DRMS: Inequalities, Institutions and Sustainability: An Experimental Study of Local Efforts to Govern the Commons

DRMS：不平等、制度和可持续性：地方治理公地努力的实验研究

• 批准号: 2403834
• 负责人: Krister Andersson
• 金额: $ 55.51万
• 依托单位: University of Notre Dame
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2403834&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DRMS; Inequalities; Institutions; Sustainability; Experimental

One of the longstanding challenges of community-based approaches to managing natural resources is that such approaches often lead to increases in social exclusion and economic inequality. The devolution of property rights over natural resources is an increasingly popular policy response to environmental degradation, especially in developing nations. One example of this trend is that local communities now collectively own and manage an increasing share (currently more than 15 percent) of the world's remaining forests. Several scholars have reported that local communities that own and manage their forests collectively often perform better than governments, at least when it comes to aggregate environmental conditions. Some scholars, however, are voicing concerns that when local resource users self-govern shared resources it often produces increased inequality: the risk that the management ends up benefiting mostly the relatively rich or privileged members of natural resource user groups, hence further marginalizing poorer members. This risk is a serious threat to the sustainability of community-based approaches, especially as there is mounting evidence that common-pool resources used by groups with relatively high degrees of economic inequality tend to have more degraded resource conditions. This research project investigates the conditions under which community-based governance approaches produce such inequalities, and the institutional arrangements that resource users may design and enforce to foster more equitable governance outcomes. This project addresses two types of decision making in natural resource governance processes. First, the research produces a deeper understanding of how local governance inequalities affect the decisions of disadvantaged households to participate in the group's governance activities, and the subsequent effects of those decisions on resource sustainability. Second, by examining the effects of different institutional arrangements on who benefits from resource management activities, the research produces new knowledge about approaches to address the negative effects of inequality in forest user groups. Specifically, the researchers examine community forest management groups in Nepal and India and focus on three questions: how do inequalities influence collective action? How does inequality influence the distribution of benefits and sustainability? What interventions reduce inequality? The four hypotheses are: interventions to decrease inequality de facto can increase participation in decision making; will motivate greater time investments in resource management; will increase benefits of the commons going to disadvantaged households, and will achieve improved environmental outcomes. The team evaluates the hypotheses through four randomized controlled trials each of which uses three inequality reducing interventions. The villages are selected using matched-pair cluster-randomization with an N of 360 villages which makes for 60 villages per experimental condition per country. There is also an ethnographic case study in eight villages. The interventions are: creation of a subcommittee for low-caste and tribal groups, a subcommittee plus training for high-caste and male citizens on the value of inclusiveness, and both of these plus a subcommittee for women. Because Nepal has committee membership quotas for women but not by caste the treatments are slightly modified. Pre- and post-treatment household surveys measure both participation in the planning group activities and resource use, and are be supplemented with satellite imagery.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

以社区为基础的自然资源管理办法的一个长期挑战是，这种办法往往导致社会排斥和经济不平等的加剧。下放自然资源的产权是一种越来越受欢迎的应对环境退化的政策，特别是在发展中国家。这一趋势的一个例子是，地方社区现在集体拥有和管理世界上剩余森林的份额越来越大（目前超过15%）。 一些学者报告说，集体拥有和管理森林的地方社区往往比政府表现得更好，至少在总体环境条件方面是这样。然而，一些学者表示担心，当当地资源使用者自治共享资源时，往往会产生更大的不平等：管理最终可能使自然资源使用者群体中相对富裕或有特权的成员受益，从而进一步边缘化较贫穷的成员。这一风险严重威胁到基于社区的办法的可持续性，特别是因为越来越多的证据表明，经济不平等程度相对较高的群体所使用的共有资源往往具有更加恶化的资源条件。本研究项目调查的条件下，以社区为基础的治理方法产生这样的不平等，以及资源使用者可能设计和执行，以促进更公平的治理结果的体制安排。本项目涉及自然资源治理过程中的两类决策。首先，研究使人们更深入地了解地方治理不平等如何影响弱势家庭参与群体治理活动的决定，以及这些决定对资源可持续性的后续影响。第二，通过审查不同体制安排对谁从资源管理活动中受益的影响，这项研究产生了关于如何处理森林用户群体中不平等的负面影响的新知识。具体而言，研究人员研究了尼泊尔和印度的社区森林管理团体，并重点关注三个问题：不平等如何影响集体行动？不平等如何影响利益分配和可持续性？哪些措施可以减少不平等？这四个假设是：减少事实上的不平等的干预措施可以增加决策的参与;将激励更多的时间投资于资源管理;将增加弱势家庭的公地收益，并将实现更好的环境成果。该团队通过四项随机对照试验评估了这些假设，每项试验都使用了三种减少不平等的干预措施。那些村庄是使用配对聚类随机化选择的，N为360个村庄，这使得每个国家每个实验条件60个村庄。还有一项关于八个村庄的人种学个案研究。这些干预措施是：设立一个低种姓和部落群体小组委员会，一个小组委员会加上对高种姓和男性公民进行关于包容性价值的培训，这两个小组委员会加上一个妇女小组委员会。由于尼泊尔对妇女有委员会成员配额，但不按种姓，因此待遇略有改变。治疗前和治疗后的家庭调查衡量参与规划小组活动和资源使用情况，并辅以卫星图像。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。