Understanding Processes of Institutional Change within Local Common- Pool Resource Systems: Can the 'Analytic Narratives Approach' Help?

Abstract

"In this paper, the concrete example of a local water management system in a postsocialist reclamation area in East Germany will be investigated. Here, more then ten years of institutional change have resulted in an physically and institutionally dysfunctional system of water regulation. This system, centrally and hierarchically organised during socialist times, has been degraded and is operated in an uncoordinated manner. This paper aims to explore the reasons for the physical and institutional failure of the present water management system in the Schraden. More precisely, I will investigate the process of change that has lead to an institutional structure that has been unable to successfully deal with the problems. This paper is organised in two main parts. In the first part, I will sketch out preliminary results of the analysis of the processes of institutional change. In the second part, I will outline a research concept that might allow us to go beyond these first results and to develop a more comprehensive and theory based understanding of those processes."