Designing the Institutions in Transition: Local Institutions in Regulating the Access to and Management of Common Pool Resources in Rural Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

"The key objectives of this study are: (1) to critically assess and analyze the institutional change in pasture management in Kyrgyzstan, (2) to analyze rule making process and assess the concepts and feasibility of institutions and governance structures at the local level and (3) interplay between informal and formal institutions, between the scales (local and national) and sectors (use of water for pasture management). Based on the results the research will (4) develop policy recommendations for bridging the gap between policy and people and designing more sustainable institutions. The most important research question is how the emerging institutions (rules in use) are shaped by change of formal institutions, characteristics of actors, pasture resources and the properties of transactions. The specific methodological emphasis is placed on the combination of case study and the field, laboratory experiments as outlined by Ostrom E., (2005), Poteete et al (2009) to study the behavior and outcomes in common pool resource dilemmas by exogenous, endogenous rule making and bargaining. The Institutions of Sustainability (IoS) Framework and design principles of 'robust institutions' will provide the analytical frame. The distributional theory of institutional change will be applied by explaining the rule making process. The research is focused on the institutions responsible for pasture management, however the use of water for pasture management (for winter fodder production) are investigated in order to study the interaction between institutional environment and other sectors."