Tragedy? What Tragedy? Swords of Damocles and the Cast of Institutionally Eroding Common Property Regime Irrigation in Nepal

Abstract

"Scholarship on common pool resources governed as common property regimes is characterised by discourses in which notions of ‘tragedy’ in and ‘threats’ to ‘community’ cooperation feature prominently. In this paper the relevance of the notions is questioned. The paper seeks to explain, first of all, why these notions run so deep, by exploring the underlying assumptions, as well as their origins and manifestations in common property regime analyses. It is argued that their appeal among champions of common property regimes, is closely associated with interesting combinations of idealised notions of community cooperation and conventional economic theory. This combination contributes to explaining the popularity of common property regimes across a range of academic disciplines, and in rural development policy. Secondly, the paper tests the relevance of the notions against the context of changing cropping patterns and related water tenure changes in irrigation system cases in the hills of Nepal and elsewhere in Asia. It is argued that while common property regimes indeed erode as non-cereal crops gain ground, cooperation in pursuit of livelihood activities does not, and that, in the face of improving livelihood trajectories, it is difficult to lament the demise of common property regimes. The cases serve to illustrate that the assumptions in common property scholarship and policy, about tragedy, threats and the direction of cooperative governance, tenure and livelihood arrangements are problematic given a rapidly changing rural reality."