BETWEEN OPEN ACCESS, PRIVATISATION AND COLLECTIVE ACTION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE GOVERNING USE OF COMMON-POOL RESOURCES IN AFRICAN FLOODPLAINS

This paper presents the results of the AFWeP. The major aim was to conduct a comparative, qualitative study in comparable ecological settings based on the same outline. The main interest was to analyse historical changes in the institutional design of common property regimes for the use of multiple common-pool resources (fisheries, pasture, wildlife, water forests, etc.) in complex ecosystems. Eight researchers from Swiss and African Universities conducted the fieldwork, based on the same outline in Mali, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana. The theoretical basis was provided by the New Institutionalism (North 1990), most elaborated in Anthropology by Jean Ensminger (Ensminger 1992, Ensminger and Knight 1997) and the early work of Elinor Ostrom on institutional design (Ostrom 1990, Becker and Ostrom 1995). We show that external factors lead to changes in the relative prices of goods and services, making floodplain common-pool resources more attractive and seriously affecting local-level bargaining power and institutional change. One finding is that the state, which is taking over the management of the common-pool resources, creates de facto open access, because it lacks the financial means to enforce laws and is not able to monitor or exclude immigrant users. At the same time, local rules are eroded, weakened or transformed by powerful local people. But our results go far beyond this generally known finding. We argue that: A) Not all traditional institutions become eroded, but those who give a rent to powerful people will remain (rent hypothesis); B) There is a problem due to loss of state control, because immigrants use the ideology of citizenship to gain free access to common-pool resources, hindering local collective action (paradox of presence-absence of the state); C) One of the key independent variables is the economic situation of the state. We argue that interest in using common-pool resources as an alternative livelihood strategy is minimal in a country with a solid economic performance (economic performance of the state hypothesis). We however recognize from the comparison that our data has to be seen in a broader context of legal and institutional pluralism that fits nicely with Ensmingers model and in which ideology, discourses and narratives are important sources for legitimacy of selected institutions or a institutional pluralism. We have therefore created a matrix in which we can place all the cases studies with regard to resource sustainability and property rights/pluralism involved.