The Effect of Community Structure on Social Forestry Outcomes: Insights from Chota Nagpur, India

Perceptions of collective action and its success in community based natural resource management: An empirical analysis

“…As a result, in a collective activity, the perceptions of the problem as well as the responses needed to address the problem are likely to be different among different members (Adams et al, 2003). These differences could arise due to structural differences such as age, education, gender, occupation, and economic status or due to differences in individual member's values, beliefs, and ideas (Naik, 1997;Baker, 1998;Vedeld, 2000;Heltberg, 2001). For example, in the context of community forest management, collective action will be a function of an individual villager's valuation of costs and benefits associated with it.…”

Group interaction, heterogeneity, rules, and co-operative behaviour: Evidence from a common-pool resource experiment in South Africa and Namibia

“…4 Some theoretical empirical work led to the presumption of a U-shaped relationship between income and co-operation (Johnson and Libecap, 1982;Dayton-Johnson and Bardhan, 2002). Baker (1998) and Varughese and Ostrom (2001) found that in homogenous groups, no one might want to bear the costs of organising collective action but wealth disparities that are too high could diminish shared interest in the common resource. Thus, the effect of heterogeneity is not uniform and the mechanisms by which it affects collective outcome need further investigation.…”

Irrigation and collective action: A study in method with reference to the Shiwalik Hills, Haryana

“…The fact that a contractor has emerged to provide irrigation services in Govindpur Mandpa despite it being a homogeneous group suggests that choice of variables is critical in determining levels of homogeneity or heterogeneity. Previous studies of influence of group heterogeneity in CPR management have tended to rely on static analysis based on variables like land ownership or caste composition (see Baker, 1998;Bardhan, 2000). But we argue that an approach that combines analysis of process variables (such as land area irrigated or rainfed, livestock composition, or household size) with analysis of socio-economic processes that reflect changes over time in process variables may better explain the underlying conditions of collective action.…”