The Effect of Heterogeneity on Institutional Success and Conservation Outcomes

Abstract

"The gains to society from collective action can be very high. For this reason, understanding what factors facilitate or hinder trust and cooperation is a critical endeavor, and one that has engaged a great many researchers drawn from multiple fields in the natural and social sciences. In the research reported here, the specific aim is to understand how heterogeneities among individuals affect the success of community based resource management. The method for doing so is a meta-analysis of data from case studies that have been encoded in the 'Common-pool Resource Database', compiled by researchers at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. The database contains records from approximately 150 different case studies across a variety of resource types, e.g. fisheries, forests, irrigation systems, pastures, etc. A central focus of the analysis is an investigation into the multiple ways field researchers have incorporated heterogeneity (material and cultural) into their findings and linked those concepts to collective action outcomes. Because researchers have tended to interpret 'success' in a variety of ways and to conflate multiple stages of collective action, it has thus far been difficult to come to firm conclusions about the impact of heterogeneity."