Browsing by Author "Sengupta, Nirmal"

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Common Mistakes About Common Property
(2004) Sengupta, Nirmal
"Against the doomsday prediction of Hardin, the early analyses of CPR (a) brought to fore numerous cases of sustainable use of resources by communities and (b) addressed the question of incentives for collective action. The case study materials were then used to formulate design principles. Collective action theories developed using two distinct approaches (i) moral economy approach and (ii) formal models of rationality of co-operation. These are the major theoretical tools available for CPR studies. Unfortunately, the counterexamples were overwhelmingly examples of small, more or less, undifferentiated communities in the peripheries of markets. The moral economy theories in general, were developed to explain somewhat similar situations. Formal models of rationality like game theory find it convenient to explain cooperation in small, secluded groups of identical (undifferentiated) players in a static setting. This kind of images of common property keeps on recurring in CPR studies. "This is in spite of the fact that by now, descriptions in contrast to such images have been investigated at length by several scholars. The possible scale of CPR has touched global height. The observed effects of market intervention are not unidirectional. There are cases where internal cooperation has been facilitated by market forces. Nor are the communities egalitarian, as numerous case studies show against the popular notions. Transitions to different collective action regime and to higher levels are subjects of many studies. While CPR scholars, on the one hand, are investigating these complex relations, on the other hand a very large section of CPR studies still keep on repeating one or the other of the simple-minded CPR images. The narrow and improper image of CPR has serious consequences for development policies. Development officials in developing countries, who are usually far less informed about advanced research topics, are guided by such simple images and find support in the CPR studies propagating those images. In developing countries CPR policies are made only for management by small communities, and that too for preservation not development. Increasing differentiation and market extension is viewed with suspicion. "Research on the complex relations is the theme of this conference. Simultaneous efforts should be made for curtailing the inappropriate simple images that are still proliferating. This paper summarizes the existing literature on the complexity of relations. But its major focus is not to make another contribution in understanding one of these complexities but to bring out from the survey of literature, the common mistakes about common property, which should be avoided by all. Towards this end the present article focuses on showing the deadweight of simple but inappropriate images of CPR in literature on CPR policies. "Finally, an alternative analytical approach that may accommodate the complexities, but has not received much attention in CPR studies, will be discussed. The New Institutional Economic (NIE) literature, that admits hierarchies, organizations and different forms of property along with markets, may have something to offer. However, this is only an appeal for exploration, not a recommendation."
Common Pool Resources: Future Prospects
(1995) Sengupta, Nirmal
"A decade ago common property used to be considered as an anackrony, incompatible with the modern world. Now it is accepted not only as viable, but also as a desirable form of property for natural resource management The emerging common property institutions are far different from the traditional local formations and have wider economic, even global relevance. Newer issues have emerged as problems of global commons. Once their future relevance has been established the task is to study their implications. This paper argues that, this form of property is going to occupy a position of great importance in the next century. At one end the world is currently witnessing a shift from normally independent tenants towards international agro-industrial corporations. At the other, corporate organisations of farmers around the common property resources is also an emerging trend The question of their impacts on the poor sharply differentiates the quality of the two emerging regimes. This form of property may be the rallying point against the dominance of international capital and alternative of the future."
CPR Institutions: Game Theory Constructs and Empirical Relevance
(2003) Sengupta, Nirmal
"This paper is based on my experience of blending theoretical methods with field-based methods for understanding collective action on the commons. The workshop proposal includes as a point of inquiry, '...how theoretical methods and field-based methods can best be blended.' Unlike anthropology, where field-based methods are systematized, the economists talk at the most of field experiences. There is a big difference between experience and method. What may be a field-based method for economists? Economists work with models. Not only realities in field are approximated by modifications of models but also models may be chosen to cater to the needs of the field, for policy or for other purposes. I feel model making, fitting it better to the reality and choosing models to respond to field needs is what is field-based method for economics. Research on commons is one such area where facts from field have contributed to modification of economic theory and models. This provides an excellent scope for studying the field-based methods of economists. The present article is my understanding of the collective action theories in commons, which grew as a field-based method. In this paper I describe the development of game modeling of collective action in commons, suggesting why some matters were accepted, some rejected, and some others are still awaited. The first section is about the emergence of CPR game theories of commons as a field-based method. The second section lists a few questions raised in the field indicating the need for modifying game model in specific direction. The third and final section introduces certain recent efforts of theorizing in these directions."
Current Forest and Water Policies in India: Some Facts and Appraisal
(1995) Sengupta, Nirmal
"By now common property relations are considered not only viable, but also a desirable form of property for natural resource management. This has led to many development efforts. The emerging common property institutions are far different from the traditional local formations and have wider economic}, even global relevance's. Newer issues have come up, in the area of control and ownership, in mode of participation, in fairness criteria in distribution etc. On the one hand there is the question of perpetuating the traditional rights. On the other, there is the possibility of more widespread distribution of the benefits of common property resources and of improving the quality of rural life over a wider area. The choice is not merely ethical but also of management ; the suitable alternative forms must be viable and sustainable, probably also productively efficient."
Diversion of Land for Mining Activities
(2011) Sengupta, Nirmal
"Minerals are archetypical non-renewable resource. Common property studies have not made much foray into these resources. However, there is a need to shift from this paradigm. One of the important commons problem created by mining activities is that of diversion of land. Using India as a case study this paper lists the varieties of problems created by mining activities in the areas of land use and environment degradation. Thereafter it shows how common property approach can be used or is being used to overcome some of these problems. The paper concludes that in the emerging global order the analytical paradigm of commons would be of substantive use for management of non-renewable resources."
Diversity in Forms of Participation
(1996) Sengupta, Nirmal
"Interest in participatory management has becomes almost universal. However, the way the programmes are designed leave much room for improvement. Primarily because it reduces costs (or increases benefits by efficient management) irrigation departments now consider user participation as a desirable management option. Transaction cost in management of a common pool resource like water is high. It is uneconomic to have bureaucratic management. But the way participatory programmes are designed often make them uneconomic for the farmers even though the programme designers believe otherwise."
Environmental Contributions of Some Traditional Techniques
(1995) Sengupta, Nirmal
"This paper discusses the positive effects of some traditional irrigation and water harvesting systems of India towards salinity control. Some of these , like the khadin of western India are still surviving. Currently some studies are available which describe how the system survived for hundreds of years in spite of being located in a highly salinity prune tract. Other traditional system like in north India, have been replaced by modern techniques. In their case it is only possible to document the past conflict between farmers and irrigation agencies on this issue and also that certain recent recommendations for salinity control establish the correctness of the old approach. Important lessons may be learnt from studying these traditional systems."
Multiple Routes to Conceptual Consistency
(2004) Sengupta, Nirmal
"Conceptual clarity in mathematics owes to the method of definition, one that builds from the basics. In CPR studies, conceptualisation of common property was obtained in the same way, by building from primitive terms like excludability and subtractability. Primitive terms and notions are limited; one may not find a suitable one for a concept, in several disciplines. Those used in the definition of common property were essentially terms borrowed from Law. While congratulating Poteete for drawing attention to a vital issue of analysis, I also record my point of difference. Refinement of concepts within a discipline may assist development of concepts and consensus within another discipline. Participation of scholars from many different disciplines is an asset for attaining conceptual clarity, not a source of confusion."
Negotiation with an Under-Informed Bureaucracy: The Case of Water Rights on System Tanks of Bihar
(1998) Sengupta, Nirmal
"Although there exists voluminous literature about the modern Indian legal system, and some about land and forest rights, there is little about rights to other natural resources. In general, the colonial government left most natural resources with poorly defined property rights. In the post-independence years the bureaucracy made great inroads through its different functions, using the possibilities for open access, but did not improve much on granting of rights. De Facto rights, however, have existed all along. Whenever contested, by private parties or by the government, conflicts and negotiations ensued. The resolutions of these disputes were essentially spontaneous self- organization processes. "In recent years there has been growing attention to local management of common property resources, and a recognition of the potential of farmer-managed irrigation systems. Many indigenous irrigation systems provide good examples of farmer management and are therefore, being studied for learning principles of management. But these studies often overlook that the 'traditional' irrigation systems no longer exist in the traditional settings. Their functions are now conducted in an environment of formal rights. In some areas the bureaucracy is careless and ignorant about the norms, customs, and performance records of the spontaneous organizations or may interpret them as static 'customary rights,' a favorite construct of formal law. One section of researchers are blind to such inconsistencies and tend to accept that formal laws actually regulate the irrigation systems. The other section rejects these inadequate legal traditions and tend to treat the traditional systems as if they exist in isolation. Actually, even if misinformed, bureaucratic or legal interpretations always impinge on the local negotiation process, delineating the space for forum shopping as various local parties use the threat of external intervention to reach settlements (see Spiertz, Chapter 6 in this volume, von Benda-Beckmann and van der Velde 1992). "This paper describes how farmers negotiate water rights in such a warped setting. If self-organisation processes are possible, the de facto rights are defined again and again even in traditional systems. In such a case a rigid concept of customary rights makes no sense. However, some efficient principles may sustain over a long period. Particular attention has been paid in this article to bring out the existence of such efficient and sustained principles through a historical case study of how rights to traditional irrigation tanks were negotiated as the colonial and post- independence Indian bureaucracy expanded its influence. The chapter moves from macro to micro, beginning with an overview of water rights in India, and treatment of indigenous irrigation systems. It then takes up the example of traditional pynes in Bihar, and negotiations in Supi Desiyain Pyne in particular. The final sections highlight the contrast between bureaucratic definitions of rights and farmers' own conceptions."
Production Function and Institutions
(1998) Sengupta, Nirmal
"The classical economists were primarily engaged in analysis of the wonder that is production. The marginalists, while laying the foundation of mathematical economics, shifted its focus to rational behavior of a single consumer, presumably because there they found a problem readily amenable to the mathematical tools at hand. Production process was assimilated after a couple of decades, in a conveniently truncated form In neoclassical writings production was a mirror image of the process of consumption, an optimal allocation problem by a decision maker. Later, economists got so accustomed to this formulation that no argument would be necessary for accepting this as the essence of actual production processes. A fundamental difference between the consumption and production processes is -one is a private action, the other is a joint one. A consumer can decide her best option all by oneself, but a single individual in a production process cannot. It was necessary, therefore, to reduce the production process to that of a single decision maker. Towards this end Walras conceived a hypothetical market of capital services, where landowners, workers and capitalists offer natural resources, personal skills, and capital proper. An entrepreneur, like an auctioneer, purchases productive services and combines them to activate the process of production (Ingrao and Israel, 1990,p. 107). The entrepreneur, the 'producer' in Debreu (1959), is the counterpart of individual consumer who could optimize individually while participating in a joint activity. Though Williamson's and the principal-agent formulations are far reserved about the omnipotent powers of one individual in a joint activity they still retain the primacy of one (or one group of) decision maker."
Reappraising Common Property Institutions
(1993) Sengupta, Nirmal
"'Common pool resources''common property regimes', 'collective actions'-the propriety of such terms has already been established. not so clear is the concept of institutions and organisations with respect to CPR. Current developments demand that this distinction be made thoroughly. For quite some time several concepts of 'institutions were in use. To the property rights theorists institutions were synonymous to implicit and invisible rules. Whole analyzing the visible firms Williamson understood institutions as governance structures. North and Thomas had admitted both types of understandings, by differentiating 'institutional environment' from 'institutional arrangement.' In his recent book, however, North changed the terms calling only the former 'institutions' and the latter 'organisations'. This definition of institutions includes rules, norms of behavior, and the way they are enforced. Organisations are firms, trade unions, political bodies. IASCP seems to have been subscribing to this terminology. Scopes of confusion however, are still there. For example, Elinor Ostrom named her book 'Governing the Commons'--resembling Williamsons' typology. it was followed by a subtitle 'Institutions for Collective Action'. Does it mean that proper terms will be 'common property (pool) organization' and 'institutional collectives?'"
Sustainable Resource Use By Peoples Participation: A Game Theoretic Justification
(1990) Sengupta, Nirmal
"Current investigations in the Prisoner's Dilemma kind of choice situations show that very often co-operation emerges as the rational decision of individuals if the pay-offs are iterative (supergame). Sustainability of resource use can be represented by iterative formulation of pay-offs. By such a formulation it can be shown that sustainable resource use is closely related with participation and co-operation of beneficiaries. Such a notion, though exists at present, is based on ethical or politico-economic justification. The advantage of the Game formulation is that a detailed analysis of why and how co-operation occurs may be investigated and may be related to designs and policies. It may help in containing the idealist view that peoples' participation is the remedy of all evils. Examples will be drawn from the case of water resources."
Tribal Movements and Political Realities Problems of Conceptualisation
(1998) Sengupta, Nirmal
"Till late eighteenth century travel accounts like that of Bernier (1620-1688) were the only source of European understanding of the Indians. With the beginning of the colonial administration the need to collect detailed knowledge about the people of India and their social systems became imperative. Along with the inquiries into revenue systems from late eighteenth century, ethnographic inquiries too had begun. In 1807 the Court of Directors of the East India Company made a formal decision that such knowledge would be 'of great use in the future administration of the country' (Vidyarthi, 1968, ii). To this effect Francis Buchanan was appointed by the government to inquire into the conditions of people in India. Although his writings were not so well known in Europe, those of other administrators were. Based on such scanty knowledge from India and elsewhere the first grand theories like those of Maine (1822-88). Morgan (1818-81), Tylor (1832- 1917) were developed, just as were the writings of Marx on precapitalist systems."