Institutional Analysis of Decentralization and Options of Stakeholders for Participation in Agro-rural Policy Design

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Starting from the hypothesis that participation leads to better policy design and implementation, this study analyses whether recent decentralization efforts in Thailand favour or constrain participation of farmers and how their participation affects agro-rural policy design. The ‘Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework’, originally developed by Elinor Ostrom, is innovatively adapted and applied in analysing the decentralization process towards more participation in policy design. The research will provide new scientific insights in these issues: (1) Does the Thai decentralization process, which relies heavily on two local organisations, the Tambon Administrative Organisations (TAOs) and the Agricultural Technology Transfer Centres (ATTACs), facilitate participation? (2) Is this process taking account of the informal rules of society? (3) What is the qualitative impact of participation on the design of agro-rural policies and the subsequent implementation of measures? (4) Finally, based on multiple criteria decision analysis including stakeholder-specific criteria elaboration, the research will provide scholarly recommendations on how these local organisations can promote effective farmers’ participation. Studies which cover these three fields − namely (1) decentralization, (2) participation with regard to policy design and (3) institutions − and focus at the same time on agro-rural policies are rather scarce.