Browsing by Author "Horning, Nadia Rabesahala"

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Explaining Compliance with Rules Governing Forest Common-Pool Resource Use and Conservation: Dynamics in Bara Country, Southwestern Madagascar
(2000) Horning, Nadia Rabesahala
"Existing theories of compliance have largely ignored the ways in which various aspects of rules affect actors' decisions to go for or against rules. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by addressing the question of what accounts for variations in compliance behavior in the field of community-based forest (common- pool) resources conservation. The paper presents four compliance and non-compliance scenarios observed in Bara country, southern Madagascar, where both state and community-devised rules govern access to state-protected and community-protected forests. One way to understand compliance behavior in community-based natural resource management is to analyze individual forest users' behavior in the context of a complex set of relationships involving state actors and community actors. At one level these relationships entail conflict of purpose vis-a-vis forest resources as well as more or less tacit cooperation on whether to conserve or overexploit resources. At another level, intra-group dynamics, which entail consensus and disagreement, also affect individuals' decisions to go with or against rules. These sets of relationships produce rules-in-use that, next to factors such as ease of access and relief, have an impact on forest users' decisions to conserve or degrade forests. Ultimately, actors' willingness and ability to monitor individual behavior and sanction rule breakers are crucial in determining resource-conserving vs. resource-degrading outcomes."
The Limits of Rules: When Rules Promote Forest Conservation and When They Do Not: Insights from Bara Country, Madagascar
(2004) Horning, Nadia Rabesahala
"To what extent can the enactment of rules achieve resource conservation? This study addresses the problem of deforestation and explores how the Malagasy state, in responding to this problem, has ignored the pluralistic arena in which forest users have devised local rule systems adapted to their respective social, political, economic, cultural, demographic, and natural environments to secure their livelihoods. These regimes coexist with the rule regime of the state, creating confusion or at least ambiguity that makes the efficacy of rules uncertain. This study explores the conditions under which rules-in-use may or may not have desired resource-conserving behavior (RCB) effects. Looking at local governance systems of five rural communities adjacent to four forests under varying protection statuses in Bara country in southern Madagascar, the relationships between rules and conservation outcomes are examined. Several instruments of investigation were combined to gather data on forest products, the rules that govern access to products and their uses, forest users' perceptions of the rules, and communities' conservation behavior. The study concludes that while rules can have some effect on conservation behavior, key actors' interests, which the rules serve, are the primary determinant of conservation outcomes. Key actors' success in monopolizing resource access, by using rules, rests primarily on the ability to enforce rules and their ability to legitimize their authority vis-a-vis forest users at the local level."
Natural Resource Conservation Performance: A Cross-Sectional Comparison of Madagascar's Protected Areas
(1997) Horning, Nadia Rabesahala
"In this paper I further analyze the puzzle in terms of what Elinor Ostrom refers to as 'the conventional theory of common-pool resources. I use case studies to see if the theory Ostrom offers is sound in the context of Madagascar's protected areas and try to assess the strengths and shortcomings of the theory in explaining variation in conservation performance."
Social Science and Conservation in Madagascar
(2010) Kull, Christian A.; Bertrand, Alain; Horning, Nadia Rabesahala; Evers, Sandra J. T. M.; Tucker, Bram; Sodikoff, Genese M.; Kaufmann, Jeffrey C.
"Social science research in Madagascar is like that anywhere on this planet. It involves scholars asking questions about society in all its complexity, and through some structured mode of rational enquiry (be it theoretical, quantitative, experiential, descriptive, or other). Scholars from within and outside Madagascar have over the past century contributed to a solid body of research investigating Malagasy society, including its interactions with the plants, animals, soils, and waters around it. Since the late 1980s, the environment, and in particular nature conservation, have been an important (at times even dominant) focus for foreign - funded projects and institutions. Unsurprisingly, as a result, a sizeable portion of recent social science research has focused on protected areas, forests, and their peripheries."
Strong Support for Weak Performance: State and Donors Mutual Dependence in Madagascar
(2006) Horning, Nadia Rabesahala
"Although the Malagasy state's ability to meet its developmental and environmental conservation goals has remained weak since independence, Madagascar has never suffered a shortage of foreign assistance. What explains such weak development and environmental performance despite steady inflows of foreign aid? By the same token, why has aid continually come to Madagascar despite the state's weak performance? Building on the scholarship linking foreign aid and development, I examine how the Malagasy state has adapted its development rhetoric since independence, capitalizing on the country's biodiversity starting in the mid- 1980s, to show that maximizing foreign aid rather than strengthening the state's development capacity per se has been the state's de facto primary goal. I further argue that without foreign aid both the state and donor organizations would cease to thrive as institutions. Given the similarities between Madagascar and other aid-recipient countries, this analysis should prove useful beyond the Malagasy case."