Conflict, Cooperation, and Institutional Change on the Commons

Rational choice scholarship posits two principal theories to explain why political institutions emerge and change: cooperation theory and conflict theory. We evaluate cooperation theory and conflict theory to explain the emergence of common property institutions among a group of Maasai pastoralists in southwestern Kenya. Our empirical results show that the change to common property is best explained by conflict theory.
Replication data is available at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/25531

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12137

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