Commons and global public goods have become popular concepts in academic debates on governance. Moreover, these concepts are no longer the exclusive domain of economists. Different disciplines (such as legal and political theory) have appropriated them in their own specific ways. The result of this popularity, however, is that they are often confused or used in ways that muddle their distinct characteristics. In this article we propose some distinctions to clarify the use of these concepts. First, we will show how what were initially social scientific concepts started being used in a more normative way. Second, we will subject the writings of Elinor Ostrom and Inge Kaul and colleagues to a discourse analysis. This means that we will show that some normative assumptions were already present in the concepts of ‘commons’ and ‘global public goods’. We take it that, although Ostrom and Kaul are often read as social scientists, it is both possible and fruitful to read them as proposing two very different visions of power in a globalizing world. In a third section we then demonstrate more concretely what these visions look like. Finally, we conclude by looking at the possible advantages and downsides to both models.

中文翻译：

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作为公地或全球公共物品进行治理：关于权力的两个故事

在有关治理的学术辩论中，公地和全球公益已经成为流行的概念。而且，这些概念不再是经济学家的专有领域。不同的学科（例如法律和政治理论）已按照自己的特定方式对其进行了分配。然而，这种流行的结果是，它们常常被混淆或以混淆其独特特征的方式使用。在本文中，我们提出了一些区别以阐明这些概念的使用。首先，我们将说明最初如何以更规范的方式使用社会科学概念。其次，我们将对Elinor Ostrom和Inge Kaul及其同事的著作进行话语分析。这意味着我们将证明“公共”和“全球公益”概念中已经存在一些规范性假设。我们认为，尽管奥斯特罗姆（Ostrom）和考尔（Kaul）通常被视为社会科学家，但将它们理解为在全球化世界中提出两种截然不同的权力观是有可能而且富有成果的。在第三部分中，我们将更具体地说明这些愿景。最后，我们总结一下两种模型的可能优势和不利之处。