Tensions in the original premises of the IAD framework compared to contemporary spatial applications:Revisiting Elinor Ostrom

The IAD framework was developed in circumstances different from contemporary spatial and governance issues. This article systematically compares Elinor Ostrom’s work (1965–2017) and contemporary applications in spatial and governance research using the IAD framework. Findings include firstly that action situations and action arenas are applied inconsistently in contemporary research due to evolution of the concepts throughout Ostrom’s own work; secondly, that the IAD is in many researches incoherently used where rules are studied in isolation of their configuration or rule configurations in isolation of the community attributes; and thirdly, that the application of IAD is mostly incomplete, specifically as explicit commons dilemmas, common pool resources and community are frequently undefined. A more consistent, coherent, and complete application better allows reproducible research and is fundamental for a better understanding of the relationship between institutions and communities.