Commons and legality

Analyzing the current trend in common property theory to contextualize the relationships between commons and their environments, and suggesting a more sensitive, dynamic, multi-dimensional frame of analysis - one that will examine the interaction between internal variables of the commons and external variables stemming from the environments, and do so along a time axis - this chapter incorporates legality into the analysis of commons' governance. Exposing the assumptions underlying current theory regarding the place of law in the reality of the commons, the chapter offers, as an alternative, a cultural approach for the analysis of the relationship between commons and legality. Presenting the case of the Kibbutz as a test case, it concludes by demonstrating the merits of combining old and new insights on commons and legality in promoting our understanding of the fascinating phenomena of the commons and its modes of governance.