Exploring the potentials of polycentric governance analysis: The comparative diagnosis of hybrid organic farming governance in Tunisia and Morocco

Abstract

Polycentric governance addresses the emergence, structure and performance and self-organizing dynamics of co-production. The paper considers organic farming sectors as emblematic cases of polycentric co-production and engages into comparative institutional analysis in its regard, addressing organic agricultural sectors in Tunisia and Morocco. That way, it illustrates the analysis of polycentric governance and the adjacent action situations within it as well as what endogenous and exogenous factors shape system performance. As commonalities it finds that characteristics of transactions in terms of asset specificity play important roles. Further, it finds that the political economy of who and what has an interest and resources to coordinate in polycentric governance greatly orient sector and system performance. Transaction costs of access to the sector and its coordination establish exclusionary mechanisms to polycentric governance and regulate expansion of inherent public goods provisioning at stake in polycentric organic farming. The comparative analysis shows that public (open access) provisioniong of the coordination function in polycentric governance (i.e. standardization, accreditation, certification) are crucial to public goods expansion in polycentric governance.