Browsing by Author "Slee, Bill"

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Salience and Its Implications for Common-Pool Resource Management in Scotland: A Tragedy of a Different Kind?
(2002) Brown, Katrina Myrvang; Slee, Bill
"In past contributions to CPR theory, the issue of salience/dependence on a resource has been flagged up as a one of a number of significant factors for robust CPR management. Nevertheless, few authors have pursued the matter in greater depth other than to assert that if the salience or dependence on the resource by group members is high, the more likely there is to be robust management. Moreover, for the majority of CPR studies, salience is implicitly or explicitly assumed to be high. However, cases do exist of CPRs in which this assumption does not hold, and consequently, related theory proves to be of limited utility in explaining the associated institutional and management-related phenomena. This paper challenges this assumption (and related assumptions) with reference to a recent study of common grazings in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, which feature a marked decline in the users dependence on the resource and a trend towards moribund communal arrangements and in some cases de facto privatisation. In highlighting some of the opportunities and constraints for common grazings management, the paper demonstrates that some of the basic preconditions implied in many CPR models are not always met in a post-productivist context. Indeed, the study found that CPR problems can be about declining use as well as under-use, that CPR goals can concern resource revalorization not conservation, and that the relationship between salience and shareholders motivation for CPR management is more complex than commonly portrayed in the literature. Indeed, the perception and capture of changing contemporary CPR values by various stakeholders is often problematic and, despite the dissimilarities with more traditional commons tragedies, deserves more attention than has thus far been given by CPR scholars. The elaboration of this CPR example underlines the way in which certain a priori assumptions about CPRs could be potentially misleading, and highlights the value of drawing contextual factors closer to the centre of the debate. In so doing, the paper calls into question the possibility and utility of constructing a coherent CPR meta-theory."
Scoping Study of the Impacts of Community-Based Land Reform on Rural Scotland
(2008) Slee, Bill; Moxey, Andrew
"Scotland has been the setting for a major initiative in what has been described by Bryden and Geisler (2007) as 'community-based land reform' which entails the replacement of private property with community ownership of rural land. New legislation has been passed to give communities a right to acquire land assets. Although there have been significant numbers of community-based acquisitions of land in Scotland in the last decade, many of these predate the specific measures introduced in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. Based on recent work undertaken for the Scottish Government, this paper explores the underlying rationale for community-based land reform, scopes the impacts to date with respect to the (non-crofting specific) community right to buy and reviews the likely future impacts of community-based land reform on rural Scotland."