Suchergebnisse

Nonprofit organizations often pursue land acquisition as a nonpolitical, private property rights approach to conservation of ecological and cultural resources. Yet acquisition and regulatory land-use planning are intertwined, both in terms of political strategies and conservation outcomes. Our objectives are (1) to understand the relationship between the acquisition strategies of land trusts and their involvement in land-use planning and zoning, and (2) to examine how the interactions between acquisition and land-use planning may shape conservation outcomes. We focus on the strategies of The Nature Conservancy, one of the largest conservation NGOs in the United States. Drawing from an institutional analysis framework, we compare case studies from Tehama and Monterey Counties, California. Through semistructured interviews, analysis of land-use plans and conservation-easement agreements, and GIS mapping we examine political strategies and conservation outcomes. Our analysis reveals that acquisition strategies and the regulatory context influence each other strongly, but that tensions between the politics of these strategies challenge conservation actors to deploy both effectively. Finally, we develop themes for future research, suggesting that the implementation and assessment of regional conservation efforts would benefit from an integrated strategy that recognizes the synergistic linkages between acquisition and regulatory land-use planning.

This introductory article to the special issue on the Institutional Resource Regime (IRR) framework presents an overview of the latest developments of the framework. The IRR framework has been established as an important supplement to existing (neo)institutional approaches focusing on the management of natural resources. One of the major contributions of the IRR framework is its ability to appraise the institutional complexity of heterogeneous resource use situations at the nexus of public regulatory actions and private responses, to link the resulting institutional arrangements with claimants' access to the resource, and to propose causal mechanisms explaining the relationship between institutions and sustainability. ; ISSN:1462-9011 ; ISSN:1873-6416

ABSTRACTSince 2006, Ghana has experienced a wave of large‐scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) for agricultural purposes. Although these acquisitions are enabled by favourable agricultural and investment policies, investors nevertheless generally negotiate directly with traditional authorities, often bypassing state authorities in the acquisition process. The strength of customary authorities is often attributed to the weakness of the state. Considering historical political precedents, this article argues that chiefs in fact increasingly derive their power and legitimacy from state and donor policy. Chiefs play a crucial role in translating the (inter)national investment and development logic into local customary settings which are characterized by complex and overlapping use rights to land and natural resources. Using data from an LSLA in Ghana's Volta Region, this study shows how chiefs continuously redefine and adapt the customary land tenure system and its intricate governance logic to the globalized neoliberal policy setting, readily switching between different institutional settings (institution shopping) to legitimize their actions. Those whose rights under customary tenure are least secure are most likely to lose out in the process of institutional change from common to private property, while those with close connections to the customary elite are most likely to benefit from LSLAs.

Depuis une vingtaine d'années, notamment sous la pression des impératifs de la durabilité, on assiste à l'émergence de nouvelles formes de régulation des rapports entre les sociétés et leur environnement et, plus précisément, des usages sociaux des ressources naturelles. Ces nouveaux modes de régulation, empiriquement observables, sont caractérisés par un mouvement conjoint de ré-articulation des logiques sectorielles, de redéfinition des périmètres territoriaux et des échelles de régulation pertinents, ainsi que de redéfinition et de redistribution des droits d'usage sur les ressources. Cet article se donne pour objectif d'identifier et de documenter ces différentes modalités de remise en cause des logiques existantes (secteurs, territoires institutionnels et droits de propriété) de l'action publique, puis de proposer le concept d'espace fonctionnel comme outil analytique permettant de rendre compte des phénomènes de formatages alternatifs de l'action publique d'une part, et comme référentiel qui pourrait sous-tendre un nouveau pilotage politique de l'action publique en faveur de la durabilité d'autre part.

Cet article postule que la combinaison d'une approche en termes de science politique (analyse des politiques publiques) et d'économie institutionnelle des ressources (théorie des droits de propriété) permet l'identification des dimensions régulatrices les plus importantes permettant d'expliquer l'usage (non) durable des ressources naturelles et culturelles. Sur cette base, il développe un cadre d'analyse novateur, celui des régimes institutionnels de ressources (RIR), qui est ensuite confronté au corpus de la théorie française de la régulation (TR, telle que formalisée notamment par M. Aglietta, R. Boyer et A. Lipietz) de manière à identifier, aussi bien les convergences, que les complémentarités entre les RIR et la TR. Nous développons ainsi l'idée que l'une des contributions majeures des RIR à la TR sous l'angle de la durabilité consiste dans sa capacité à décrire les différentes configurations de régimes de ressource et à expliquer, voire prévoir, leurs effets sur la durabilité de la ressource.

Cet article postule que la combinaison d'une approche en termes de science politique (analyse des politiques publiques) et d'économie institutionnelle des ressources (théorie des droits de propriété) permet l'identification des dimensions régulatrices les plus importantes permettant d'expliquer l'usage (non) durable des ressources naturelles et culturelles. Sur cette base, il développe un cadre d'analyse novateur, celui des régimes institutionnels de ressources (RIR), qui est ensuite confronté au corpus de la théorie française de la régulation (TR, telle que formalisée notamment par M. Aglietta, R. Boyer et A. Lipietz) de manière à identifier, aussi bien les convergences, que les complémentarités entre les RIR et la TR. Nous développons ainsi l'idée que l'une des contributions majeures des RIR à la TR sous l'angle de la durabilité consiste dans sa capacité à décrire les différentes configurations de régimes de ressource et à expliquer, voire prévoir, leurs effets sur la durabilité de la ressource.

Decentralization policy forms part of a broader global ideology and effort of the international donor community in favor of subsidiarity and local participation, and represents a paradigm shift from top-down command-and-control systems. Since 2003, the formalization of property rights through titling became an integral component of decentralized land administration efforts in Ghana. The creation of new forms of local government structures and the related changes in the distribution of responsibilities between different levels of government have an impact on natural resource management, the allocation of rights, and the unequal distribution of powers. This paper aims to understand how decentralization reforms modify the balance of power between public administration, customary authorities, and resource end-users in Ghana. Decentralization's impact is analyzed based on two case studies. Relying on purposive and snowball sampling techniques, and mixed methods, we conducted 8 key informant interviews with local government bureaucrats in land administration, 16 semi-structured interviews with allodial landholders, 20 biographic interviews and 8 focus group discussions with small-scale farmers. The interviews analyzed the institutions and the roles of actors in land administration. Our case studies show that decentralization has the tendency to increase local competition in land administration where there are no clear distribution of power and obligation to local actors. Local competition and elitism in land administration impact the ability of small-scale farmers to regularize or formalize land rights. Thus, the paper concludes that local competition and the elitism within the land administration domain in Ghana could be the main obstacles towards decentralization reforms.