Browsing by Author "Lise, Wietze"

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People's Participation in Forest Management in India
(2000) Lise, Wietze
"Forests used to be an important source of revenue for the government of India, which is no longer the case, because of large-scale deforestation. Proper forest management is needed to regenerate degraded forests, yet the government is powerless when people refuse to participate. However, there might be conditions that are more conducive for people's participation in forest management and this paper draws lessons from practical settings in which people do participate. Participation was initiated by government employees, a local leader, or through a strong community. "A comparative analysis between three institutional settings in different states of India demonstrates the importance of empowering people in managing forests. There is a clear role for the state, which is to facilitate the people and to motivate their participation. Fieldwork was carried out in about 10 villages per state. On average 13 households were interviewed in each village. This led to a data set that is analysed in this paper with two techniques. "A factor analysis is performed on 10 to 12 participatory indicators of each household. In each institutional setting, social indicators turn out to be the main consideration in participation. Economic indicators follow as the second most important consideration. A regression analysis is carried out using the primary data. The main conclusion is that a high dependence on the forest and good forest quality enhances voluntary peoples participation."
Preservation of the Commons by Pooling Resources, Modelled as a Repeated Game
(1995) Lise, Wietze
"Institutions have been proposed and initiated at the rural level in India on a voluntary basis to avoid the tragedy of the commons. These institutions have been modelled in this paper as a two-person repeated game, where two peasants have to decide in each period whether they want to pool labour or land or not. For reasons of simplicity, finite and infinite period trigger strategies are considered which are subgame perfect. As a special feature of the game, the payoff structure is not fixed but it is taken as a function of the level of natural resources. With the help of comparative statics on the payoff functions, necessary conditions along with their robustness, expressed as a minimum required discount factor, are derived under which participation is the individual optimal outcome."
Regenerating the Commons by Building Institutions; The Case in Rural India Where Peasants Pool Resources
(1995) Lise, Wietze
"The increasing pressure of a growing population on commons has arisen as a major subject of concern. There is a need to move away from the deteriorating state of open access towards a more regulated state of common property resources. This has given rise to the study of village level institutions, which focus on collective action and peoples' participation, involving the weakest sections of the society. This is a process of institutionalization which can start from within the community by changing informal rules. This can be further supported by the government by changing formal regulations. However, the success of institutionalization depends crucially on the amount of participation of the members of the community. This paper starts with a case study on a village institution in Bihar. In this case, where peasants pool resources as a contribution to the common, will be represented as a repeated prisoners' dilemma with changing payoffs. The fact whether they pool or not has an influence on their future payoffs. It will be shown how a certain exogenous change in the payoff structure will influence the equilibria for both peasants."