Chapter 1 of this document presents the analytic framework used in examining four ongoing forestry and woodstock projects in Niger's southern agricultural zone between 1974 and 1987. All were designed to increase woodstocks in project areas by involving local populations in some or all phases of tree and brush production, protection and, where consumptive uses are envisaged, in exploitation. The analysis focuses on the sets of institutions -- local, project, technical agency, administrative and national -- which structure interactions concerning the woodstock in the project areas. This chapter highlights how institutions can encourage or impede popular management of woodstocks. The four projects (see page ix), presented as case studies later in this document, serve as examples to illustrate the use of the analytic framework. It can also be used in a diagnostic manner to analyze a broad range of resource management and public service delivery problems. In addition, analysts and local people can make use of the framework to design institutions which meet the needs of woodstock users. As such, it becomes a tool for improving the productivity of development activities and for encouraging environmental management over the long term.
The remainder of this chapter is divided into four parts. The first part poses the problem to be examined. The second describes the analytic approach of methodological individualism and the assumptions which underlie the approach. The third outlines the analytic framework and explains the importance of the attributes or characteristics of forest resources as economic goods in influencing the success or failure of projects designed to encourage popular management of woodstocks. The framework for the analysis of rule systems presented goes beyond a "do's and don't's" evaluation of the impact of laws to examine, specifically, how existing or possible rules will promote or impede certain types of behaviour. The fourth and final part explains how all of these can be used in the analysis of the four Nigerien forestry and woodstock projects.
A number of forestry or woodstock projects have been implemented in Niger since the beginning of the 1972-74 drought. Many of the first generation projects envisaged production of wood through industrial plantations. They were designed on the basis of erroneous estimates of the technical characteristics of exotic species and on unrealistic information about the productive potential of the overall environment.11 Most of those projects have since been shut down. The second generation of projects attempted to involve local populations in the production, management and controlled use of woodstocks. Those projects shifted their focus at least partially from exotic to indigenous species. Village (micro-industrial) woodlots and variants of farm forestry were the main strategies adopted during this phase. In addition, a growing concern with natural forest management, often linked with locally based renewable resource management operations, has become apparent. Management of woodstocks as multipurpose resources seems clearly confirmed as the dominant orientation in the third generation of arid land forestry efforts. The present analysis therefore focuses on projects aimed at promoting farm forestry and natural forest management.
Problems of institutional and financial sustainability afflict all of these projects. Technical sustainability is typically not an insurmountable issue. In most cases it is technically possible to plant and sustain Sahelian trees, in some cases exotics such as neem (Azadirachta indica) and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), and others. On the other hand, it has been found difficult to involve local people in production, management and the sustained-yield use of woodstocks as an indispensable, ongoing element in their agricultural, mixed farming and pastoral enterprises. Sahelians' experience and current technical studies suggest that and land agriculture, mixed-farming and pastoralism all depend on culturing woodstocks for survival. Yet increasing population growth is now undercutting shifting cultivation and transhumant pastoralism as effective, low-cost resource management strategies in many parts of Niger.
Rural producers must continue to adapt production strategies to changing environments, as they often have in the past. Under conditions of increasing population pressure and a shrinking and progressively impoverished land resource base, the production of woody biomass must become sufficiently attractive to enough rural producers so that they will begin to do things differently. People must be encouraged by steady, reliable incentives in both the short and long run to change patterns of behaviour which impede woodstock production and management. They must also, again encouraged by appropriate incentives, adopt new forms of conduct which ensure that (1) planted trees or protected natural regeneration will in fact mature, (2) they produce on-site environmental stabilization and protection uses, (3) they meet the consumptive needs of rural people, and perhaps (4) they produce marketable surpluses of fuelwood, building poles and other forest products.
The kinds of behaviour to he reduced or eliminated include uncontrolled gathering of dead and live wood wherever it occurs. Such behaviour generally reduces woodstock productive potential and discourages individual or group efforts to promote woodstock regeneration. Livestock foraging patterns must also be controlled to protect natural regeneration. The positive forms of behaviour to be induced, by appropriate changes in incentive structures, include promotion and protection of natural regeneration, planting desirable species and, as necessary and appropriate, development of effective woodstock management institutions and organizations.
Of the four projects chosen for analysis among the 15 to 20 forestry operations organized in Niger, all relied to some extent on popular participation at either the planning or the implementation stages. These four projects as a group offer for study relatively long-term situations in which the woodstock management and use strategies of all interested parties -- local populations, Nigerien foresters, other Nigerien civil servants and officials, and funding agency personnel -- can be examined. The projects have changed gradually over time. However, they involve sufficiently stable behaviour patterns concerning local woodstocks so that one can understand the reasons. of interested individuals for acting as they do within the specific biophysical and institutional contexts of those projects. Most actors recognize the problems they confront and, in some cases, understand the requirements for sustainable solutions.
Later in this document, specific discussion of the rationale and experience of each project will clarify the issues faced by each. All four, however, confront a common set of woodstock management problems. These must be solved not only in the project areas, but throughout Niger and the Sahelian and Sudanian zones of West Africa. Failure to resolve them will result in continued overloading and destruction of an already fragile and impoverished resource base. Over time this will lead implacably to the same grim consequences which followed the drought years of 1970-74 and 1983-84 in much of the Sahel. However, in contrast with the drought aftermaths, repair and restabilization of critically overstressed woodstocks will require far more than several years of good rains. The general issues which must be resolved include the following:
Woodstock management problems are a significant subset of environmental problems in the Sahelian and Sudanian zones of West Africa. Many observers of the evolving situation in the Nigerien Sahel over the last two decades have concluded that inappropriate institutions explain much of the failure of development programmes and projects, and indeed of local efforts, to improve the management of renewable resources including woodstocks. This document assumes that behaviour which supports sustained-yield management of woodstocks, or hastens their destruction, is in part rule-determined. Rules are human artifacts. They are the product of political decisions. As such they can be changed. Careful analysis may indicate why some current rules concerning woodstock use and management in Niger are inappropriate. Such a diagnosis, coupled with an understanding of the probable consequences of alternative rules, may be used by those interested in designing or modifying rule systems to encourage users to do a better job of helping to manage the woodstocks which sustain their production systems.
The analytic approach relies heavily on methodological individualism and associated assumptions -- a standard approach of most political economists12 Methodological individualism involves adopting the perspective of representative individuals, that is, typical representatives of classes of people involved in interactions concerning a particular problem. The presumed interests of these individuals are explicitly formulated. The approach involves trying to understand the strategies adopted by representative individuals, such as peasants, herders or foresters, in light of their interests. To do so, the analyst not only attributes specific interests to the individuals, but also makes several assumptions about them.
The general assumptions about individuals must be clearly stated at the outset. Rural producers, foresters, project personnel, GON officials and all others are assumed to be self-interested, rational individuals who operate within a context of rules which specify lawful and unlawful behaviour. Individuals are also assumed to make decisions under conditions of uncertain information and to adopt maximizing strategies. Each of these assumptions merits a brief discussion.
Self-interest. Individuals are assumed to have preferences which influence their conduct and the decisions they make. Preferences may vary from individual to individual, even within given classes (such as rural producers, government officials and project personnel).
Rationality. Individuals are assumed to be rational, that is, capable of ordering alternatives available to them in a consistent manner in light of their preferences from the most desirable to the least desirable.
Information. Political economists distinguish three levels of information by degree of certainty: perfect, risky and uncertain. Under conditions of perfect information, all outcomes are known and outcomes are determinate. Under conditions of risky information, outcomes are known but they are not determinate -- only their probabilities are known. Such situations exist, but are of less interest to this analysis because the interactions it focuses on are characterized generally by uncertainty. Under conditions of uncertainty, neither the full range of outcomes is known nor are their probabilities. Thus, instead of a determinate solution, the analyst can calculate only a probable range of outcomes.
Learning. Individuals deciding under conditions of uncertainty are assumed to learn as they test strategies and find that experience confirms or rejects their operating assumptions. As the individual learns, both about the range of techniques (for example, for woodstock management) and the costs of alternative techniques (for instance, unprotected natural regeneration versus patrolled natural regeneration enriched by planting), personal preferences may change, reflecting increasing recognition of costs and benefits which were initially not taken into account.
Rule-guided behavior. Most political economists assume individuals make decisions and act within some framework of law and order. This framework specifies the basic rights, liberties, duties and exposures of citizens, in addition to the powers, immunities, liabilities and disabilities of officials which give legally binding character to citizens' rights. These legal concepts have a highly practical content. They create incentives for certain types of behaviour and discourage other types. These incentives can be specified and form a critical part of the context within which an individual seeks and chooses a maximizing strategy; this point is developed further in the section on Institutions and Working Rules, page 14 to 26.
Choice of a maximizing strategy. Individuals are assumed to seek and choose a maximizing strategy in light of their preferences. Consistent application of this strategy should result in the greatest net benefit to the individual in light of personal preferences or the least cost for a given level of benefit (that is, the most efficient solution). However, the individual trying to maximize under conditions of uncertain information about the probabilities of outcomes will appear to satisfice.13
This analytic approach -- methodological individualism and the associated assumptions about representative individuals -- can be used to understand current interactions, whether appropriate or inappropriate, and to explore interactions which might be induced by a change of rules, technology or other conditions and factors relevant to the problem in question.
The analytic framework14 used in this document is adapted from various versions developed and employed by individuals at the Indiana University Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. The framework consists of four parts: attributes of goods and services, institutions which include a discussion of the working rules, interactions which result from individuals' choices of maximizing strategies in light of their preferences and the incentives created by the economic nature of goods and relevant institutions, and outcomes.
The framework assumes that inherent in the attributes of goods, for instance woodstocks in various forms (such as trees in windbreaks, trees in woodlots planted to produce poles and other products for consumption, scrub brush useful as browse and in stabilizing soils against erosion), are patterns of incentives which influence the way individuals conduct themselves concerning those goods. Goods can be categorized along a range, from private to public. Figure 1 below shows how two characteristics -- case of exclusion and character of consumption (joint or separable) can be used to distinguish various types of goods. The discussion also reveals how these characteristics, inherent in the very nature of the goods, determine how individuals can use them and create distinctive incentives and disincentives which strongly influence the terms on which individuals will produce such goods.
EASE OF EXCLUSION | ||
Difficult |
Feasible | |
Public good and services - airquality - environmental management |
Toll goods and services - toll roads - admission-charging parks | |
Joint | ||
CHARACTER OF CONSUMPTION | ||
Common poolgoods and sevices - Acacia albida seed pods - Sahelian pastures - much natural bush |
Private goods and services - held crops - garden-grown trees - livestock - building poles | |
Separable | ||
Adapted from Ostrom and Ostrom, Alternatives for delivery ..., p l2.
Private goods. These are subject to exclusion, that is, they can be easily packaged or measured. Would-be users can be prevented from using them (excluded) unless they are prepared to pay the price producers demand. Consumption is also separable or rivalrous, that is, what one individual consumes of a good is no longer available for another to use. Thus, if a demand exists for the good, producers have an incentive to try to meet the demand because they can expect to cover their costs of production and make a profit. Examples of private goods include crops like millet, horse hobbles, and poles produced in private woodlots or gardens. These goods are generally produced and distributed most efficiently through private competitive market relationships. Supply and demand are apportioned efficiently through market relations by producers seeking profits and consumers pursuing benefit maximizing strategies in light of their own preferences. Typically, governments need play no role in the production of private goods other than ensuring a reliable framework for private market transactions, for example, enforcement of contracts and dispute settlement.
Public goods. These, because of characteristics inherent in the good, are quite different from private goods. They are not subject to exclusion and are used or consumed jointly. Public goods cannot easily be made subject to exclusion. Once produced, anyone within range can get access to them.
Public goods cannot be easily packaged or measured. The nature of the good itself creates a situation in which those who do not pay their fair share of the costs of providing the good can nonetheless enjoy it. They can in effect "ride free" at others' expense. Pure public goods are also characterized by joint rather than separable consumption. What one individual consumes does not detract at all from the amount available for the use of others. This characteristic makes public goods non-rivalrous goods.
An example of a humanly produced public good would be improved environmental management in arid areas. This increases the overall resilience of renewable natural resources in the face of continuing use and recurrent drought, and maintains or improves productivity of the affected area. Air quality and national defense are other public goods. In all three examples, if any amount of the public good is produced, it is available to all, and consumption or enjoyment by some does not impair enjoyment by others.
A critical point to bear in mind about public goods is that even though they are available to all "within range", the ranges of most public goods are limited. For instance, the benefits of environmental management will be available within the area where they are produced but not outside of it. If, as in Niger's Majjia Valley, windbreaks are systematically planted to increase wind turbulence, decrease wind velocity and reduce soil erosion, the benefits of improved microclimates are available to all who use land protected by the windbreaks. However, they are not available to people who live and work exclusively on the valley sides, on the plateaux above the valley or elsewhere in Niger.
Common pool resources. Like public goods, these are not easily subject to exclusion among the group of users. However, by contrast with public goods, consumption is separable not joint. Individual users can continue to use or consume the good without rivalry or interferring with each other so long as the total demand for "use units"15 does not exceed the productive capacity of the resource. When demand does outstrip supply, users operating within the context of purely voluntary relations have strong incentives to continue to appropriate as much of the good as quickly as they can. Because others are at liberty to use it, voluntary efforts to stint on consumption will not usually slow use or consumption rates, but will more likely only shift use and consumption patterns in favor of those who do not stint. Common pool resources, which remain so under circumstances of excessive demand, will be managed effectively only when non-market relationships are invoked. This typically involves management of a common property resource by small groups and perhaps by local or overlapping government jurisdictions or both. Examples here include woodstock areas generally on lands not suitable for farming, rangelands, fisheries and roads.
Management of common pool resources is always problematic. Distinctions among the three following concepts clarify this point:
· common property resource denotes a common pool resource to which access is controlled by a group recognized as owners.
Common pool resources may be open access resources or common property resources. Whether a common pool resource is open access or common property depends on whether institutions exist which provide for ownership of the resource, control access to it and, perhaps, provide other forms of management. The three terms are used in this document in the senses indicated above. A common pool resource may be formally an open access resource, yet in practice it can be treated as a common property resource because a group effectively owns it and controls access. Similarly, common pool resources which are formally common properties may be in effect open access resources -- this is because no one exerts control over access or exercises other prerogatives of ownership.
Toll goods. These are subject to exclusion and characterized by joint consumption. They are of less relevance in this study because they seem to occur very infrequently in relation to environmental or woodstock goods. Examples of these would be toll roads, admission-charging parks, cinemas and theaters.
The nature of private, public, common pool and toll goods is important precisely because the characteristics of excludibility / non-excludibility and joint / separarable consumption inherent in different types of goods strongly influence the incentives for different actors to produce, manage and consume the goods. When the incentives are such that private market provision makes sense, it is typically costly and inefficient to shift to non-market, non-voluntary, government-organized modes of provision. On the other hand, where non-market modes of provision are appropriate, it is not efficient or effective to rely only on market relations to ensure production. Without appropriately created government jurisdictions functioning as collective consumption units16 public goods will not be produced in amounts sufficient to meet demands. Exceptions to this rule follow.
Because would-be users cannot easily be excluded from consuming public goods and because consumption is joint, non-subtractible or non-rivalrous -- rather than separable, subtractible or rivalrous -- producers have no incentive to produce public goods on a voluntary basis for exchange under market conditions.
Because they cannot recover their costs of production, much less make a profit, producers have no incentive to invest in creating such goods. Thus even though a strong demand may exist for a public good, reliance on voluntary, private market relationships will lead to either underproduction or non-production.
Exceptions to this rule occur when individuals have separable incentives to produce private goods, sales of which can generate funds to finance provision of public goods as "free" side benefits. If enough individual farmers reforest their lands, they may collectively improve environmental quality in an area. If a single major landowner or a small group of large landholders reforest their lands, the same result occurs.17
For this reason, public goods created by the efforts of individuals are generally provided through non-market relationships by the intervention of governments at various levels. Government intervention is required to deal with the provision dilemmas, specifically free-rider problems, caused by the nature of public goods. Decisions to provide a public good on a sustainable basis almost always involve recourse to non-voluntary decision-making. The resources necessary to finance production of the good are raised through non-voluntary procedures, that is, by taxation. Taxpayers must pay for production of the good, whether they want it or not, once a decision is made to provide it. Those within the taxing jurisdiction are not allowed to say no and, therefore, they must contribute to provision of the good. This creates a potential problem. Decision-making rules may permit some to exploit others, for example, a majority may force a minority to pay more than its fair share of the cost of the good, or an authoritarian government may choose to produce a public "good" which benefits the few at the expense of the many.
The same is true of common pool resources. If demand for these units exceeds the available supply, a management system must be created which can bring demand into balance with supply in order to save the resource from destruction. This can be done either by artificially reducing demand or by increasing supply. The management system must include a capacity to make and enforce use rules on some basis other than unanimity or voluntary compliance. Otherwise the probabilities are very high that too many users will cede to the temptation to cover their own needs without regard to others' interests. Recourse to collective decision-making may be necessary in order to ensure that users do not over-invest in capturing available supplies and under-invest in managing a common pool resource and in creating new supplies. However, as in provision of public goods, when collective decision-making replaces voluntary or private decision-making, the potential for abuse of power exists.
Structuring collective decision-making systems to increase opportunities for taxpayers to participate in selecting the types and amounts of public goods that they wish to finance and consume, and the way they wish to regulate production and use of common property resources, therefore, becomes extremely important. Much can be done by way of rule systems that provide for checks, balances and due deliberation in public decision-making.
Much can also be done to improve taxpayer/consumer satisfaction by structuring public jurisdictions in particular ways. Those who will "benefit", whether they want to or not, from provision of a public good should be allowed to participate in decisions selecting types of goods, setting provision levels for public goods and determining management strategies for common resources. They should also be required to pay fully for the public goods they receive, or to support the costs of maintaining common pool resources they use, unless members of other jurisdictions will derive benefits sufficient to justify subsidization. Conversely, those who will not benefit should be excluded from decision-making about what goods to provide, provision levels and resource management systems. They should also be protected from having to share costs of providing goods or management systems from which they will not derive benefits.
If these considerations are taken into account in assigning responsibility among existing general purpose jurisdictions for production of goods and management of common resources, and in designing new special jurisdictions specifically to undertake these functions; transactions costs of getting agreement on types, provision levels and management strategies will likely be minimized.
Appropriate boundary arrangements will not guarantee unanimity within a jurisdiction among the taxpayers who consume public goods or use common property resources. Individuals are realistically assumed to have different preferences. Divergent personal preferences can be expected to influence their decisions about the value of public good X or common pool resource Y in various ways. However, shared circumstances should increase the chance for consensus within the providing jurisdiction by reducing the costs of coming to and sustaining an agreement. Shared circumstances should also reduce obstructionist tactics. If boundaries of the providing unit include not only those who will benefit, but others who will not have access to the public good because they will be located beyond its range or will be excluded from using a common resource, those left out can be expected to bargain for compensation for their contribution to financing provision of the limited public good in question. However, if those who expect not to benefit from the good or resource are excluded from membership in the financing unit by appropriately drawn boundaries, the problem is resolved. They have neither reason nor leverage to try to extract a quid pro quo in exchange for their contribution to financing a public good or managed common resource which they will not enjoy.18 Appropriate boundaries and taxation mechanisms can eliminate such problems before they arise.
The attribute of the good influences the strategies of consumers in another important way. Public goods will be available to all in range if produced for any, but the consumers also face a situation of highly restricted choice when it comes to selecting public goods. They will have comparatively little ability to choose or influence the type and degree of public goods provided, because the choice will be a collective one in each case, rather than the much more discriminating process of individual selection of kind and amount of good which occurs in private market relationships.
The efforts involved -- the transactions costs -- in trying to influence decisions of public jurisdictions will vary. However, means to reduce transactions costs are worth considering. One way to attempt this is to ensure that the smallest jurisdiction capable of dealing with the problem is assigned primary responsibility for handling it. This is different from the problem involved in trying to make a jurisdiction responsible for providing a public good small enough so that it includes within its boundaries only those who will actually receive the public good if it is produced or if they will benefit from the managed resource. Here, the issue is making sure that the jurisdiction is large enough to include all who cause the common resource management problem, are affected by the problem, or both. If the jurisdiction is too small, efforts by its population to deal with the problem will fail because efforts by officials of that jurisdiction cannot adequately address all elements of the problem.
Other things being equal, where governments frequently provide grants to finance provision of public goods, potential consumers in their capacity as taxpayers have an incentive to conceal their real level of demand for the good, and to pretend that they really do not want as much of the good as officials of the overlapping regime believe they should have. If government officials in the overlapping regime believe residents of the target jurisdiction "need a particular public good," but are convinced that the residents cannot pay for (any part of) it or do not want it enough to pay for it, they may fund provision of the good from non-local sources. If local people even partially succeed with this strategy of concealing their true preferences, they may be able to "ride free" on the general public treasury and other taxpayers will pay for (a large share of) the benefits the free-riders consume. This set of incentives can be expected to give rise to unreasonable behavior on the part of local populations in the form of over-investment of time and energy pursuing favours through political patronage.
The situation concerning common pool management is similar. If an attempt is made to organize management of the resource through a jurisdiction which is too large, it may make it impossible for users to participate effectively in management activities. On the other hand if the managing jurisdiction is smaller than the boundaries of the common pool resource, for instance a large stretch of bush land, then management efforts may not be very successful because significant parts of the resource cannot be controlled. Yet without management, the temptation to over-invest in harvesting and under-invest in reproducing the resource may well become irresistible once demand exceeds supply.
The rules which constitute the institutions governing particular private, common pool and public goods establish the framework within which actors adopt strategies to acquire particular goods and achieve the ends they desire. The fit of the rules with the inherent characteristics of different types of goods, the interactions which result and the outcomes for the provision, management or destruction of the public, private, or common pool resource in question, can be evaluated. The appropriateness of the rules can be determined. Rules are human artifacts that are made, enforced and changed by people. They can potentially be changed to improve -- or impair -- the operation of particular institutions.
In this section, the discussion focuses on "the working rules of going concerns,"19 that is, the rules of formal and informal governments and groups as applied in practice to the problems with which these governments deal. One can analyze the working rules of going concerns such as the Government of Niger (GON); the Forest and Wildlife Service, a sub-unit of the GON; the Projet Gao in Dosso; the organization(s) which manage the windbreaks of the Majjia Valley; the cooperative now beginning to co-manage Guesselbodi State Forest with the Forest and Wildlife Service; and villages and families which control village and family woodlots planted in Matamaye Arrondissement. Each of these institutions can be considered a going concern which regulates certain activities. Analysis focuses on identifying how a given set of working rules regulating an activity influences the behavior of people engaged in the activity.
Two sets of juridical conceptual categories are analyzed: authorized transactions and authoritative transactions. The analysis shows how they are related to each other and how working rules are modified as officials change relationships among these categories through the exercise of their determining powers. Such changes are often marginal and incremental, but cumulatively they strongly shape incentives and disincentives to manage resources. Through broad understanding of the mechanics of legal relationships and close attention to the details of relationships within particular transactions, individuals or groups can see more clearly why existing working rules generate the results that they do and they can design new rules, as necessary, to discourage undesirable outcomes and promote desirable ones. The approach begins with a highly simplified, partial model of juridical relations and proceeds by stages to incorporate more complexity until it approximates reality.
Authorized transactions are the basic conceptual unit of legal activity. The four elements of an authorized transaction are right, duty, exposure and liberty. These four concepts permit analysis of transactions among citizens. They highlight how rules can be used to create incentives and disincentives, and so channel human behavior by making certain actions attractive and others unattractive. In the discussion that follows, relationships among right, duty, exposure and liberty are first analyzed and then illustrated using three examples relevant to woodstock management issues. These three examples are deliberately static and highly simplified.
Authoritative transactions underlie and structure authorized transactions. The four elements of authoritative transactions are power, liability, disability and immunity. In demonstrating these concepts, the three examples are modified to reveal how authoritative transactions of officials in the going concern(s) or governing unit(s) which regulates the transaction in question are necessary to support citizen interactions within the authorized transaction. Later, the same three examples are used as a basis to illustrate a number of ways that rules can be changed as citizens and officials modify the composition of authorized and authoritative transactions. While these examples are somewhat more life-like, they are nonetheless intentionally structured to provide a simplified version only of relationships among officials and between officials and citizens.
Determining powers of officials are so called because they determine the precise character of authorized relationships in any particular transaction. Determining powers are the margins of manoeuvre, whether great or small, available to officials of going concerns, (governments at all levels, as well as to officials of voluntary groups, associations and firms). Close attention to these leeways or margins of manoeuvre, and the opportunities and constraints they create for officials, will reveal the options -- the possibilities for personal decisions affecting action -- which officials have. Such analysis does not permit an observer to spell out in any determinate manner the decisions officials will make. However, compared to an analysis based on acceptance at face value of the terms and intent of regulations, an approach based on evaluation of the determining powers of relevant officials allows a surer, more realistic assessment of the possible range of official conduct. It also allows the analyst a greater insight into the probabilities of official behaviour, under a given set of formal rules, in establishing the working rules which in reality guide human choices in a given, linked pair of authorized and authoritative transactions. Illustrations show this point in the context of a single hypothetical jurisdiction at the local level.
Finally, the discussion of the working rules is made fully realistic by assessing officials' determining powers, not in the context of a single going concern or "jurisdiction", but in the everyday complexity of overlapping jurisdictions. Included here are not merely the national government jurisdiction, but subordinate administrative echelons, for example the department and arrondissement, and agencies such as the Forest Service, the Livestock Service, and projects. The list of potentially relevant jurisdictions or going concerns also includes cantons and villages. These jurisdictions may well be involved as going concerns whose officials can influence or even effectively control governance of local woodstock resources. Local youth groups ("Samariya") and perhaps the local cooperative mutual groups, as well as the village and cantonal Development Society Councils, may also play significant roles in woodstock governance.
Working rules20 provide the practical structure of human relationships. They channel human conduct by dividing possible behavior into four categories: compulsory, permitted, authorized and non-authorized.21 These correspond to the legal concepts, respectively, of duties, liberties, rights and exposures.22 Each of these categories, when viewed from an incentives perspective, creates for actors in a transaction, either an encouragement or opportunity, or an obstacle or constraint. These opportunities and constraints may be arrayed along a range from strongest positive to strongest negative incentive, as follows:
A right and a duty in any transaction are always correlatives and equivalents, as shown in Figure 2 below. The strong positive incentive of the right mirrors the strong negative incentive of the duty. The two vary in exact correlation with each other: if citizen A's right expands or contracts, so too does citizen B's duty to perform, forebear or avoid within the context of the transaction. The three following examples (see pages 17, 18, 19 and 20) will illustrate this point.
CORRELATIVES AND EQUIVALENTS | ||
Citizen A |
Citizen B | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Right |
Duty |
(strong positive incentive) |
(strong negative incentive) | |
Exposure |
Liberty | |
(negative incentive) |
(positive incentive) | |
*Adapted from Commons, Legal foundations ..., p 97.
Example 1. A is a co-owner and member of a group which owns a common property woodstock. The group as a going concern exercises complete control over the trees. Coowner A shares with his fellows a right against all non-owners that they will avoid entering or using forest products generated by the woodlot unless authorized to do so. Non-owners are under a correlative and equivalent duty to avoid entering the woodlot or using its products without authorization. So. in this example (see Figure 3 below) the value of A's right is equivalent to his share of the value of the products in the woodlot.
Example 1 illustrated
Strong incentives for co-owners to invest in woodlot
CORRELATIVES AND EQUIVALENTS | ||
Citizen A |
Citizen B | |
Co-owner |
Non-owner | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Right |
Duty |
Year-round against all non-members that they avoid entering woodlot or using products without authorization |
Year-round to avoid entering woodlot or using products without authorization | |
Exposure |
Liberty | |
No exposure to non-member competition for woodlot products |
No liberty to compete for woodlot products | |
Example 2. Here the non-owners' duty of avoidance is reduced. They are at liberty to enter the woodlot during three months of the year to collect dead wood from the ground. The right of all owners that non-owners stay out of the woodlot and avoid taking its products unless authorized is reduced by a correlative and equivalent amount.
B's liberty and A's exposure are also correlative and equivalent. In Example l, co-owner A's exposure vis-à-vis non-owners concerning the woodlot and its products is nonexistent, and non-owner B's liberty in that regard is also nil. In Example 2, A's exposure expands in equal and correlative fashion with B's liberty. During the three months' open access period, B is at liberty to gather wood found on the ground and A is exposed to the consequences of B's liberty.
Co-owner A can avoid losing wood to B, but only by collecting it before B gets there. If A tries to have officials of the going concern that governs the woodlot prevent non-owner B from exercising his liberty to A's detriment, A will find he is without recourse and exposed to the consequences of B's actions. Co-owner A can compete with B for the fallen deadwood, but A cannot invoke the power of concern officials to prevent B from competing for fallen wood during the open season.
In any transaction A's exposure is the reciprocal and limit of his right, as B's liberty is the reciprocal and limit of his duty. If rights grow, exposures shrink, and vice versa. If duties grow, liberties shrink, and vice versa (see Figure 4 below).
Example 2 illustrated
Weakened incentive for co-owners to invest in woodlot
CORRELATIVES AND EQUIVALENTS | ||
Citizen A |
Citizen B | |
Co-owner |
Non-owner | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Right |
Duty |
During nine months against all non-members that they avoid entering woodlot and using products without authorization |
During nine months to avoid entering woodlot and using products | |
Exposure |
Liberty | |
During three months to non-member competition for woodlot products |
During three months to compete for woodlot products | |
Example 3. This example is based on contemporary Nigerien realities and shows how rule changes can modify rural producers' opportunities. Most farmers have some trees on their fields. Often a large percentage of these trees belong to protected species. Such trees grow on private lands, but the trees themselves do not legally belong to the landowners. It is difficult for landowners to exclude other users from exploiting the trees during six months of the year when there are no crops growing or being harvested in the fields and field owners have no reason to be on their lands. The trees might be considered local common pool goods, given the feasibility of exclusion, because users can only be excluded with difficulty and because consumption of forest products produced by the trees is separable not joint. However, the trees are considered -- as a matter of state forestry policy -common property goods at the national level.
Farmers who own lands on which protected trees grow formally share rights to forest products from these trees with all other potential users. They also share a correlative and equivalent duty with all other users to avoid cutting any forest products from either live or dead trees of protected species on their own lands unless and until they are duly authorized. Authorized access to the trees is obtained via apermit secured from a Forest and Wildlife Service representative. The permit gives the bearer a limited and defined liberty to harvest some amount of wood. In theory, the wood must be harvested in a specified area. Owners of fields with protected trees are also potentially exposed, along with all other members of the user group, to the liberty of anyone bearing a legal permit to harvest wood on their property (see Figure 5a below).
Example 3 illustrated
Forest code creates general rights and duties formally limiting access to protected tree species as national common property
CORRELATIVES AND EQUIVALENTS | ||
Citizen A |
Citizen B | |
Any potential user of protected species, including field owner |
All potential users of protected species, including field owner | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Right |
Duty |
That all other potential users will avoid harvesting without forest service permit |
To avoid harvesting any protected tree species without forest service permit | |
Exposure |
Liberty | |
None to harvesting by others without forest service permit |
None to harvest protected tree species without forest service permit | |
Example 3, continued. Over and above this set of rights, duties, liberties and exposures they share with all other users, field owners are under a special duty to monitor all illegal harvesting of protected forest products from their lands. Land owners must discount the value that they will capture, in terms of environmental protection and soil regeneration through maintaining protected trees on their lands, by the value of the costs of patrolling their land to monitor use. They must also discount that value by the value of the fines23 that foresters may legally impose on them if the trees are harvested without the explicit authorization of foresters, and the land owner, fails to identify the guilty party.
The beneficiairies of the landowners' duty, that is, the right holders, are all potential users, including the landowners themselves. These beneficiaries enjoy aright that all other users will avoid harvesting forest products unless so authorized by foresters (see Figure 5b below).
Example 3 illustrated
Field owner's special duty weakens incentive to promote protected tree species on field
CORRELATIVES AND EQUIVALENTS | ||
Citizen A All other potential users |
Citizen B Field owner | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Right |
Duty |
That field owner will always prevent unauthorized harvesting of protected tree species on his field |
To prevent any harvesting of protected tree species from his field without forest service permit | |
Exposure |
Liberty | |
None to harvesting by others without forest service permit |
None to harvest protected tree species without forest service permit | |
Rights, duties, liberties and exposures -- the legal elements of authorized transactions -- are the fundamental elements of transactions and the building blocks of the working rules of any going concern. They establish incentives, limits and a framework for behavior by parties in any activity. However, these judicial categories do not enforce themselves. Creation, enforcement and modification of the working rules of going concerns occur through authoritative transactions involving intervention by concern officials. An individual's right can be upheld through the power of an official. In the typical authoritative transaction, a right holder gets an official of a going concern to compel an individual under duty to the right holder to observe his duty. The power of Official 1 is correlated and equivalent in extent with the liability (accountability) of Official 2, who must enforce against the individual under the correlevant and equivalent duty the stipulated performance, forebearance or avoidance. The relationships between authorized and authoritative transactions are shown in Figure 6, (see page 22).
Power and liability are correlative and equivalent. They define A's right and B's duty in any situation. Similarly, disability and immunity are correlatives and equivalents and define A's exposure and B's liberty in any situation. Just as exposure and liberty are the reciprocals of right and duty and limit them, so too are disability and immunity reciprocals, respectively, of power and liability, and limit them. Further illustrations, based on the previous examples, will help to clarify these concepts.
In Example 1, on page 17, co-owner A had a right against all non-owners that they avoid entering the woodlot or using its products without authorization. Let us assume a violation of this rule by a women who surreptitiously enters the woodlot to collect fallen deadwood for the evening fire. She is caught by one of the owners -- another woman -- who convokes her before the village headman. The headman, Official 1 in Figure 7 (see page 23), convenes a moot composed of village elders and the head of the woodlot owners' association, hears the complaint, ascertains the facts, concludes the complaint is justified and decides to exercise his power as head of the village going concern to enforce the right. To do so, he orders his younger brother, Official 2 in Figure 7, to accompany the woman guilty of the infraction to her home and either reclaim the illicitly gathered firewood or the equivalent in money. The brother, under liability to obey (accountable to) his older sibling,24 accompanies the woman and collects the wood. He thus underlines in practical terms her duty to avoid using forest products from the woodlot. He returns the wood to the head of the woodlot owners' association. The association head claims the wood for personal use at home, an accepted practice that partially defrays costs of leadership of the association.
In Example 2, on page 18, non-owners may collect fallen deadwood during three months of the year. Let us now assume that a co-owner sees a non-owner collecting wood, but during the period of open access. The co-owner happens to be in the woodlot searching for firewood. The co-owner has not found enough fallen branches to satisfy her or his needs and lodges a complaint against the non-owner. The village headman, after hearing the complaint and ascertaining the facts, concludes that he is under a disability to force another official of the village going concern to compel restitution. The other official, the headman's younger brother, so far as this interaction is concerned, enjoys immunity: he is not accountable to his superior. This in turn gives value to the non-owner's liberty: officials of the going concern will refuse to prevent her or him from gathering wood in the woodlot during the open season. The co-owner in Example 2 is exposed and the non-owner is at liberty to collect wood during the specified period. The non-owner's liberty is mirrored in the immunity of the younger brother who cannot be compelled by the headman to reclaim the collected deadwood (see Figure 8 on page 24).
CORRELATIVES AND EQUILENTS | ||||
Official 1 |
Citizen A |
Citizen B |
Official 2 | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Power |
Right |
Duty |
Liability |
(strong control) |
(strong positive incentive) |
(strong negative incentive) |
(strong suhjccton) | |
Disability |
Exposure |
Liberty |
Immunity | |
(no control) |
(negative incentive) |
(positive incentive) |
(no subjection) | |
* Adapted from Commons, Legal foundations ..., p 118.
Example 1 illustrated
Co-owners' year-round right and non-existent exposure create strong incentives to invest in woodlot
CORRELATIVES AND EQUILENTS | ||||
Official 1 |
Citizen A |
Citizen B |
Official 2 | |
Village headman |
Woman co-owner |
Woman non-owner |
Headman's brother | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Power |
Right |
Duty |
Liability |
To command his brother to compel woman non-owner to return wood or compensate |
That woman non owner avoid harvesting in woodlot without permission |
To avoid harvesting in woodlot without permission |
To brother's command to compel woman non-owner to restore wood or compensate | |
Disability |
Exposure |
Liberty |
Immunity | |
None concerning capacity to enforce woodlot access rule |
None to unauthorized harvesting |
None to harvest without authorization |
None to brother's command to enforce woodlot access rule | |
Example 2 illustrated
Co-owners right against non-owner competition, reduced to nine months, and exposure to non-owner competition, increased to three months, weaken incentives to invest in woodlot
CORRELATIVES AND EQUILENTS | ||||
Official 1 |
Citizen A |
Citizen B |
Official 2 | |
Village headman |
Woman co-owner |
Woman non-owner |
Headman's brother | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Power |
Right |
Duty |
Liability |
To command his brother to compel woman non-owner to return wood or compensate, only during nine months of the year |
That woman non owner avoid harvesting in woodlot without permission (in effect only during nine months of the year) |
To avoid harvesting in woodlot without permission (in effect only during nine months of the year) |
To brother's command to compel woman non-owner to restore wood or compensate only during nine months of the year | |
Disability |
Exposure |
Liberty |
Immunity | |
To prevent non-owners entering or harvesting fallen deadwood in woodlot during three months of the year |
To non-owner competition in harvesting fallen deadwood in woodlot during three months of the year |
To harvest fallen deadwood in woodlot during three months of the year |
To brother's command to enforce woodlot access rules against non-owners collecting deadwood in woodlot during three months of the year | |
Officials' determining powers are critical elements in any system of working rules. Determining powers are those powers that an official is free to exercise, to make, enforce, or modify rules either alone or in concert with others. The extent of an official's determining powers is partially situation-specific, but it is also closely linked to her or his particular office. Some offices, for example, that of dictator, afford their incumbents very considerable power over the content and application of rule systems. Furthermore, in true dictatorships the dictator's powers are not subject to review by others.
Determining powers of other classes of officials, for example, rural forestry guards, are much more limited in scope and are usually subject legally to review by other officials. They are nonetheless important. Indeed, survival of Nigerien woodstocks may turn in very large part on the way forest guards exercise their determining powers. In their capacity as woodstock policemen, forest guards typically act as both executive agents and administrative judges. Although their decisions can be challenged by citizens who are fined for violations of forestry code regulations, complaints are rarely lodged. Field foresters can also be closely controlled by superiors. Some are. Others operate in a much more autonomous manner. The latter therefore enjoy a considerable margin of manoeuvre in deciding how Code regulations will be applied, that is, what the working rules of woodstock management and use will be in areas they patrol.
The determining powers of village headmen may also be considerable. The two examples cited earlier can be used to illustrate this point. In Example 1, illustrated in Figure 7 on page 23, the complaint before the headman is lodged by a co-owner of the woodlot. The headman can decide whether the non-owner violated woodlot access and use rules. If he believes the co-owner plaintiff will not challenge his decision by appealing it to some overriding judge or other official with authority to revise the verdict, he also believes he enjoys determining powers in the case, including power to revise use rules. If he decides that no violation occurred, he reduces the rights and increases the exposures of all the woodlot owners, while simultaneously reducing nonowners' duty of avoidance and increasing their liberty to exploit fallen deadwood in the lot as they wish. If that decision remains unchallenged, it indicates the beginning of a trend toward a new working rule of use and access. If enough subsequent decisions followed this precedent, the common property woodlot would be converted into an open access woodlot that everyone would be at liberty to use when and how they please, that is, a situation of non-management.
In Example 2, illustrated in Figure 8 on page 24, the headman again is requested to resolve a dispute. If he holds for the non-owner who has entered the lot during the three months' open season to collect deadwood on the ground, he sustains what is perceived in this hypothetical case to be the applicable working rule. If he holds in favor of the plaintiff, he proposes eliminating the open access character which the woodlot is assumed to have during three months of the year. Again, the extent of his determining power is set by the willingness and ability of citizens to challenge his decision by taking an appeal to some other court.
Example 3, illustrated in Figures 9a and 9b on pages 27 and 28, shows that Nigerien field foresters enjoy important determining powers. They can decide, for instance, to ignore Code violations if they choose, at very little risk of discovery and sanction. Foresters in the field are few and superiors rarely have time to carefully supervise the work of their subordinates. Many field foresters seem to have exploited the leeway inherent in this situation for exercise of determining powers by extracting bribes from those who want to appropriate part of the woodstock or are caught after they have done so without an official permit. In return for the bribe, the official either reduces the level of the fine or ignores the violation altogether. If on the other hand a field forester imposes appropriate fines on those field owners unable to identify individuals who committed Code infractions on their fields, he transforms the formal provision of the Code into an effective working rule within his jurisdiction.
Officials, in their exercise of determining powers, establish, maintain and change the working rules of the concerns of which they are members and agents. It is important to recognize that the concept of determining powers goes beyond that of official discretion, although it includes it. The concept of determining powers is critically important because it reveals how formal rules are translated, manipulated or ignored in practice. It also highlights the way officials can make important changes at the margin which affect the allocation of negative and positive incentives which impede or encourage desirable forms of behavior.
Given the characterization of the nature of goods and the working rules, the assumptions about representative individuals suggest that people will adopt maximizing strategies within the rules of the game. That is, they will try to exploit their opportunities and will comply with constraints to the extent required by those who enforce the rules. The extent to which rural people co-produce policing of the woodstock is an important variable in defining the character of the working rules. Concerning woodstocks, it is reasonable to expect that people will not voluntarily invest in the production of the public good of environmental management. Rather, they will do so only if some form of governmental organization, either a formal or an informal one which they organize locally, or a formal one imposed from the outside, creates a reasonable level of assurance that all will comply with the rules of woodstock management.25 Failing that, most will simply hope that others make the necessary investment upon which they can ride free. However, if property rights to all tree species growing on fields or fallows were transferred to owners of those lands and enforcement of those rights were feasible at reasonable transactions costs, then some owners would undoubtedly invest in trees as private goods for their own private ends. By increasing the size of the woodstock they would help produce the public good of environmental management. Whether the resulting level of environmental management would be adequate is an empirical question.
People can however be expected to manage common pool resources for sustained yield if certain conditions are met. One of the first is that they have clearly recognized property rights in the resource, and that those rights create opportunities for investment in resource renewal and management. Without that, the resource in effect is an open access good. The investments of some can be reaped by others without authorization. Investing in resource maintenance or enrichment becomes irrational behavior under such circumstances. In addition, common property management groups must have authority to make, modify and enforce woodstock use regulations.
They must also enjoy low-cost access to officials who have authoritative power to resolve disputes concerning these functions. However, mere access, to such officials is not enough. They must afford representatives of common property woodstock management groups treatment which is responsive to local concerns. A small management group and a shared preference favouring woodstock management are two other important conditions which must be met. The first tends to reduce the information costs involved in monitoring behavior on the part of members of the user group. The second helps to generate consensus about the need for management rules. A number of other conditions favourable to common pool resource management were formulated during the Conference on Common Property Resource Management.26
Rural producers can be expected to invest in and manage private woodstocks if costs of enforcing property rights are acceptable and the demand for on-site or consumptive uses is sufficient. Enforcement costs are a critical factor here: in the past, rural producers interested in planting trees have generally done so in fenced garden or residential compound areas, where trees were protected from roving animals and where tree owners' property rights to the trees were, at least within limits, respected by foresters.
Example 3 illustrated Forestry code formal rules
CORRELATIVES AND EQUILENTS | ||||
Official 1 |
Citizen A |
Citizen B |
Official 2 | |
Arrondissement forester |
Any potential users of protected tree species |
Actual users of protected tree species without forest service permit |
Field forester | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Power |
Right |
Duty |
Liability |
To have field forester fine users for harvesting without forest service permit |
That all other potential users avoid harvesting without forest service permit |
To avoid harvesting or pay fine |
To fine users for code infraction | |
Disability |
Exposure |
Liberty |
Immunity | |
To have field forester fine users for harvesting without forest service permit |
That all other potential users avoid harvesting without forest service permit |
To avoid harvesting or pay fine |
To fine users for code infraction | |
Example 3 illustrated Arondissement forester fails to control field forester and potential users fail to challenge field forester's determination
CORRELATIVES AND EQUILENTS | ||||
Official 1 |
Citizen A |
Citizen B |
Official 2 | |
Arrondissement forester |
Any potential users of protected tree species |
Actual users of protected tree species without forest service permit |
Field forester | |
RECIPROCALS AND LIMITS |
Power |
Right |
Duty |
Liability |
To have field forester fine users for harvesting without forest service permit |
Only that some potential users will avoid harvesting without forest service permit |
To pay fine for harvesting without forest service permit only if a better deal cannot be negotiated with field |
To impose fine for illegal harvesting only if Arrondissement forester will find out or other users will complain | |
Disability |
Exposure |
Liberty |
Immunity | |
To have field forester fine users for harvesting without forest service permit |
To other users for harvesting protected tree species without forest service permit through arrangement with field forester |
To harvest protected tree species without permit if a better deal can be arranged with field forester |
To Arrondissement forester's command to fine users for harvesting unprotected tree species without permit | |
Outcomes are the consequences of patterns of interaction which result from the strategies adopted by actors seeking to maximize their own self-interest. Consequences usually affect others, who may play no direct role in actions to produce, manage or use the target goods as well as actors directly involved. Outcomes can be evaluated in light of different criteria. Common ones are efficiency and equity.27 In the case of woodstock projects, appropriate evaluation criteria would be efficiency in the preservation of the resource base as well as in meeting consumptive needs and equitable distribution of benefits. While both can in theory be measured, the methodological requirements of accurately analyzing distribution patterns are demanding and will not be attempted in the context of this rapid institutional analysis. Efficiency of woodstock preservation or extension can be roughly measured somewhat more easily, through simple comparison of a time series of photographs of a given area or of satellite images. Simple estimates from memory of before and after conditions are also useful, but must be used carefully.
The design of institutions, including those involved in woodstock production and management projects, should reflect the attributes of goods they are trying to produce. When these aspects are ignored, inappropriate solutions are frequently fashioned. Projects fail in consequence. The institutions which are set up to govern both market and non-market relationships are human artifacts. They create sets of positive and negative incentives supporting certain patterns of behaviour and discouraging other types of conduct. If those incentives conform to the attributes of goods which are the target of project action -- providing the fit is appropriate -- then chances of sustaining project activities are improved.
In the context of this review of four forestry projects organized and implemented in Niger, the initial approach in each case will be to determine the nature of the woodstock good. This turns, as noted, both on the inherent character of the good and on technology available for reproduction, management, protection and harvesting. Information will then be gathered from project personnel, Nigerien foresters and rural producers (such as agriculturalists and pastoralists) involved with each project to obtain their views of the working rules of the project and the strategies adopted by different representative individuals in pursuit of their own self-interest concerning woodstock management. Finally, an attempt will be made to indicate briefly outcomes of each project in light of the criterion of efficiency in protection, management and improvement of local woodstocks.
The analysis arrives at conclusions about management that conflict with some of the principles underlying the Nigerien Forestry Code, and particularly with the interpretation of those principles up to the last several years. The principles and interpretation in question reflect implicit assumptions that much of the Nigerien woodstock should be considered a common property resource or a public good. As the previous discussion indicated, those assumptions seem highly realistic. Woodstocks produce some public goods, for example, environmental stabilization, which are not subject to exclusion and consumption of which is joint (non-rivalrous). Also, woodstocks frequently have the character of common pool resources in Niger. It is difficult to exclude a group of common users (who are often not, note, owners). At the same time, users make separable and potentially competitive use of these resources. The Nigerien Forestry Code, as noted, implicitly recognizes this.
Where the Code and the analytics presented here diverge is the level at which public goods and common pool resource management should be provided. The Code explicitly assumes these two activities are national functions. Provision of the public good of environmental management and management of the common pool woodstocks and watersheds that play critical roles in stabilizing, regenerating and enriching Nigerien environments are the explicit responsibility of the Forestry and Wildlife Service. The Director of the Service can, by the terms of Code paragraphs, authoritatively empower his subordinates to implement and enforce Code regulations. Subordinates are responsible for managing national forests, "protected areas" and "protected species", wherever they grow. Given the highly autonomous manner in which most Nigerien field-level foresters are required to operate and the range of control over resources vested in them, in practice they enjoy rather extensive determining powers. Rural producers who own land are, again by terms of the Forestry Code, required to monitor observance of Code provisions on lands they control. This applies particularly to the 15 protected species judged by Code writers to be particularly important trees for either production of consumptive forestry products or for on-site, non-consumptive uses. While land owners are expected to dissuade woodstock users from illegal practices on their lands, they cannot themselves enforce provisions through recourse to readily available officials of local, general purpose jurisdictions. Nor can they collect monetary or other damages from users who lop or cut protected species. These provisions flow from the fact that the Code treats the woodstock as an indivisible national level public good and common property resource.
The analysis presented here strongly suggests that much more effective provision of the public good of environmental stabilization and management of common pool woodstocks can be achieved by devolving power over woodstock resources to smaller local units. In other words, while environmental stabilization is clearly a public good, provision can be organized at the local level for the most part. As part of this devolution of power over woodstocks, the local general or special-purpose jurisdictions which assumed authority for daily provision and management decisions, as well as for long-term institutional organization and financing of these activities in a particular local area, would enjoy rule-making, -modification and -enforcement power over woodstock resources. Citizens or local officials could appeal for help in enforcing local regulations in cases where non-authorized uses occurred, but they would suffer no legal disability preventing them from changing or upholding local woodstock use rules.
The logic underlying the analysis by contrast will support a de facto trend, which began several years ago in Niger, to increase involvement of rural producers and woodstock users in management of fuelwood and browse bushes, building poles, windbreaks, and watersheds. While in most cases this movement has only just begun to be translated, often hesitatingly, into practical activities at the local level and associated empowerment of rural producers, probabilities are good that the movement will slowly continue and grow. For this reason, the analytics of this study should prove increasingly useful in future years as rural producers -- supported by the GON, its officials and technicians and funding agency personnel -- try to work out viable local systems of woodstock management.
11 Fred Weber, Review of CILSS Forestry Sector Program Analysis Papers, prepared for USDA/OICD/TAD/ww -- AID/USDA/USFS, P.O. 40-3148-3-00156 (Washington, DC: Forestry Support Program, 1982), p.15.
12 This section draws heavily on Vincent Ostrom, The Intellectual Crisis In American Public Administration, rev. ed. (University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1974) pp. 50-52.
13 Satisficing denotes behavior which involves searching for an acceptable solution to a problem, rather-than for the optimal solution. Satisficing is rational behavior under conditions of uncertain information. Information costs of finding the optimal solution (which are acceptable under conditions of perfect information and even under conditions of risk) are assumed to be so high as to make the cost of identifying that solution prohibitive. Thus individuals acting in a self-interested manner may, under conditions of uncertain information, satisfice (accept less than the optimal solution) and still act rationally.
14 Discussion in this section draws heavily on Ronald J. Oakerson, "A Model for the Analysis of Common Property Problems," in Proceedings of the Conference on Common Property Resource Management, prepared by the Panel on Common Property Resource Management/BOSTID/OIA/NRC (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences Press, 1986), pp. 13-29. Other relevant works include Elinor Ostrom, "A Method of Institutional Analysis," in Guidance, Control, and Evaluation in the Public Sector, ed. by F.X. Kaufmann, G. Majone and V. Ostrom (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), pp. 459-75. See also Vincent Ostrom and Elinor Ostrom, "Public Goods and Public Choices," in Alternatives for Delivering Public Services: Toward Improved Performance, ed. by E.S. Sayas (Boulder, Colo: Wcstview Press, 1977), pp. 7-49.
15 Elinor Ostrom uses the term "use units" to denote both the consumables that may be produced by a common property resource, for example, fruits, forage or building poles from the woodstock, and the amount of traffic that a structure, such as a bridge or road, can bear. Ostrom, "Issues of Definition and Theory: Some Conclusions and Hypotheses," in Proceedings of the Conference on Common Property Resource Management, prepared by the Panel on Common Property Resource Management/BOSTID/OIA/NRC (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences Press,1986), pp. 604-05.
16 Ostrom and Ostrom, Alternatives for Delivering ..., pp. 20-22.
17 Manucur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 43-52.
18 Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, "A Theory for Institutional Analysis of Common Pool Problems," in Managing the Commons, ed. by Garrett Hardin and John Baden (San Francisco, Calif: W.H. Freeman, 1975), pp. 157-72.
19 John R. Commons, Legal Foundations of Capitalism (Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957; first published New York, 1924 by Macmillan), pp. 65-213.
20 John R. Commons, Legal Foundations ..., pp.134-42.
21 Commons, Legal Foundations ..., pp. 147-48.
22 Commons, Legal Foundations ..., pp. 65-100, esp. 97.
23 While fines are usually not monumental, they can amount to the cash equivalent of a 100 kg. or more of millet, the staple food. A family of six (two adults, two juveniles and two children) consumes about five kilograms of millet per day.
24 Note that in this example it is assumed that the brother is not an official elected or appointed by an outsider, for example, the canton chief or the head of the Arrondissement jurisdiction. Instead, he is an "informal" assistant to the village headman, but recognized locally as representing the governmental authority of the village going concern. In this sense, he is an officer of the concern.
25 C. Forde Runge, "Common Property and Collective Action in Economic Development," in Proceedings of the Conference on Common Property Resource Management, prepared by the Panel on Common Property Resource Management/BOSTID/OIA/NRC (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences Press, 1986), pp. 31-52, esp. 42-48.
26 E. Ostrom, Proceedings of the Conference..., pp. 608-612.
27 Oakerson, Proceedings of the Conference ..., pp.21-22.
