AGAINST THE WIND - ON REINTRODUCING COMMONS LAW IN NORTHERN NORWAY

Since the Age of Enlightenment, modernization has taken the form of a parallel growth of the significance of both the state and the individu al, at the expense of the intermediary or secondary groups or collecti ves of various kinds. With a modern notion of over-burdening and high transaction costs of the mature state and a disrupting alienation of t he individual, the search for institutional solutions that are ''neith er market, nor state,'' has intensified in both academia and bureaucra cies. However, such : efforts often clash with many of the values of m odern Western society. In Northern Norway, the political struggle over the reintroduction of Commons Law for Mountain Areas revealed some of these contradictions. This example also shows why many sub-optimal so lutions in modern resource management are favored because of the value attached to individual freedom and equal treatment by the state; even when these contradict the sustainable governing of a resource. In con trast, institutional designs based on smaller collectives are perceive d as less attractive because they involve less individual freedom, mor e duties and more inequality. The lessons are used for a discussion of the role of common property institutions in the process of modernisat ion.