Browsing by Author "Poteete, Amy"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Bridging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide: Strategies for Building Large-N Databases Based on Qualitative Research
(2005) Poteete, Amy; Ostrom, Elinor
"The trade-offs between qualitative and quantitative research methods are well known. Qualitative research promises high internal validity and the ability to disentangle causal processes. Given the costs of conducting in-depth research, however, it is difficult to obtain the large number of qualitative observations required to establish external validity. We elaborate upon these challenges and discuss the relative merits and shortcomings of three strategies for building large-N databases using qualitative research: large-N field-based studies conducted by one or a few researchers, meta-databases constructed from existing qualitative studies, and large-N field-based studies conducted by research networks. Examples are drawn from research on collective action to manage natural resources."
In Pursuit of Comparable Concepts and Data about Collective Action
(2003) Poteete, Amy; Ostrom, Elinor
Research on collective action confronts two major obstacles. First, inconsistency in the conceptualization and operationalization of collective action, the key factors expected to affect collective action, and the outcomes of collective action hampers the accumulation of knowledge. Inconsistent terminology obscures consistent patterns. Second, the scarcity of comparable data thwarts evaluation of the relative importance of the many variables identified in the literature as likely to influence collective action. The International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research program addresses both of these problems. Since its founding in 1993, the IFRI network of collaborating research centers has used a common set of methods and concepts to study forests, the people who use forest resources, and their institutions for resource management. The basic social unit of analysis in IFRI is the user group, defined as a set of individuals with the same rights and responsibilities to forest resources. This definition does not require formal organization or collective action, since these features are potential dependent variables. This strategy for data collection allows analysis of relationships between diverse forms of social heterogeneity and collective action within groups with comparable rights to resources. IFRI's relational database also captures the connections among forest systems, sets of resource users, particular forest products, formal and informal rules for resource use, and formal local and supra-local organizations. By the middle of 2001, the IFRI database included data on 141 sites with 231 forests, 233 user groups, 94 forest organizations, and 486 products in 12 countries. Drawing upon these data, IFRI researchers are contributing substantially to our understanding of collective action for institutional development, the mediating role institutions play relative to demographic and market pressures in patterns of resource use, and relationships between particular institutions and forest conditions. The paper describes IFRI's strategy for collecting comparable data based on consistent conceptualization and operationalization, summarizes the contributions of IFRI research to the study of collective action for natural resource management, and identifies continuing challenges.
Is Decentralization a Reliable Means of Increasing Equity?
(2004) Poteete, Amy
"Decentralization is widely expected to empower local people. Empowerment implies increased equity, at least in terms of decision-making authority. Is it reasonable to expect increased equity from decentralization? The devolution of authority inherently involves a rebalancing of power relations between the center/national and the periphery/local, but the effects on equity between and within localities are not obvious. As critics of community-based natural resource management point out, decentralization alone cannot overcome social structural inequities within local communities. Yet some forms of decentralization have improved the situation of marginalized groups such as women and the poor. This paper evaluates the effects of decentralization of natural resource management for four forms of equity: equity between localities; equity in the division of rights and responsibilities between community and national decision-makers; political equity within communities; and economic equity within communities. The review focuses on natural resource management for forests and wildlife, especially in Africa and South Asia."
Levels, Scales, Linkages, and Other 'Multiples' affecting Natural Resources
(2011) Poteete, Amy
"Natural resources are affected by several types of 'multiples.' Some analysts emphasize linkages across multiple scales while others focus on interactions across multi-level institutions or multiple fields of action. Different ways of framing the 'multiples' associated with socio-ecological systems are important because they influence what analysts see--and do not see. Given the complexity of these systems, a narrow frame of analysis increases the risk that critical issues will be overlooked. Framing analysis in terms of 'multi-dimensional linkages'--including multiple scales, multi-level institutions, and other types of multiples--reduces that risk by directing attention to a broader range of factors, processes, and interactions."
Repertoires of Domination in Decentralization: Cases from Botswana and Senegal
(2009) Poteete, Amy; Ribot, Jesse C.
"Decentralization policies ostensibly change the distribution of authority between center and locality by empowering a variety of local of actors and organizations, such as user groups, traditional authorities, or multipurpose local governments. While decentralization may empower some local actors, if implemented, it can threaten the authority of central or other local actors. Those who stand to lose from decentralization can be expected to defend their authority and access to resources as best they can. The set of acts more-powerful actors can perform as they make claims to defend - or entrench and expand - their interests may be described as repertoires of domination. Decentralization programs may alter the effectiveness of particular performances, but threatened actors have several alternatives in their repertoire. We develop the concept of repertoires of domination and illustrate their influence in Botswana and Senegal, where government officials, local elites, and commercial interests have used their repertoires of domination to limit the extent of local-level democratization achieved through the decentralization of natural resource management."
Repertoires of Domination: Decentralization as Process in Botswana and Senegal
(2011) Poteete, Amy; Ribot, Jesse C.
"Decentralization promises to empower local actors, but threatens others with a loss of power. We describe 'repertoires of domination' as the set of acts actors perform to defend--or entrench and expand--their positions. We illustrate how repertoires of domination prevent local-level democratization through the decentralization of natural resource management in Botswana and Senegal. The concept of repertoire brings attention to the availability of multiple, substitutable acts of domination that draw upon varied sources of power. Neither decentralization nor democratization can be achieved once and for all. These processes are both advanced and halted through acts of contestation."
What Do You Mean By That? In Search of Conceptual Consistency
(2004) Poteete, Amy
"One of the themes for the 10th Biennial Conference of the IASCP calls for methodological innovation and introspection under the heading 'Contemporary Analytical Tools and Theoretical Questions.' The theme encourages the use of methods that are relatively new to the study of common property (e.g., game theory) or have been developed relatively recently (e.g., qualitative comparative analysis based on Boolean algebra). It also promotes the use of multiple methods as a way of triangulating findings. Greater methodological innovation and sophistication offers the potential for considerable analytical progress. Yet methodological innovation can improve analytical leverage only if there is some degree of agreement on concepts. Thus, the full version of this theme encourages 'theoretical syntheses of past work to clarify conceptual issues.' We need conceptual consistency to communicate and make sense of our findings. At the same time, the very existence of conceptual inconsistency can be helpful, in that it prompts the probing of assumptions and meanings associated with the search for conceptual consistency."