Doctoral Dissertation Research: Multi-Stakeholder Perceptions of Legitimacy in a Decentralized Governance System

博士候选人Laura Kowler（佛罗里达大学），在Christopher McCarty博士的指导下，将研究分散的自然资源治理系统中不同利益相关者之间的相互作用。这项研究将在玻利维亚进行，在那里组织了称为“平台”的论坛，以解决玻利维亚不断发展的森林治理系统的挑战。平台是审议空间，可以讨论和协商对国家资助的自然资源管理方法的不同且经常相互冲突的解释。首要的研究问题是：平台中多个不同利益相关者之间的互动结构如何影响他们对审议过程合法性的个人看法？本研究探讨了如何在中观（平台）层面构建治理，同时结合微观（地方或社区）和宏观（国家）层面的影响。平台代表着治理实验，并根据协商民主原则进行分析，协商民主据称通过让公民参与以前遥远的决策过程来确保政策的合法性。科勒将收集社交网络数据，并观察围绕玻利维亚北部亚马逊地区土地使用、访问和管理问题组织的四个不同平台。在这些平台中收集的整个网络数据将用于中观层面的交互操作，而个人网络分析将用于测量平台参与者和个人之间微观和宏观层面的标量影响。人种学方法将社会网络数据置于环境中，并对形成治理过程的多层次相互作用有更有力的理解。这项研究很重要，因为它将为自然资源治理和发展的学者和实践者提供有关解释这些关系的治理安排、机制和社会政治过程的证据。这项工作的发现也将有助于解决更大的问题，即跨层次或组织边界的互动如何影响位于不同层次的特定个体之间的信息流和协调。资助这项研究也支持了研究生的教育。

Doctoral candidate, Laura Kowler (University of Florida), supervised by Dr. Christopher McCarty, will investigate the interaction among diverse stakeholders in a decentralized natural resource governance system. The research will be conducted in Bolivia where forums called "platforms" are organized to address the challenges of Bolivia's evolving forest governance system. Platforms are deliberative spaces that enable the discussion and negotiation of disparate, and often conflicting, interpretations of state-sponsored approaches to natural resource management. The overarching research question is: how does the structure of interactions among multiple and distinct stakeholders in platforms impact their individual perceptions of the legitimacy of the deliberative process? This research examines how governance is constructed at the meso (platform) level, while incorporating the effects of the micro (local or community) and macro (national) levels. Platforms represent governance experiments and are analyzed based on the principles of deliberative democracy, which is claimed to secure legitimacy for policies by giving citizens access to previously remote decision-making processes.Kowler will collect social network data and observe four different platforms organized around land use, access, and management issues in the northern Bolivian Amazon region. Whole network data collected in these platforms will be used to operationalize the interactions at the meso level while personal network analysis will be used to measure the scalar influences among platform participants and individuals at the micro and macro levels. Ethnographic methods will contextualize the social network data and enable a more robust understanding of the multi-level interactions shaping governance processes.This research is important because it will provide evidence to natural resource governance and development scholars and practitioners about the governance arrangements, mechanisms, and the socio-political processes that explain these relationships. Findings from this work will also contribute to the larger question of how interaction across levels or organizational borders impacts information flow and coordination through particular individuals located at different levels. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.