Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Democracy and Adaptation Effects of India's Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA)

博士论文改进：印度农村就业保障计划（NREGA）的民主与适应效应

• 批准号: 1131073
• 负责人: Ashwini Chhatre
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1131073&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Democracy; Adaptation

Countries around the world are gearing up to respond to anticipated climate change by developing plans for adaptation. In order to be effective, these efforts must facilitate participation of local beneficiaries in project planning as well as provide equitable distribution of benefits from public investments. Past experience with development initiatives has shown that effective participation is uncommon, however, and outcomes are often highly inequitable. Little is actually known about factors that enable communities to channel development projects towards addressing climate-related vulnerabilities. This doctoral dissertation research project will investigate factors that (1) encourage participation of marginal social groups in development project selection, (2) enable such groups to receive equitable benefits from project outcomes, and (3) enable citizens to design development initiatives for reducing vulnerability to climate impacts. A recent policy in India, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), provides an excellent opportunity to explore these themes. NREGA is expected to provide a social safety net through provision of minimum-wage employment generated through state-funded rural development activities. Projects are ostensibly selected at the local level through democratic deliberation. The doctoral student will draw upon a diverse array of scholarship examining local democracy, rural development, common-pool resource management, and climate change adaptation to study participation, equity, and climate vulnerability reduction outcomes in NREGA project selection and implementation. Working in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, he will employ a two-tiered analytical approach. He will use qualitative approaches to identify the processes that generate positive outcomes in a small number of case studies, and he will derive testable operational hypotheses for quantitative analysis. In the second phase, he will test the hypothesized relationships among specific factors and a suite of outcome indicators across a larger universe of cases through quantitative modeling. The student hypothesizes that more equitable and democratic project implementation is the outcome of the dynamic interactions of multiple actors traversing the state-society divide. He also will assess whether access to critical adaptation knowledge and capacity to influence development decisions are likely to be bolstered by homogeneity of endowments and interests, a vibrant civil society, human capital, access to mass media, and a local history of coping with climatic stresses.The expected flow of resources from the global community towards climate-adaptation assistance has great potential to ameliorate the current living conditions of the world's poor while increasing their ability to withstand future challenges. The findings from this project will enhance basic knowledge regarding how the structure of adaptation policies can influence their effectiveness, and they will enable decision makers to make more informed choices about allocating scarce resources towards appropriate interventions. The project also will produce a large database that combines project-level outcomes with data dealing with sociopolitical, economic, institutional, and environmental variables. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.

世界各国正在加紧准备，通过制定适应计划来应对预期的气候变化。为了有效，这些努力必须促进当地受益者参与项目规划，并公平分配公共投资的利益。然而，过去有关发展倡议的经验表明，有效参与并不常见，结果往往极不公平。实际上，人们对使社区能够将发展项目导向解决气候相关脆弱性的因素知之甚少。本博士论文研究项目将调查以下因素：(1)鼓励边缘社会群体参与发展项目选择，(2)使这些群体能够从项目成果中获得公平的利益，(3)使公民能够设计发展倡议以减少对气候影响的脆弱性。印度最近的一项政策，即《全国农村就业保障法》（NREGA），为探索这些主题提供了极好的机会。预计《全国农村就业制度》将通过提供国家资助的农村发展活动所产生的最低工资就业机会，提供社会安全网。项目表面上是在地方一级通过民主审议选出的。该博士生将利用研究地方民主、农村发展、公共资源管理和气候变化适应的各种奖学金，研究NREGA项目选择和实施中的参与、公平和减少气候脆弱性的结果。在印度北部的喜马偕尔邦工作时，他将采用两层分析方法。他将使用定性方法来确定在少数案例研究中产生积极结果的过程，他将为定量分析推导可测试的操作假设。在第二阶段，他将通过定量建模在更大范围的案例中测试特定因素和一系列结果指标之间的假设关系。该学生假设，更公平和民主的项目实施是跨越国家-社会鸿沟的多个参与者动态互动的结果。他还将评估获得关键的适应知识和影响发展决策的能力是否可能得到捐赠和利益的同质性、充满活力的民间社会、人力资本、获得大众媒体以及当地应对气候压力的历史的支持。预计国际社会将向气候适应援助提供资源，这将极大地改善世界贫困人口目前的生活条件，同时提高他们抵御未来挑战的能力。本项目的研究结果将增强关于适应政策结构如何影响其有效性的基本知识，并将使决策者能够在将稀缺资源分配给适当干预措施方面做出更明智的选择。该项目还将产生一个大型数据库，将项目级结果与处理社会政治、经济、制度和环境变量的数据相结合。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。