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

世界各国都在加紧制定适应计划，以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惠益。然而，过去发展倡议的经验表明，有效参与的情况并不常见，而且结果往往非常不公平。关于使社区能够引导发展项目以解决与气候有关的脆弱性的因素，人们实际上知之甚少。这一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好处，(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--《国家农村就业保障法》(NREGA)--为探讨这些主题提供了极好的机会。NREGA预计将通过提供国家资助的农村发展活动产生的最低工资就业来提供社会安全网。项目表面上是在地方一级通过民主审议选出的。博士生将利用一系列研究地方民主、农村发展、共用资源管理和气候变化适应的不同学术成果，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成果。在印度北部的喜马恰尔邦工作，他将采用一种双层分析方法。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，并将推导出用于定量分析的可测试的操作假说。在第二阶段，他将通过定量建模来测试特定因素和一套结果指标之间的假设关系，涉及更大的病例范围。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天赋和利益的同质化、充满活力的民间社会、人力资本、大众媒体的获取以及当地应对气候压力的历史的支持。预期从全球社会流向气候适应援助的资源具有巨大的潜力，可以改善世界穷人目前的生活条件，同时提高他们抵御未来挑战的能力。该项目的调查结果将加强关于适应政策的结构如何影响其有效性的基本知识，并使决策者能够在将稀缺资源分配给适当干预措施方面作出更明智的选择。该项目还将产生一个大型数据库，将项目级成果与处理社会政治、经济、体制和环境变量的数据结合起来。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。

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.