SCALES deals with the continuities and ruptures of common-pool resource (CPR) management (pastures and forests) based on common property institutions in Switzerland, taking as point of reference international research on Swiss commons (Netting 1976) and its use by Elinor Ostrom ’s work on robust institutions for the commons (Ostrom 1990). While Swiss commons are labeled as reasons for the sustainable maintenance of its cultural landscape ecosystems, the last two centuries show that local resource governance has been challenged by external political, economic and institutional changes, such
as state building and globalization processes. Some of these adapted to changing institutional frameworks and play a major role in CPR use and management. The diversity among currently active common property institutions in Switzerland is noticeably high and gives rise to international interests in the Swiss Way of governing CPRs over different SCALES. Their current functioning nad related history, their embedment in Swiss Public POlicy and local people's emic perception, aspirations and innovations as well as economic calculations as intended by SCALES are, therefore, of major interest for both the Swiss and the international community.
SCALES tends to compare CPR governance focusing on pasture and forests under robust common property regimes to actors' perceptions and adaptive innovation strategies in an interdisciplinary way. It includes the disciplines history, social anthropology/human geography, agricultural economics and political science. Based on an in depth analysis of six Swiss case studies by th historians of the project - case selected on the basis of the longue durée of their institutions - we move to in-depth social antrhopological/human geography field studies. These analyze the emic perception of local actors in order to understand the robustness of institutions as well as adaptation and innovations in contemporary times. These perceptions constitute a basic input for broader agro-economic studies, taking into account both economic and non-economic adaptation and incorporates a political science perspective, looking at the embedment of common property institutions in the state and the cantons, featuring in- or exclusion and rules of subsidiary decentralization. This comprehensive inter- and trans-disciplinary approach guarantees a holistic understanding of the potential (i.e. a laboratory for the commons) asking: A) What kind of links between public administration, communal ownership embedded in history and power relations and exposed to economic pressure, are responsible for sustainable commons adaptations and innovations to landscape ecosystems; B) What factors contribute to conflict constellations, loss of local bargaining power and decline of common property institutions and C) Which intermediary variables, such as conflicts, confrontation or wider cooperation with public administration and sectors of the economy, have an impact on the robustness and innovations of commons institutions.
