How to Catch a Seal? The Analytic Narratives on Rational Norms of 19th-Century Aiboland

This paper states that small communities are able to solve the tragedy of the commons by consent over social norms which change the structure of social trap games. I argue that social traps, which are caused by rational human behaviour, have informal institutional solutions. I show that individual benefits from cooperation and costs of enforcement of social norms are dependent on group size - community management can be effective only if community is small. The discrete cut which divides communities into small and large is between 50-400 players. My case communities are situated on the island and islets on the western cost of Estonia. The analytic narratives, composed by using historical material from the 19th century until the Second World War, indicate that institutional complementarities for effective community management not only avoided social traps, but also differed by communities