Shared resources, governed in public.
In Common treats environmental and social problems as questions of governance, power, and participation. Its conversations connect research with practice, asking how rules, institutions, and communities shape outcomes on the ground.
PRESS PLAY
In Common is an interview show for people who think environmental problems are also social, political, and institutional problems. It approaches shared resources through governance. That means the conversations often start with forests, fisheries, wildlife, cities, or climate information, then move quickly into questions of authority, incentives, participation, and trust. The pacing is deliberate. Guests are asked to build concepts from the ground up, whether the topic is additionality in forest carbon, relational values in biodiversity policy, or the difference between misinformation and disinformation. The show is especially interested in what happens when policies meet local realities. A discussion of rhino horn trade becomes a conversation about poaching, black markets, local sovereignty, donors, and the people who live with conservation outcomes. A discussion of tree planting becomes a harder look at who plants trees, where forests return, and whether climate benefits are as clean as they appear on a spreadsheet. Carbon markets are treated with similar care. The show does not dismiss them outright, but it insists on the atmospheric test: whether a project creates a real difference. Its social science lens is broad. Recent episodes consider circular migration and inequality in urbanizing regions, the political relationship between elected officials and bureaucrats, and the role of media literacy in a climate information system shaped by powerful platforms. The interviews are academic without becoming sealed off from practice. They draw on books, fieldwork, policy programs, international organizations, and community-level examples. The tone is measured, but not bloodless. Arguments are pressed, definitions matter, and easy moral categories are often replaced with institutional tradeoffs. In Common suits listeners who want to understand how durable change is actually governed. It is less about quick solutions than about the conditions that make solutions legitimate, accountable, and workable.
Made for: For listeners interested in social science, conservation, sustainability, development, and public policy. It suits people who prefer careful interviews, institutional detail, and grounded examples over quick takes.
What sets it apart: In Common stands out by treating environmental and development issues as governance problems shaped by agency, evidence, and local participation. Its strength is the bridge between academic theory and the messy realities of implementation.
In Common explores the connections between humans, their environment and each other through stories told by scholars and practitioners. In-depth interviews and methods webinars explore interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work on commons governance, conservation and development, social-ecological resilience, and sustainability.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Expert interviews connect environmental evidence to the incentives, institutions, and local participation that determine what policies accomplish.
In Common follows environmental problems to the rules, incentives, and relationships that shape them. Michael Cox and Divya conduct detailed expert interviews on forest carbon, reforestation, wildlife trade, urban inequality, fisheries subsidies, and the many ways people assign…
A forest returns here while another is cleared elsewhere; your tree-planting math needs a second look.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp look at how conservation policy, black markets, and local agency collide.
This conversation puts wildlife trade policy at the center, but the real question is governance: who gets to shape conservation rules, whose incentives count, and what happens when law drives trade out of sight instead of keeping it under control.
A grounded tree-planting review that follows carbon claims into forests, communities, and messy accounting.
Tree planting starts here as a plain climate gesture, then widens into a more demanding look at who does the planting, where trees belong, and what it takes for forests to endure.
A clear-eyed conversation on climate misinformation, platform responsibility, and the public conditions free speech needs.
Climate misinformation is treated here less as a culture-war slogan than as a question of public conditions: who shapes what people see, and what free speech means when platforms reward inaccurate, emotionally charged claims.
A grounded conversation about family forests, carbon credits, and what makes climate claims credible.
Family forests anchor this practical review of whether carbon markets can live up to their promises. Michael Cox talks with Nathan Truitt, Executive Vice President of Climate Funding for the American Forest Foundation, about the Family Forest Carbon Program, a collaboration with…
Urbanization is framed as a question of inequality, migration, and the limits of growth.
Urbanization is treated here as more than a story of larger cities. It becomes a way to think about inequality, migration, and the political, social, and economic forces that shape how cities grow.
A clear look at why nature resists a single price tag.
The episode follows Michael Cox and Rochelle Gould as they work through relational values, the idea that nature matters in ways monetary language cannot fully capture.
A focused discussion of how political credit can shape bureaucratic performance.
Saad Gulzar's work on the politics of development in South Asia gives the conversation its core, and Divya keeps the focus on a simple but difficult question: how can government deliver better outcomes for citizens?
A trade-policy conversation that keeps small-scale fishers and overfishing in the same frame.
The episode centers on Michael Cox's account of the 2022 WTO Agreement on Fishing Subsidies and Curleen Wills, whose role in the Guyana negotiation process and writing on the agreement add useful context.
Applied crime science for retail protection work.
Transit research, explained by the people who did it.
Daniel Aldrich discusses his research on social capital and community resilience, sharing his personal experience during Hurricane Katrina and how informal networks helped his family.
Michael Cox interviews Dan Holland about his research on catch share fisheries policy, including quota allocation, bycatch reduction, and ecosystem management.
A conversation with Landon Yoder and Courtney Hammond Wagner about their IJC publication critically testing Elinor Ostrom's design principles for large-scale commons dilemmas.
Michael Cox of The Incommon Podcast interviews Dwan Biggs, an associate professor and the Allegis-Goslow chair at Northern Arizona University, about CITES, rhino poaching, and elephant policy.
Michael Cox interviews conservation scientist and science writer Lauren Oaks about her book Treekeepers, tracing her path from childhood photography of neighborhood trees through a Stanford PhD studying Alaskan forests under Eric Lambin to her focus on the global tree-planting movement.
Pallavi Sethi, a policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at LSE and former lead of a UK fact-checking organization's Meta partnership, explains the difference between misinformation (shared unknowingly) and disinformation (shared to cause harm).
Michael Cox interviews Nathan Truitt, Executive Vice President of Climate Funding at the American Forest Foundation, about the voluntary carbon market and family forest conservation.
Javier Basurto and Michael Cox interview Fikret Berkes and Nicole Franz about their new book on governing for transformation towards sustainable small-scale fisheries.
Divya hosts In Common with Sean Fox of the University of Bristol and Gregory Randolph of Georgia Tech, two scholars focused on urbanization and inequality.
Michael Cox talks with Rochelle Gould, an Associate Professor at the University of Vermont and an IPBES Values Assessment lead author, about how relational values grew out of work on forests, cultural ecosystem services, and Bhutanese non-timber forest products.
In Common episode 134 pairs Divya with Princeton University assistant professor Saad Gulzar for a conversation on the politics of development in South Asia, with references to Pakistan, India, and Nepal.
Curleen Wills traces her path from Babson and the London School of Economics to Spain, Fletcher, Far Rockaway, Geneva, and the UN Foundation.
Interview with Lindsay Campbell, a research social scientist with the U.S.
Michael Cox interviews Gustavo Gordillo de Anda about the history and reforms of Mexico's ejido system, including land rights, community management, and the role of literature in expressing truths.