Water commons studies in China: dialogue with the 50th anniversary of the global commons research

This lecture will introduce the recent development of the commons studies in China. China has plenty of good traditions in governing the commons and rich experience provided by many departments and disciplines, but just emerges a new research direction in a holistic theory in commons governance and its policy. With the reform and opening-up, the commons governance and policy in China is confronted with more or less tragedies because of three aspects of failures. The cutoff of the Yellow River in about the year of 2000 was a case of government failure, while the underperformance in the reforms of water market and water user associations in recent decade are related to certain degrees of market or social failures. The theory and sense of social-ecological systematic governance is increasingly significant in tackling Chinese commons tragedies. On one hand the commons theory provides insightful inspirations to Chinese commons governance, and on the other hand the experience of Chinese characteristic governance, such as authoritarian, rapid development contexts and tiny endowment, can also offer fresh cases and more comprehensive theoretical contributions. This lecture will give a brief review in Asian commons studies to illustrate the position and development of the Chinses studies, following with the introduction of the Chinese commons studies and then a comparison between the east and the west of development trend of the commons studies in form of dialogue between western and eastern scholars.