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

将政治权力下放给市级政府已成为解决发展中国家与环境退化有关的治理问题的一项非常常见的政策战略，如果不是占主导地位的话。然而，对分权改革对环境影响的科学理解仍然非常有限。本博士论文研究项目调查了在什么条件下可以期望分权发展中国家的地方政府建立适当的土地利用规划制度。为此，该项目对玻利维亚热带低地市政府在环境部门的业绩进行了比较研究。为了评估观察到的生物物理变化模式与市政府政策和做法之间的联系，该项目使用了广泛的补充实地方法。这些活动包括：(1)对随机挑选的35个市政府进行调查；(2)对选定的四个城市进行机构定性分析；(3)利用1972年、1986年和1999年的遥感卫星图像，对土地利用和土地覆盖的变化进行时间序列分析。在研究项目的最后阶段，资源用户团体以及市政府和中央政府代表被邀请参加研讨会，讨论初步调查结果和可行的政策选择。

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.