance declined in economic life.
Secondly, this work is the fruit of an awareness, just like that of Fernand Braduel, that there is a long-term history that cannot be forgotten even by a shortist view of economics.
Thirdly, the work suggests viewing with great intellectual freedom the positive experiences of the successful management of commons in the past, far from restricted agriculture-based economies, since they suggest models of behaviour that can be translated, updated and applied to the extended horizons of the modern-day, perilous global economy. In which many collective assets are at risk. If these assets are not well governed through considered rules and instruments, they pose a threat to the very survival of the planet. By way of recommendations in this sense, her work stresses the importance of cooperative action, which has often been a prominent characteristic of local communities.
All of the above in the full knowledge that one must always take into account the reality of the modern-day economy, shaped by the competition laws of the market, and the quantitative methods of analysis that have become consolidated in economic disciplines.
There can be no doubt that with this Nobel Prize for Economics, awarded to a scholar with such a sound analytical and theoretical background but also to an "non-economist" economist, that manner of looking at the economy, which is usually called "mainstream", as the chief, if not supreme, social science, which the choosers of the Nobel Prize recipient had themselves helped to affirm in past decades, has in a way been interrupted. This fact in itself has made a positive contribution to the debate which has seen the economy and economists charged, over the past year, with not having foreseen the enormous worldwide crisis. This positive contribution recalls the urgent need to fully embrace the interdisciplinary method and cooperation among the various social sciences. Many social scientists, non-economists, had actually foreseen this. The progress of social sciences, useful for the government of complex, difficult societies, lies not in the surplus of simplifying specialisations that tend to give a false view of reality, but rather in a superior ability to integrate different analytical schemes. In such a way as to establish appropriate interpretative, prescriptive and, insofar as possible, forward-looking platforms. Any other simplification belongs to the world of consolatory fiction.
One final consideration should be made. With regard to political policies, whatever their actual use in the scientific sphere, it can be stated that the contribution of analytical and propositional tools developed by Elinor Ostrom (collaborating constantly with her husband, Vincent, a sharp and fervent student of America's political and constitutional system) has become crucial for the ecologically sustainable economy being promoted by President Obama. Nevertheless, the deep roots of the Ostroms' thoughts - which I repeat, for what it's worth - are in the origins of American republicanism, handed down over time as a certain contraposition to democratic tradition, focusing on the central role of the Federal Government. Perhaps a meeting point can be that tendency towards community building, which has also been a democratic trait in times of difficulty.
For all of the above, the Consiglio italiano per le Scienze Sociali, which has been very much in tune with the work of scholars such as Elinor Ostrom, views the announcement of this Nobel Prize in a very favourable light. And it considers this moment to be a new point of departure for pursuing the interdisciplinary method.
Sergio Ristuccia
President of Consiglio italiano per le Scienze Sociali
Download here the article by Sergio Ristuccia from Bancaria n.12/2009
Download here the editorial from queste istituzioni n.155 (2009)
