Cooperation and Commons Research Giessen

These problems include local institutions world-wide trying to manage common-pool resources like forests, fish, pastures or irrigation systems in an efficient, just and sustainable way. By analysing successful and unsuccessful management attempts we are trying to develop a theoretical framework to ease those efforts. Thus, future generations could be enabled to choose the optimal path. Other probl

ems affect everyone of us – like climate change and global efforts to stop it. In our opinion, it won’t be technology alone that will be able to turn that current negative trend around, but a new way of thinking about the world. Most importantly this comprises the most successful ways of cooperation. This is what is our research is about – how to enhance cooperation. This includes questions like:

* Under which circumstances are humans willing to cooperate?
* Which factors advance cooperation, which prevent it?
* Are there certain mechanisms which are able to trigger altruism and willingness to cooperate? Answers to these questions are still not fully clear, but a picture has begun to emerge. We would like to contribute to completing that picture.