Collective Action and Property Rights: An Introduction

1
Collective Action and Property Rights An
Introduction
CGIAR System-Wide Program on Collective Action
and Property Rights

• Ruth Meinzen-Dick
• International Food Policy Research Institute

2
Overview

• Why property rights, collective action matter
• Understanding collective action
• Understanding property rights

3
Role of Collective Action, Property Rights in
Natural Resource Management
region
Space
Time
plot
long term
short term
4
Role of Collective Action, Property Rights in
Natural Resource Management
region
Space
Soil fertility
Agroforestry
HYVs
Time
plot
long term
short term
5
Role of Collective Action, Property Rights in
Natural Resource Management
Tenure security
high
low
region
Space
IPM
Soil fertility
Agroforestry
HYVs
Time
plot
low
long term
short term
6
Role of Collective Action, Property Rights in
Natural Resource Management
Tenure security
Institution
high
low
region
high
Space
Collective action
IPM
Soil fertility
Agroforestry
HYVs
Time
plot
low
long term
short term
7
Role of Collective Action, Property Rights in
Natural Resource Management
Tenure security
high
low
Institution
region
high
Fisheries
Watershed management
Space
Forestry
Irrigation
Rangeland management
Collective action
IPM
Terracing
Soil fertility
Agroforestry
HYVs
Time
plot
low
Scale
long term
short term
8
Role of PR, CA in Devolution of NRM

• Transfer management responsibility from
  government to user groups
• Without collective action local management
  unlikely to succeed
• But programs often assume CA will occur
• Often, traditional institutions for cooperation
  have eroded
• Without property rights users, groups lack
• Incentives to manage resources
• Authority to manage resources (set, enforce
  rules)
• Rights need to balance responsibilities

9
Other PR, CA Applications for Poverty Reduction

• Property rights shape distribution of
  wealth/poverty, inequality
• Collective action for many development programs,
  to overcome wealth constraints
• Microfinance
• Agricultural extension, participatory research
• Collective marketing
• Empowerment
• Property rights affect distribution of power
• Collective action in social movements to change
  rules

10
Understanding Collective Action
11
Definitions of Collective Action

• Action taken by a group (either directly or on
  its behalf through an organization) in pursuit of
  members perceived shared interest (Marshall
  1998).
• Includes forming and enforcing rules for use (or
  non-use) of resources
• Voluntary (not paid or forced)

12
Related Concepts

• Institutions (formal or informal)
• Rules that define and limit the set of choices of
  individuals.
• Let people form expectations
• Organizations (formal or informal)
• Roles, structures
• May help, but not necessary for collective action
• Social capital (if defined as collective good)
• Shared norms, trust, social relations
• Social capital as stock, collective action as
  flow
• May help, but is not same as CA

13
Collective Action by Whom?

• At what level?
• Small group
• Community
• Federation
• Large-scale social movement

14
Collective Action by Whom?

• How clearly defined are group boundaries?
• Easiest to identify when clearly bounded
• May be easier to organize (Ostroms design
  principles)
• Fuzzy groupsfading in to social networks, e.g.
  for genetic resources
• Role of entrepreneurs in organizing
• Bearing transaction costs
• Directing actioncoordinating internally,
  externally
• What incentives for agents/leaders?

15
Importance of Collective Action

• Management of natural resources
• Irrigation, watersheds, rangelands, fisheries
• Facilitates joint investment by small farmers
• Dissemination of technologies
• Marketing
• Group empowerment
• Protecting property rights

16
Dilemmas of Collective Action in Projects

• Which groups get rights
• Inequality within groups
• Build on existing or new institutions (tradition
  vs. democracy)
• Weak collective action institutions
• Institutional organizers vs. community dependency

17
Understanding Property Rights
18
Images of Rights

• Conventional
• Rigid, unchanging
• Divides people
• State title
• Ownership
• Single user

• Preferable
• Fluid, dynamic
• Connects people
• Multiple sources
• Bundles of rights
• Multiple uses, users

19
Definitions of Property Rights

• The capacity to call upon the collective to
  stand behind ones claim to a benefit stream
  (Bromley)
• Claims that are recognized as legitimate (ff.
  Wiber)
• Only as strong as the institutions that back them
  up
• Different legitimizing institutions

20
Bundles of Rights

• Use rights
• Access , Withdrawal
• Control rights
• Exclusion
• Management
• Alienation (transfer)
• Usufruct (earn income from)
• Strengthening someones control rights weakens
  others use rights

21
Property Rights Regimes

• Private property
• Individual or legal individual holds rights
• Common Property
• Group (e.g. community) holds rights
• Can manage, exclude others
• Importance of rules to manage, distribute
• Public Property
• State holds rights
• Is it effective in managing, excluding?
• Open Access no effective management

22
Nature of the Goods(not necessarily the property
regime)
23
Legal Pluralism

• Recognize many sources of rights
• State law
• Project regulations
• Customary law
• Religious law
• Local norms
• Interaction between legal frameworks

24
Project
International
State
Religious
Local/customary
25
Forum Shopping

• Start with peoples experience with access and
  control of resources
• Individuals base their claims on whichever legal
  framework will give them the best hearing
• Rights are negotiated, contested
• Source of flexibility, change

26
Importance of Property Rights-1

• Incentives
• Rights as reward for investment
• Users reap benefits of good management, bear
  costs of mismanagement
• For this to be effective, need to go beyond
  sense of ownership

27
Importance of Property Rights-2

• Authorization, control over resource
• Ability to exclude outsiders
• Regulate members use of resource
• Transform the resource
• Decision-making authority

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Importance of Property Rights-3

• Welfare
• Distribution of resources
• Rightsassets, reduce vulnerability
• Fuzzy property rights, or access options, may
  be important for survival, fallback options

29
Importance of Property Rights-4

• Empowerment
• Property rights give status
• To households in community
• To individuals (women) in household
• Decision-making authority
• Standing with the government