Informal Institutions, CPR's and the Social Context of Fairness

Abstract

"In determining the design of local institutions for the regulation of natural resource use, some scholars have pointed out that the nature of society may be at least as important as the nature of the resource (Blaikie 1993). The study of informal institutions in CPR management includes much more than the assumptions of rational choice and game theory embodied in certain traditions of contemporary academic discourse. "A number of authors have noted the way in which perceptions of nature and environmental risk vary across social and political cultures, which seems in some ways related to the fundamental Kantian assertion that it is impossible to make unbiased representations of things (Douglas 1966, 1975; Rappaport 1979; Pedersen 1992; Simmons 1993). These perceptions are different from, though they may be related in different ways to, the formulation of individual and collective interests. "The role of the Himalayan village commons managing institution as a forum for mediating different perceptions and interests, each with its own interpretation of ecosystem resilience, will be illustrated through a case-study of forest and pasture management in Pujargaon village in the Garhwal Himalaya over a five-year period (1987-92). This informal institution successfully mediated plural and frequently contentious dialogues on environmental risk as well as related notions of fairness with respect to the consequent allocation of benefit and burden, instead of assuming that there could be any single correct definition of the problems concerned. "Concerns of fairness have also influenced the evolution of other natural resource management programs in the Himalaya, often playing an important role in their ability to involve popular participation, and in their ultimate success or failure in creating robust institutions. "If such discourse on fairness, like those on justice, represent the form of a society (Douglas 1993), then it may be necessary to study why different actors and cultures are attracted to various notions of fairness in order to inform policies sufficient for the cultivation of 'new traditions' of collective resource use (Sarin 1993), and to understand the significance of alternate plausible regimes of natural resource management in their relation to societal variations."