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Journal Article Environmental Entitlements: Pastoral Natural Resource Management in Mongolia(1996) Mearns, RobinFrom p. 106-107: "This paper draws on new and existing bodies of ecological, social and economic theory that have much to offer in strengthening the analysis of environment-society interactions. Interdisciplinary research in the social sciences (especially anthropology, political science and economies), history and ecology, shows how macro and micro constraints and potentials combine to shape the ways different groups of people gain access to and control over resources, and in doing so manipulate their local environments in ways that may in turn alter those constraints and potentials. This perspective draws on and is influenced by various intellectual traditions, including the entitlements approach of Amartya Sen, extended to encompass the question of effective legitimate command over RNRs; other approaches in the new institutional economics; structuration theory; new thinking on ecology at disequilibrium; and political ecology."Journal Article Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management(1999) Leach, Melissa; Mearns, Robin; Scoones, Ian"While community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) now attracts widespread international attention, its practical implementation frequently falls short of expectations. This paper contributes to emerging critiques by focusing on the implications of intracommunity dynamics and ecological heterogeneity. It builds a conceptual framework highlighting the central role of institutions -- regularized patterns of behavior between individuals and groups in society -- in mediating environment-society relationships. Grounded in an extended form of entitlements analysis, the framework explores how differently positioned social actors command environmental goods and services that are instrumental to their well-being. Further insights are drawn from analyses of social difference; 'new,' dynamic ecology; new institutional economics; structuration theory, and landscape history. The theoretical argument is illustrated with case material from India, South Africa and Ghana."Journal Article Community, Collective Action and Common Grazing: The Case of Post-Socialist Mongolia(1996) Mearns, Robin"This article applies collective-action and transaction-cost theory to the theoretical debate around the management of common property regimes (CPRs), with supporting evidence from recent empirical research in Mongolian pastoralism. Rather than treating CPR management as an activity in isolation, as much of the existing literature tends to do, this study examines the use of common grazing in the context of other aspects of pastoral livelihoods. The more a given group of herders find reason to cooperate with each other across a range of activities, it is argued, the more likely it is that they will also overcome the transaction costs involved in controlling the use of the commons. The empirical analysis finds that incentives for cooperation were weakened under agricultural collectivisation (1950s-80s), with possible adverse consequences for the commons. Decollectivisation from the early 1990s has seen the re-emergence of autonomous cooperation among herders, accompanied by changes in intra-community dynamics, which together suggest contradictory trends for the future management of common grazing."Journal Article Natural Resource Mapping and Seasonal Variations and Stresses in Mongolia(1994) Mearns, Robin; Shombodon, D.; Narangerel, G.; Tuul, U.; Enkhamgalan, A.; Myagmarzhav, B.; Bayanjargal, A.; Bekhsuren, B."This paper documents fieldwork carried out in 1991 during the initial stages of a collaborative policy research and training project in Mongolia. The Policy Alternatives for Livestock Development (PALD) project aims to facilitate the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy in the extensive livestock sector which dominates the Mongolian rural economy."