Browsing by Author "Haller, Tobias"
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Conference Paper Alpine Common Property Institutions under Change: Conditions for Successful and Unsuccessful Collective Action of Alpine Farmers in the Canton Grisons of Switzerland(2011) Landolt, Gabriela; Haller, Tobias"It is time to review the robust image of common property institutions in the management of summer pastures called 'alps' in Switzerland created by Robert Netting and Elinor Ostrom and to show the challenges local institutions face today. Although the goal to protect and sustainably manage the summer pastures is stated in law since 1996 and summer pasturing payments have been bound to sustainability criteria since 2000, local common property institutions increasingly struggle with maintaining their institutional arrangements especially regarding the collective maintenance work called 'Gemeinwerk', which is necessary to allocate the common resource. Within the framework of Elinor Ostrom’s design principles and Jean Ensminger’s model of institutional change historical processes and the present situation of two local institutions to manage summer pastures in the Canton Grison (Graubünden) of Switzerland are described and discussed. The results show very different reactions to change: the reduction of the number of farmers, the increasing heterogeneity of their interests, shifts in ideology away from agricultural tradition and the decreasing bargaining power of the farmers, in one case, cause institutional collapse while in the other case the positive history of interaction, good leadership and a sufficient number of farmers to find new forms of organization open the doors for adaptation and institutional innovation."Conference Paper Changes in Relative Prices, Open Access, and the State: A comparative Analysis of Institutional Change of CPR Management in African Floodplain Wetlands(2006) Haller, Tobias; Helbling, Jurg"In 'The Drama of the Commons' one of the key issues addressed was how generalised information on the institutional setting of the commons can be compared. One can draw on a large number of empirical studies. However, these are not based on the same outline making comparison a difficult task. Attempts at quantitative comparisons have been presented (see Ruttan at IASCP 2004) but they suffer from the same problems mentioned above. We argue that a qualitative comparison could be the key for further work. Therefore our department has started the African Floodplain Wetlands Project (AFWeP). We analyse differences and similarities in institutional change that CPR-management systems (fisheries, pasture, wildlife etc.) face in ecologically comparable settings - floodplains in semi-arid regions in Africa. Eight researchers from Swiss and African Universities conducted the fieldwork based on the same outline in Mali, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana. As theoretical basis, the New Institutionalism (North 1990), most elaborated in Anthropology by Jean Ensminger (Ensminger 1992, Ensminger and Knight 1997) and the early work of Elinor Ostrom on institutional design (Ostrom 1992) was used. The hypothesis was that external changes (global and national economy, socio-political, demographic and technological) affect relative prices of goods and services, making floodplain-CPRs more or less attractive and having a major effect on local level bargaining power and institutional change. One finding is that the state, which is taking over the management of the CPRs, creates de facto open access because it lacks the financial means to enforce laws and is not able to exclude immigrant foreign users. At the same time, local rules are eroded, weakened or transformed by local powerful people. But our results go much beyond this generally known finding: A) Not all traditional rules are completely eroded. Some of them remain and form a legal pluralism because they enable access to tradable CPR- goods for powerful local actors and administrators alike: We argue that rules which pay are going to stay. But this does not contribute to a sustainable use of CPR resources. B)De facto open access by an inadequately operating state is not the only problem. The problem is that the state in many of the examples studied is paradoxically present and absent at the same time. Seasonal immigrants see themselves as citizens of the state under often decentralised, democratic systems. Local stakeholders are not empowered or backed by the state to exclude these users. C) One of the key independent variables for sustainable use is not only robust local institutions but the economic situation of the state having an impact on changes in relative prices. In our sample only Botswana has favourable economic conditions (diamond export) and does not face the same crisis as the other countries do, where CPRs are attractive livelihoods for many people. "The paper contributes to the debate of robustness and resilience of local as well as state institutions depending on the economic condition of the state and raises the question how and who shall craft local institutions in the context of the state."Working Paper Common Property Institutions and Relations of Power: Resource-Management, Change and Conflicts in African Floodplain Wetlands(2001) Haller, Tobias"The research project on African inland-wetlands focuses on common property theory and the New Institutionalism in economics, social anthropology and political science that deals with institutional changes and conflict. The main goals are twofold: First, the project deals with the design principles that Elinor Ostrom has identified through the analysis of long-enduring institutions for governing sustainable resources, notably of the common property-kind. Second, the project deals with the destruction of these resources that are held and regulated in common, the changes in local institutions and the conflicts characteristic for these areas today"Conference Paper Constitutionality: Emic Perceptions of Bottom-up Institution Building Processes(2012) Haller, Tobias; Acciaioli, Greg; Rist, Stephan"This paper presents a new approach for analysing bottom-up institution building processes. There is an important gap in the literature on institution building with regard to local perceptions of common pool resource management. Ostrom’s work highlights the way successful institutions work and which aspects are important for their success. Others such as Ensminger have highlighted the role that the bargaining power of actors and ideology play in the institution-building process. However, there is very little research on how local actors themselves view (i.e. emically) an institution-building process in retrospective. Based on four case studies (fisheries in Zambia; pasture and forestry in Mali; forestry in the lowlands and highlands of Bolivia; agricultural land and forestry in Indonesia) we propose a new analytical approach that stems from real cases of recent self-driven institution building, in which emic views become apparent. We label such self-driven processes as constitutionality, which we see as a conscious process of institution building from below which does not suffer from the drawbacks of top-down imposed processes of democratisation, decentralisation and participation, which are often subject to processes of elite capture. Contesting the view that subjects internalise governmentally imposed frames of viewing the world by ‘participating’ in institutions, as in Agrawal’s (2005) model of environmentality for resource governance, inspired by a Foucauldian notion of governmentality, our perspective emphasises instead how local actors construct a sense of ownership in the institution-building process by strategically pursuing local interests through that process, using theory of practice, actor-oriented approaches and a variant of the New Institutionalism approach. This approach incorporates power and heterogeneous group interest, and the theory of social learning."Conference Paper Crafting Our Own Rules! Constitutionality as a Bottom Up Process in Zambia and Mali(2013) Haller, Tobias"The paper outlines two institution-building processes in Zambia and in Mali in dryland areas where wetlands play a crucial role. Based on state regulations (by decentralization and participation) and on the negative outcome of legal and institutional pluralism in these two nation states different local actor groups realize that they will loose local common pool resources once managed by common property institutions because outside users now claim to be citizens of the state and therefore entitled to use state property resources accordingly. However, based on the combination of local strategies to mitigate this problem and local institutional opportunities proposed by the state and NGOs new legal forms could be used as a tool to increase local level involvement as to be illustrated in by-laws in the fishery context in Zambia and local conventions for forests and pasture in Mali. The paper explores the processes and the legal tools selected in the interchange between different local interest groups, local level state administration and NGOs involved. In the process of institution building local actors (as heterogeneous they are with regard to bargaining power) were gaining a sense of ownership of the legal tools by being able to define its content based on a combination of already locally developed institutions (customary common property regimes based on local knowledge, reciprocal access between groups and regulations based on local norms and religious worldviews) and new institutions (formalized by-laws, conventions etc) could evolve. The paper argues that this process provided a motivation in common pool resource governance for local people as the outcome represented the local perception of 'these are our own rules'. The papers also explores the options, process and local perception of this compromise and the limits of such an approach."Journal Article Disputing African Floodplains: Comparison and Conclusions from AFWeP Case Studies(2005) Haller, Tobias; Helbling, Jurg"The AFWeP conference papers show that Common Pool Resources have been managed primarily by institutions developed by local ethnic groups: concepts of territoriality had developed already in pre-colonial times, often linked with specific techniques. Ethno-professional groups have been the basis of the institutional set up defining where fisher groups, pastoralists and hunters were entitled to use which resource during what time in a season. This is the case in Mali where the Bozo and the Somono fishermen as well as the nomadic pastoralist groups had their specific space of resource use according to technique and season. The same is true for the different ethnic groups in the Rufiji area and for local groups in the Okavango Delta. In other areas, such as Cameroon and Zambia, one finds indigenous groups establishing resource rights under villages and more or less centralised regimes. In many of the cases, religious ideology was an important aspect in the customary institutional set up: First-comers mostly established a kind of spiritual ownership over the CPRs, which is still seen in parts of the researched areas as the legitimacy behind CPR usage and regulation. Interestingly, many of the traditional access rules do not exclude outsiders but regulate the conditions under which they are given and open the way for reciprocity. Another important aspect is that local institutions have not been developed in order to protect nature but rather solve coordination problems, formalise access rights under dynamic conditions and try to restrain use for better gains (i.e. waiting to fish out ponds in order to have bigger fish). Therefore, at best, conservation might be a non-intended by-product of specific constellations of resource users."Conference Paper Governance Issues, Potentials and Failures of Participative Collective Action in the Kafue Flats, Zambia(2008) Chabwela, Harry; Haller, Tobias"Fisheries, wildlife and pastures are under massive pressure in the Kafue Flats, one of the largest floodplains in Central Africa. This area with once abundant resources and managed by local common property regimes has been overused in the last 30 years. The paper focuses on the governance of the Common Pool Recourses (CPRs) of Kafue Flats, and governance is about politics, power sharing and accountability within communities. This study is based on intensive literature review and field discussions. The analysis has indicated that over exploitation of fisheries and wildlife goes back to the erosion of traditional institutions by state governance. At present local rules have been weakened, and that national laws governing access to these CPRs cannot be implemented by the state due to limited capacity. Several attempts have been made in the last 20 years to use participative strategies in the management of wildlife and fisheries in order to mitigate resource problems. The Administrative Management Design (ADMADE) initiative in the 1980s and 1990s and major involvement by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) had pushed for projects, which included local people via their chiefs as well as the public and private sectors from large agricultural enterprises to the eastern side of the Kafue Flats. These initiatives had limited success mainly due to misconceptions of traditional representation of local communities and misinterpretation of local economic and political incentives.Critical limitations were a result of roles of the state being largely fragmented into several institutions each with competing mandate in the management of CPRs. While there is potential for effective management of CPR in this wetland, declining resources and growing need for decentralization remain a major challenge."Journal Article Governance Issues, Potentials and Failures of Participatory Collective Action in the Kafue Flats, Zambia(2010) Chabwela, Harry; Haller, Tobias"Fisheries, wildlife and pastures are under massive pressure in the Kafue Flats, which is one of the largest floodplains in southern and Central Africa. This wetland ecosystem that once harboured abundant common-pool resources that was managed by local common property regimes is now being threatened with overexploitation. During the last 30 years there has been severe pressure and overuse of these common-pool resources. A historical and New Institutionalist analysis of the situation of common-pool resources indicates that overuse of fisheries and the mismanagement of wildlife stem from the erosion of traditional institutions by the state. Institutional weakness resulting from economic decline in the country is of major concern as the institutions can no longer effectively enforce regulations in the area, a situation which has led to a de facto open access constellation for common-pool resources. There have been several attempts to mitigate this problem based on conservation attempts and designed to include local level governance in the management of common-pool resources with mixed results. The paper discusses three cases: the first is the WWF-Wetland Project and the Administrative Management Design (ADMADE) initiative, was designed to deal with the management of Lochinvar and Blue Lagoon National Parks and the adjacent Game Management Area through the involvement of local chiefs and local communities. The second case refers to the Partners for Wetlands Project, which included local people represented by their chiefs as well as the public and private sectors from large agricultural enterprises on the eastern side of the Kafue Flats (Mwanachinwala Conservation Area project in Mazabuka). Both attempts yielded poor results due to misconceptions of traditional representation of local communities and misinterpretation of local economic and political incentives for participation and sense of local ownership. Although the ADMADE programme appears to be escalating, its implementation continues to receive considerable resistance from those opposed to chiefs and later from the chiefs themselves. In the third case, the paper examines a participatory co-management process in the fisheries, which started in 2004, based on initiatives by local staff of the Department of Fisheries, local interest groups and researchers. A broad local debate on how to manage the fisheries sustainably and develop locally based by-laws for joint management of fisheries gives potential for success and appears promising for the future of fisheries in the Kafue Flats. Despite many difficulties, it is an example of local collective action to scale up governance of common-pool resources."Journal Article How Fit Turns into Misfit and Back: Institutional Transformations of Pastoral Commons in African Floodplains(2013) Haller, Tobias; Fokou, GIlbert; Mbeyale, Gimbage; Meroka, Patrick"We enlarge the notion of institutional fit using theoretical approaches from New Institutionalism, including rational choice and strategic action, political ecology and constructivist approaches. These approaches are combined with ecological approaches (system and evolutionary ecology) focusing on feedback loops and change. We offer results drawn from a comparison of fit and misfit cases of institutional change in pastoral commons in four African floodplain contexts (Zambia, Cameroon, Tanzania (two cases)). Cases of precolonial fit and misfit in the postcolonial past, as well as a case of institutional fit in the postcolonial phase, highlight important features, specifically, flexible institutions, leadership, and mutual economic benefit under specific relations of bargaining power of actors. We argue that only by combining otherwise conflicting approaches can we come to understand why institutional fit develops into misfit and back again."Conference Paper Institutional Changes in Management of Common Pool Resources (CPR) in Eastern Same Tanzania: Challenges and Opportunities(2008) Mbeyale, Gimbage Ernest; Kajembe, George; Haller, Tobias; Mwamfupe, Davis"During the last four decades Tanzania has witnessed several macro and sectoral policy changes with a trickle down effect, shaping both the management of CPR and livelihoods of resource users and other stakeholders. The study was carried out in the eastern part of Same district, with highland-lowland CPR interaction among the Maasai pastoralists and the Pare who are predominantly farmers. The main objective was to analyse institutional changes underlying the management of CPR and the factors driving the change with emphasis to resources such as forest, water for irrigation and grazing lands. The theoretical approach for the study is based on Hardin characterization of the tragedy of the commons which is the basic problem of CPR management and the way contemporary scholars such as Ostrom and other researchers have tried to approach the problem. Primary data collection involved use of anthropological methods and socio-economic surveys using household questionnaires, key informant interviews, oral histories and participants observation. Secondary sources such as government reports were also used. The results indicate that institutional changes have resulted into resource use conflicts and the challenge is that these conflicts have been increasing. The types of conflicts included micromacro conflicts between conservation authorities and resource users, inter-micro micro conflicts between farmers and between farmers and herders and intra-micro micro conflicts between people in the same family or household. The factors that increased the likelihood of institutional changes included political, technological and distance to markets. The study recommends ecosystem based institutional framework that is capable of accommodating the changes, improving peoples welfare and sustainable management of the CPR in the study area. The opportunity that is presented by the current policy changes where power is devolved to local resource users and stakeholders can be utilize to achieve the desired goals of sustainable management of the CPR."Journal Article Institutions for the Management of Common Pool Resources in African Floodplains: The AFWeP Research Project(2005) Haller, Tobias"African floodplain wetlands are important regions for local livelihoods and are of special interest for conservation organisations such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN). These ecosystems are interesting because the inundation patterns in an otherwise semi-arid environment make them resource-rich pockets when the water recedes, in providing much sought-after resources during the dry season and between seasons. Most of the time these areas become resource rich after the water recedes. Most of the resources are Common Pool Resources (CPR) such as fish, wildlife, pasture, forests and water, which are managed through common property regimes and local institutions (rules, norms, and regulations). These institutions have been developed in pre-colonial times and were operating partly still during colonial times. Today, however, CPRs are managed by different regimes in the form of a legal pluralism but mostly controlled by the state, which has partly dismantled local rules and regulations. In many, though not all of these floodplains, CPRs are under pressure and there are signs of degradation: Pasture areas show signs of erosion, fish and wildlife stock are declining, and forests and water resources are less available."Journal Article 'No Capital Needed': Defacto Open Access to Common Pool Resources, Poverty and Conservation in the Kaufe Flats, Zambia(2006) Haller, Tobias; Merten, Sonja"This article makes the point that poverty and conservation issues are centrally linked with access rights to common pool resources. The case of the Kafue Flats illustrates how local groups are rendered poor and vulnerable because of the changed situation of common pool resources, which used to be managed by customary common property institutions. As the Zambian state took control of these resources under conservation agencies and dismantled the customary use rules, the common pool resources became 'open access' because the state was too poor to manage them as it wanted. This coincided with a large increase in the number of users, as many Zambians from urban and peri-urban areas or former miners who recently lost their jobs found relatively easy to exploit common pool resources such as the fish and wildlife in Kafue Flats. These people argue that, as citizens of Zambia and as owners of government licences, they have a right to exploit the natural resources. As they are usually more powerful than local people, these outsiders succeed in undermining local access and end up impoverishing local residents. To escape poverty, the latter have started making a commercial use of common pool resources, which amounts to an erosion of local rules, especially those defining access rights between men and women and between individuals and the community. In this light, conservation has a chance to succeed only if traditional resource rights will be re-established in a co-management setting. Some participatory processes aiming at just that have recently been initiated."Conference Paper Open Access and the State: Change of Institutions Governing Floodplain Common Pool Resources (CPRs) and Conflicts in the Kafue Flats, Zambia(2004) Haller, Tobias"Nobody would deny that governance of Common Pool Resources (CPRs) shall involve the local communities. Seeking participation and giving back authority to the local level has become the mainstream argument when it comes to the management of CPRs. However, often analysis lacks a historical, socio-political and economic background regarding the interaction between the state and the local level. This interaction is shaped by different expectations, heterogeneity in interests, power structures and ideologies from different actors involved. It is therefore important to examine historically how local CPR institutions were crafted in pre-colonial times by the indigenous peoples of an area and how new formalised institutions introduced by the colonial and post-colonial state, like land tenure reforms, fishery and wildlife laws have changed the access to CPRs. This paper presents the case of the Ila, Plateau-Tonga and Batwa in the Kafue Flats, Southern Province in Zambia, and shows how pre-colonial institutions governing access to CPRs such as pasture, fisheries and wildlife are transformed or put aside by the colonial and post-colonial state, claiming control over CPRs. Due to complex economic and political processes the state nowadays less able to control and monitor the CPRs while local rules - often embedded in religious believe systems - erode or are being transformed by the more powerful actors. This involves different local power-groups and immigrants such as seasonal fishermen, claiming being citizens of the state and its resources or powerful local individuals manipulating and transforming local customary laws. An analysis using Elinor Ostrom's design principles for robust institutions (Ostrom 1990, Becker and Ostrom 1995) as a reference shows that not only local rules get weaker but also that the national laws governing access to these CPR can not be implemented by the state due to the lack of financial revenues. This then leads to open access situations in the case of fisheries and of wildlife and a double-faced situation of increased privatisation on one hand and open access on the other hand for parts of the pasture area. In order to solve such CPR problems NGOs and state actors since the 1990ties follow the policy to get the local people back into management. Land tenure reforms and new formal legislation governing access to CPRs shall be crafted making possible more participation from the grassroot level. The problem is however that the local actors are very heterogeneous regarding their political and economic interests and bargaining power and that also the state is a differentiated body of actors, who therefore also follow their goals. This then can lead to serious conflicts, which can get an ethnic shape. The question is then on what level the involvement of the local groups and of the state is beneficial for the sustenance of the CPRs. In the case of the Ila, Tonga and Batwa this is a very challenging task for it is a complex resource situation: Access and use of pasture, fisheries and wildlife are interconnected and can not be separated from each other. Historically access to CPRs were connected to the membership to local residential village groups combining rights to access to pasture, fisheries and wildlife. Today problems of access and use of CPRs are also intertwined: For example immigrated seasonal fishermen have not only an impact on fish but also on pasture and on wildlife in the area. External factors such as droughts and a cattle disease have additionally increased the pressure on local livelihoods and are leading to more pressure on CPRs. Immigrants on the other hand respond to the national economic crisis based on copper export and engage in alternative economic activities such as commercial fisheries and fish trade, hunting, and trade in cattle. Additionally the loss of state revenues and structural adjustment programs lead to the weakening of the role of the state as a CPR monitor. Former CPR- management is then transformed in a de facto open access. The paper tries to show these complex interactions on different levels using the framework of Jean Ensminger (Ensminger 1992, Ensminger 1998, Ensminger and Knight 1997) and argues that only a wise combination of local involvement - based on local cost-benefit considerations and state involvement (principle of subsidiarity) can lead to solutions and help limiting conflicts between the resource users. Imposing participation without knowing local transformations of rules and livelihoods and without really giving the possibility to control the CPRs on the local level will fail (see Haller 2002, Cook and Kothari 2001). This is as well the truth if the state steps out completely and ignores local initiatives or is unable to provide support and protection, where it is needed. The paper argues therefore that not neither only grassroot institutions nor only state involvement will lead the Drama of the Commons (Ostrom et al. 2002) to a good end but that a wise interplay on different levels is needed paying attention to different power groups and stakeholders and their interests. It is also crucial that the level of trust is risen between the different actors involved (Ostrom 2002)."Journal Article Opening Up the CPRs: Institutional Change and the State in Kafue Flats, Zambia(2005) Haller, Tobias; Merten, Sonja"Common Pool Resource (CPR) Management among the Ila, Balundwe-Tonga and Batwa in the Kafue Flats is an example of how the State has intervened with locally developed institutions for the management of fisheries, wildlife and pasture and how it has created open access situations. Local stakeholders would like to re-establish old rules or new regulations but outsiders consider that, as Zambians, they are allowed by the state to get access under formal laws. But the State is absent when it comes to the enforcement of these laws."Book People, Protected Areas, and Global Change: Participatory Conservation in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe(Geographica Bernensia, 2008) Galvin, M.; Haller, Tobias"People, Protected Areas, and Global Change is an important contribution to the literature on protected areas (PAs) and the political ecology of natural resource management and conservation. It provides a very timely analysis of 'participatory' PA governance and management, examining 'new paradigm' PA approaches which--in policy and rhetoric if not always in practice--offer alternatives to the fortress conservation approaches that have so often proved environmentally ineffective, socially disastrous and morally questionable. The editors, Marc Galvin and Tobias Haller, and thirty-one contributors 'tried to determine how the participatory approach to conservation evolved in specific settings and who profits from the new approach.' Drawing on research by thirteen research groups working in diverse regions of the global South (South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia) and in Switzerland, the book offers a set of coordinated case studies that are attentive to historical, geographical, political, social, and economic contexts and dynamics."Working Paper The Understanding of Institutions and their Link to Resource Management from a New Institutionalism Perspective(2002) Haller, Tobias"This paper looks at the theory of the New Institutionalism and how it helps to understand livelihood strategies and institutional change in regard to resource management. This economic theory makes use of methodological individualism and looks at the role formal and informal institutions (rules, norms, values and laws) play in lowering or rising transaction costs in resource management. The paper argues that this approach is a useful tool in order to discuss livelihood strategies. The New Institutionalism looks at historic changes and at power questions (bargaining power of individuals or groups) that are so crucial in the debate on natural resource management. One of the themes useful to illustrate the position of the New Institutionalism is the debate on common property resource management where the notion of the Tragedy of the Commons can be critically questioned. This is done by showing cases where institutions work in order to regulate a sustainable use of common property resources and cases where such rules are absent or do not work (Ostrom 1990). The approach is interesting because it also focuses on the role of the state and external economic, political, demographic and technical changes and how these influence prices for goods and the terms of trade (changes in relative prices). These prices then have an influence on the local level and lead to changes in informal, local institutions, organisation, ideology and bargaining power (Ensminger 1992). In order to illustrate the approach and its use an illustrative example on the institutional changes in African floodplain wetlands is given in the paper."