CSTPR/IBS-ESP Noontime seminar
"Community Self-Governance of Forests in Bolivia"
by Krister Andersson
University of Colorado, Political Sciences Department

September 14, 2009
12:00 pm
Center for Science and Technology Policy Research Conference Room
click here for directions

Krister Andersson, Assistant Professor in the Political Sciences Department at the University of Colorado, will give a talk on "Community Self-Governance of Forests in Bolivia" on Monday,  September 14, 2009. The talk will be from 12:00 - 1:00 pm in the CSTPR Conference Room.

The talk is free and open to the public and will be held at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research's conference room. Click here for directions.

This will be a "brown bag seminar". Feel free to bring your lunches if you wish. This series is being co-sponsored by the CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and the Institute of Behavioral Science, Environment and Society Program.

Abstract: One of the most robust findings in the literature on common pool resource governance is that the strength of self-organized institutional arrangements for resource use, monitoring, and enforcement is positively correlated with the stability of resource stocks. In this paper, I undertake an analysis of the factors that seem to affect local forest users’ decisions to self-organize institutional arrangements to govern forests. I pay particular attention to the roles played by external organizations in facilitating self-governance. Using data from 200 rural communities in Bolivia, I test the idea that repeated interactions between local communities and a variety of different external actors may benefit communities’ efforts of self-organization. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I find no consistent effects of contacts with NGOs on the probability of community self-organization. The only types of external organizations that seem to have any discernable positive effect at all are municipal governments.  Controlling for property rights and a host of socioeconomic factors, I find that rural communities in Bolivia that interact more frequently with municipal governments, but not with other types of external organizations, are more likely to have self-organized the use of forest resources.  The possible explanations to this observed pattern are explored with qualitative observations.

Biography: Krister Andersson (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2002) joined the faculty in 2005. His current research focuses on the politics of environmental governance in developing countries. Andersson's research has appeared in numerous journals and he is the author of three books. The first,  The Samaritans' Dilemma (Oxford University Press, 2005) examines the institutional incentive structures of development aid and is co-authored with Clark Gibson, Elinor Ostrom and Sujai Shivakumar. His second book features his dissertation work in Bolivia, published in Spanish by Plural Editores (2005) in Bolivia ( ¿Cómo Hacer Funcionar La Gestión Forestal Descentralizada?). His most recent book,   Local Governments and Rural Development (University of Arizona Press, 2009), which is co-authored with Gustavo Gordillo and Frank van Laerhoven, compares the institutional conditions for public service performance in 390 local governments in the rural areas of Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru.