ANALYZING NEGOTIATION APPROACHES IN NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT - A CASE STUDY OF CROP-LIVESTOCK CONFLICTS IN SRI LANKA

Participatory approaches in natural resource management are increasingly being criticized for their tendency to neglect power relations and conflicts of interests. Negotiation approaches have been proposed as a strategy to overcome such shortcomings. Using the case of negotiations on crop-livestock conflicts in Sri Lanka as an empirical example, this paper proposes to apply the concept of political capital in combination with game theoretical modeling for an analysis of negotiation processes in natural resource management. The model serves to analyze both the incentive structure of the resource users, who are motivated by economic incentives, and the incentive structure of political decision-makers, who are motivated by political interests. The crucial role that the public administration may play for the enforcement of a negotiation outcome is highlighted. The paper discusses potential extensions of the model and concludes that the concept of political capital, in combination with game theoretical modeling, provides a useful tool for the analysis of negotiation approaches in natural resource management.natural resource management, negotiation, political capital, extensive form game, Sri Lanka, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q2,

Improving governance to eradicate hunger and poverty:

Poverty reduction, Hunger, Governance, food security, Political economy, Policy implications,

Choosing policy instruments to reduce poverty and hunger : Is it possible to overcome the feasibility dilemma?

Poverty reduction, Hunger, Public investments, infrastructure, Feasibility challenges,

Agricultural strategy development in West Africa: The false promise of participation?

"Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies within Sub-Saharan Africa. However, such approaches are frequently criticized for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the scope of their participation. By analyzing the role of stakeholder participation in the formulation of agricultural and rural development strategies in West Africa, this paper finds that a lack of broad-based participation in these strategies was not a major problem. Rather, the real challenge lies in transforming the outcomes of participatory processes into policies that can be feasibly implemented. The paper highlights why an emphasis on participatory processes can sometimes result in disappointment among stakeholders and discusses a range of measures to help overcome this dilemma. " from authors' abstractAgricultural and rural development strategies, Policy process, Participation, Representative democracy, Governance,

Between conservationism, eco-populism and developmentalism: discourses in biodiversity policy in Thailand and Indonesia

"The present paper analyzes the role of discourse in conflicts concerning nature conservation in tropical countries. We focus on the contested question as to whether and to which extent local communities should be allowed to live and use resources inside protected areas. Applying the concepts of belief-systems, story-lines and discourse coalitions, we analyze two empirical case studies dealing with this conflict: The first case study is concerned with a policy process at the national level that aimed at passing a community forestry law in Thailand to make the establishment of community forests in protected areas possible. The second case study deals with the proposed resettlement of a village from the Lore Lindu National Park in Sulawesi, Indonesia. In both cases, three discourses could be observed: a conservationist discourse, an eco-populist discourse, and a developmentalist discourse. The case studies show that the conservationists and the developmentalists were able to form a discourse coalition, which was challenged by the proponents of the eco-populist discourse. The analysis also demonstrates that establishing story-lines in the discourse can lead to the neglect of facts and problems that do not fit in either discourse. The paper draws attention to the role of science in the different discourses and concludes that scientists should become more aware of the role they play in the different discourses." Author's Abstractsouth east asia, East and Southeast Asia, Protected areas, Environmental management,

Regional biotechnology regulations: Design options and implications for good governance

"Many developing countries are currently in the process of designing regulatory systems that should allow them to use genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for agricultural development, while also managing the food safety and environmental risks potentially associated with these technologies. Various regions of the developing world are seeking to establish regional systems of biotechnology regulation. However, considerable costs are associated with biotechnology regulation, and biosafety specialists are scarce. In addition, there is no consistent understanding of how regional systems of biotechnology regulation can be designed to be effective and efficient, while also fulfilling the principles of good governance, such as transparency, voice and accountability, control of corruption, and avoidance of special interest capture. There are a wide variety of possible regional approaches, differing with regard to the level of centralization, the scope of the regional system, the types of regional institutions and processes, and the types of financing mechanisms. Here, based on findings in the fields of environmental and fiscal federalism and transaction costs economics, we develop a conceptual framework for the assessment of regional systems of biotechnology regulation. The framework specifies design options and assessment criteria, and identifies major trade-offs and their mediating factors. We use the case of West Africa to illustrate this framework, and refer to the European Union for comparison. Our analysis indicates that involving regional experts, stakeholders and policy-makers in the design of a regional regulatory system will help fill knowledge gaps and generate conclusions regarding the trade-offs involved in regional biotechnology regulation." from Author's AbstractRegional biotechnology regulation, Regulatory systems, Transaction cost economics, European Union, Governance,

Financing Agricultural Development: The Political Economy of Public Spending on Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledging that the agricultural sector can play an important role as an engine of pro-poor growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the ?political will? of governments to support this sector. The concept of ?political resources? from the political science literature is used to guide the analysis, as it combines the insights from state-centered and society-centered approaches to explain agricultural policies. Drawing on panel data covering 14 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2001, we present empirical evidence showing that political factors play an important role in determining government?s commitment to supporting agricultural development. We use a measure of democracy that varies both across countries and within countries over time. Estimates are presented for separate samples of democracies and non-democracies, and for a pooled sample of all countries and years irrespective of the democratic status. Our results suggest that the rural poor do exercise electoral leverage in democracies; larger rural population shares are associated with higher spending on agriculture in democracies but not in authoritarian regimes. We also find evidence consistent with the theoretical prior that larger farmers tend to be better organized in interest groups. Specifically, we find that the share of traditional agricultural exports such as coffee and cocoa in the total value of exports, which may be an indicator for the ability of farmers? to organize themselves as interest groups, induces greater spending on agriculture. This result holds true for both democracies and nondemocracies.

Does good governance contribute to pro-poor growth?: a review of the evidence from cross-country studies

"Even though both “good governance” and “pro-poor growth” have become important concepts in development thinking and practice, studies that assess to which extent and how good governance contributes to pro-poor growth are still relatively scarce. After reviewing the two concepts, this paper develops a conceptual framework that specifies the linkages between different aspects of governance and pro-poor growth. Using this framework, the paper reviews a range of quantitative cross-country studies that include measures of governance as independent variables and focuses on the dependent variable in at least two of the three dimensions of pro-poor growth: poverty, inequality, and growth. The review shows that governance indicators that capture a sound decision-making environment for investment and policy implementation, such as political stability and rule of law, are associated with growth but provide mixed results in regard to poverty reduction. On the other hand, governance indicators that refer to transparent political systems, such as civil liberties and political freedom, tend to be conducive for poverty reduction, but the evidence is rather mixed, and the relationship of these variables with growth remains unclear. The paper discusses the methodological challenges inherent in this literature and suggests areas for future research." Authors' AbstractGovernance, Pro-poor growth, Cross-country studies, Growth-poverty linkages, Poverty reduction, Inequality, Decision-making,

Between market failure, policy failure and “community failure”: property rights, crop-livestock conflicts and the adoption of sustainable land use practices in the dry zone of Sri Lanka

Using the case of the semi-arid zone of Southern Sri Lanka as an example, the paper shows that crop damages caused by grazing livestock can constitute an important obstacle to the adoption of available technologies for more sustainable land use. The paper considers crop damages as an externality problem and shows that the classical solutions to externalities — the neo-liberal, the interventionist solution and the communitarian solution — cannot be applied in the Sri Lankan case due to market failure, government failure and “community failure.” The paper discusses collective action and bargaining between organized interest groups as an alternative solution and analyses the conditions which make such a solution work. The paper concludes that - in the Sri Lankan case - a decentralized system of government, a preferential voting system creating incentives for politicians, an institutionalized negotiation platform, and the facilitating role of intermediaries favored this solution.

How to make agricultural extension demand-driven?: The case of India's agricultural extension policy

"Many countries have recognized the need to revive agricultural advisory or extension services (the terms are used interchangeably here) as a means of using agriculture as an engine of pro-poor growth; reaching marginalized, poor, and female farmers; and addressing new challenges, such as environmental degradation and climate change. In spite of ample experience with extension reform worldwide, identifying the reform options most likely to make extension more demand-driven remains a major challenge. The concept of demand-driven services implies making extension more responsive to the needs of all farmers, including women and those who are poor and marginalized. It also implies making extension more accountable to farmers and, as a consequence, more effective. This essay discusses various options for providing and financing agricultural advisory services, which involve the public and private sectors as well as a third sector comprising nongovernmental organizations and farmer-based organizations. We review the market and state failures, and the “community” failures (failures of non-governmental and farmer-based organizations) inherent in existing models of providing and financing agricultural extension services and then outline strategies to address those failures and make extension demand-driven. Then we examine India's Policy Framework for Agricultural Extension, which has demand-driven extension as one of its major objectives, and review available survey information on the state of extension in India. We conclude that although the framework proposes a wide range of strategies to make agricultural extension demand-driven, it is less specific in addressing the challenges inherent in those strategies. Moreover, it remains unclear whether the strategies proposed in the framework will be able to address one of the major problems identified by farm household surveys: access to agricultural extension." from Authors' AbstractDemand-driven agricultural advisory services, Extension reform, Agricultural extension work, Agricultural policy, Pro-poor growth, Farmers, Environmental degradation, Climate change, Public-private sector cooperation, Non-governmental organizations,