Abstract
Sometimes, institutions are neither completely new, nor completely traditional, but rather a dynamic hybrid reconciling elements of tradition and modernity, with formal and informal norms, which makes it very difficult to apply the conventional neoclassical theoretical framework for the economic analysis. Cleaver argues that the fact that conventional economic methods are not able to explain properly the way institutions behave in some scenarios, does not imply that existing alternative theories could easily rationalize these problems. Orthodox economics cannot describe properly the way environmental institutions behave, but this does not imply that heterodox models could do it better. The absence of theoretical alternatives to the neoclassical models is one of the main reasons to prefer the application of bricolage methods to institutional analysis. Given that no singular theoretical frame can explain institutional behaviour, Cleaver favours hybrid approaches constructed by drawing components from both mainstream and heterodox models for institutional design and combining these with evidence from a robust empirical base. In other words, she argues for an adaptive process of analysis. Cleaver roots this adaptive analytical processes in the theoretical work of Douglas (1987) who adapts Levi-Strauss’s concept of intellectual bricolage. From this perspective, institutions produced through bricolage are inevitably uneven in functioning and impact, and are often fuzzy assemblages of meaningful practices, which overlap and serve multiple purposes.
Several critiques could be made to the oretically reconceptualizing institutions, institutional formation and collective decision-making. The book, drawing on the institutional literature, supports the significance of practice in shaping resource use, although Cleaver points out the need to look carefully at how social, institutional and cultural norms are generated. In the case of the Shangani River (Zimbabwe), management rules are based mainly in empirical principles and everyday exigencies. In this case, management of the river cannot be only explained through the usual regulatory councils and committees, and instead needs to be understood mainly in terms of the exigencies of daily lives and livelihood. The factors that have shaped these institutions for river management are powerfully determined by the political history of planned resettlements in the district and people’s experiences of conflicts arising from this. One of the main hypotheses in the book is that the past shapes present institutional arrangements, and is a major determinant in the development of contemporary norms. Cleaver argues that a historical perspective is essential, particularly for water management.
Preference for the bricolage approach arises largely due to the complexity of natural resource management and the fact that institutions are formed and reproduced through the interactions of daily life. Following from this, there are huge difficulties for both theoretical and empirical analysis with the expectation that they should be able, by including social, cultural and idiosyncratic variables, to arrive at an optimal design for resource management institutions. Cleaver argues instead, that there is no optimal design for institutions, but rather a more complex, adaptive process of institutional formation. This adaptive process may even be formed out of elements from different sources or from sources which are not directly related to the institutions or resources involved. For instance, Cleaver argues, a procedure for common livestock management could be used in the management of a common aquifer (which could be located far away from the fields in which this livestock is fed).
The book extensively analyses decision processes across several case studies and provides tables with useful information about the main actors involved. A good example is the case of the institutions and stakeholders related to irrigation and pastoralism in Usangu, Tanzania (Table 4.1: 88). This Tanzanian case deserves special consideration both for the number of institutions involved and for the detailed description of the interests of concerned agents. Other cases which are analysed in the book include several related to water (such as the effectiveness of post-soviet water reforms in the central Asia states of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), and women’s forest management in a Swedish village. All of them similarly demonstrate the fuzziness of boundaries, the flexible application of local rules, norms and sanctions and the shaping of individual and collective action in wider frameworks of meaning. The cases presented have in common their embeddedness in everyday life and the existence of broader cosmologies that allow institutions to be naturalized. Thus, new or adapted arrangements come to be seen as the right way of doing things: they are invested with the authority of routine, precedent and proper approbation of human and even supernatural authorities, such as Gods or environmental Deities.
Particularly relevant in the book is Cleaver’s assertion that institutions partially elude design: neither moral-ecological understandings alone, nor their combination with other institutional rationalities, can account completely or reliably for what will constitute an effective institutional design. In fact, results indicate that there is no guarantee that designed arrangements, whatever their basis, will work out as intended. Rather, the evidence suggests that institutions in different contexts are reformed on an ongoing basis through various combinations of aggregation, alteration and articulation resulting in a plurality of possible outcomes. In this sense, transformation and change should be always possible through bricolage. Nevertheless, facilitating this process through designed interventions requires a flexible and constantly adaptive approach that crosses scales and is able to address the exercise of both visible and invisible power. The existence of empirical data derived from a bricolage perspective can facilitate precision in forecasts, test basic assumptions and, most importantly, analyse the final quality of decisions.
The main conclusion of the book is that a bricolage perspective reveals the centrality of power interrelations both to the functioning and outcomes of institutional processes, and so moves beyond over-instrumental technical approaches to natural resource management, which are bound to fail. Two main difficulties remain in this approach. The first is related to the theoretical frame, given that illuminating the operation of power in everyday relationships, as well as through authority exercised by the state, poses further challenges to those concerned with better resource management. The second is related to the extent to which this power could be channelled to effect equitable and sustainable natural resource management without reproducing entrenched inequalities.
This is an interesting book not only for advanced social scientists, undergraduate students and scholars, but also for any professionals concerned with the environmental use of resources (such as civil engineers, land planners or professional ecologists). The investigation develops a new pathway for the analysis of institutions: this pathway is fundamentally multidisciplinary; it is historically and contextually engaged and it extends the scope of analysis beyond a narrow focus on the resources and/or institutions that appear directly relevant. In this way, this pathway of analysis offers a better knowledge base for interventions seeking to improve the decision processes and efficiency of institutions.