Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Influence of Local Government on Land Cover Change in the Tropical Lowlands of Bolivia

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Decentralization of political authority to municipal governments has become a very common, if not dominating, policy strategy for addressing governance problems associated with environmental degradation in developing countries. Yet, the scientific understanding of the environmental impacts of decentralization reform remains very limited.This Doctoral Dissertation Research project investigates under what conditions one can expect local governments in decentralized developing countries to construct adequate regimes for land use planning. To this end, the project undertakes a comparative study of municipal governments' performance in the environmental sector in the tropical lowlands of Bolivia. To assess the linkages between observed patterns of biophysical change and municipal government policies and practices, the project uses of a wide array of complementary field methods. These include (1) a survey instrument administered to 35 randomly selected municipal governments; (2) qualitative institutional analysis of four selected municipalities, and (3) a time-series analysis of land use and land cover changes -using remotely sensed satellite imagery from 1972, 1986 and 1999. In the final stages of the research project, resource user groups along with municipal and central government representatives are invited to a workshop to discuss preliminary findings and viable policy options.