Local Institutions and Inequity: How can Institutional Analysis Help?

Abstract

"Practitioners of collective action pursue multiple goals. For some of us, these goals go beyond sustainable environmental resource management or economic development. We are also deeply invested in distributional issues - who shares in the wealth generated from economic growth or the stream of benefits from resource management? For us, the goal is designing institutions which achieve not just social and economic development on an aggregate level for a society, but inclusive and equitable development where benefits are fairly distributed across all sections of society. This essay focuses on issues related to women's empowerment, their access to resources and their participation in local institutional structures. It intends to demonstrate where the institutional challenges of the above goal lay, while highlighting a polycentric approach that might be fruitful for practitioners to address."