Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:45:14.709Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No sense of ownership in weak participation: a forest conservation experiment in Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2018

Øyvind Nystad Handberg
Øyvind Nystad Handberg*
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Business, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sense of ownership is often advocated as an argument for local participation within the epistemic development and nature conservation communities. Stakeholder participation in initiating, designing or implementing institutions is claimed to establish a sense of ownership among the stakeholders and subsequently improve the intended outcomes of the given institution. Theoretical and empirical justifications of the hypothesis remain scarce. A better understanding of the effects of local participation can motivate more extensive and stronger participation of local stakeholders and improve institutional performance. This paper applies theories from psychology and behavioral economics to sense of ownership. The empirical investigation is a framed field experiment in the context of tropical forest conservation and payments for environmental services in Tanzania. The results lend little support to the hypothesis in this context. The participation treatment in the experiment is weak, and a possible explanation is that sense of ownership is sensitive to the participation form.

Keywords

forestryframed field experimentparticipationsense of ownershipTanzania
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , August 2018 , pp. 434 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agrawal, A (2007) Forests, governance, and sustainability: common property theory and its contributions. International Journal of the Commons 1(1), 111–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agrawal, A and Ostrom, E (2001) Collective action, property rights and decentralization in resource use in India and Nepal. Politics & Society 29(4), 485–514.Google Scholar
Angelsen, A (ed.) (2009) Realising REDD+: National Strategy and Policy Options. Bogor: CIFOR.Google Scholar
Angelsen, A (2016) REDD+ as result-based aid: general lessons and bilateral agreements of Norway. Review of Development Economics 21, 237–264.Google Scholar
Arnstein, SR (1969) A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35(4), 216–224.Google Scholar
Baland, J-M and Platteau, J-P (1996) Halting Degradation of Natural Resources: Is There a Role for Rural Communities? Rome: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).Google Scholar
Bamberger, M (1991) The importance of community participation. Public Administration and Development 11(3), 281–284.Google Scholar
Bardhan, P (2000) Irrigation and cooperation: an empirical analysis of 48 irrigation communities in south India. Economic Development and Cultural Change 48(4), 847–865.Google Scholar
Benabou, R and Tirole, J (2002) Self-confidence and personal motivation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(3), 871–915.Google Scholar
Blomley, T and Ramadhani, H (2006) Going to scale with Participatory Forest Management: early lessons from Tanzania. International Forestry Review 8(1), 93–100.Google Scholar
Bosson, JK, Swann, WB and Pennebaker, JW (2000) Stalking the perfect measure of implicit self-esteem: the blind men and the elephant revisited? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79(4), 631–643.Google Scholar
Brockington, D (2007) Forests, community conservation, and local government performance: the village forest reserves of Tanzania. Society & Natural Resources 20(9), 835–848.Google Scholar
Buchy, M and Hoverman, S (2000) Understanding public participation in forest planning: a review. Forest Policy and Economics 1(1), 15–25.Google Scholar
Cardenas, J-C (2004) Norms from outside and from inside: an experimental analysis on the governance of local ecosystems. Forest Policy and Economics 6(3–4), 229–241.Google Scholar
Carmon, Z and Ariely, D (2000) Focusing on the forgone: how value can appear so different to buyers and sellers. Journal of Consumer Research 27(3), 360–370.Google Scholar
Chambers, R (1994) The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal. World Development 22(7), 953–969.Google Scholar
Chatterley, C, Linden, KG and Javernick-Will, A (2013) Identifying pathways to continued maintenance of school sanitation in Belize. Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development 3(3), 411–422.Google Scholar
Cohen, JM and Uphoff, NT (1980) Participation's place in rural development: seeking clarity through specificity. World Development 8(3), 213–235.Google Scholar
Conley, A and Moote, MA (2003) Evaluating collaborative natural resource management. Society & Natural Resources 16(5), 371–386.Google Scholar
Cooke, B and Kothari, U (2001) Participation: The New Tyranny? New York: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Cornwall, A (2008) Unpacking ‘Participation’: models, meanings and practices. Community Development Journal 43(3), 269–283.Google Scholar
Cornwall, A and Brock, K (2005) What do buzzwords do for development policy? A critical look at ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’. Third World Quarterly 26(7), 1043–1060.Google Scholar
Dal Bó, P, Foster, PA and Putterman, L (2010) Institutions and and behavior: experimental evidence on the effects of democracy. American Economic Review 100(5), 2205–2229.Google Scholar
Davidson, R and MacKinnon, JG (2000) Bootstrap tests: how many bootstraps? Econometric Reviews 19(1), 55–68.Google Scholar
Dietz, T, Ostrom, E and Stern, PC (2003) The struggle to govern the commons. Science 302(5652), 1907–12.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A (1991) The socio-economics of property. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 6(6), 465–468.Google Scholar
FAO (2011) State of the World's Forests. Rome, Italy: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).Google Scholar
Festinger, L (1957) A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, RE (1984) Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gawronski, B, Bodenhausen, GV and Becker, AP (2007) I like it, because I like myself: associative self-anchoring and post-decisional change of implicit evaluations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43(2), 221–232.Google Scholar
Green, KE and Lund, JF (2015) The politics of expertise in participatory forestry: a case from Tanzania. Forest Policy and Economics 60, 27–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwald, AG and Farnham, SD (2000) Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79(6), 1022–1038.Google Scholar
Handberg, ØN and Angelsen, A (2015) Experimental tests of tropical forest conservation measures. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 118, 346–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handberg, ØN and Angelsen, A (2016) Pay little, get little; pay more, get a little more: a framed forest experiment in Tanzania. Ecological Economics. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.09.025.Google Scholar
Harrison, GW and List, JA (2004) Field experiments. Journal of Economic Literature 42(4), 1009–1055.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, GW, List, JA and Towe, C (2007) Naturally occurring preferences and exogenous laboratory experiments: a case study of risk aversion. Econometrica 75(2), 433–458.Google Scholar
Henrich, J et al. (2001) In search of Homo economicus: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. American Economic Review 91(2), 73–78.Google Scholar
Hickey, G and Kipping, C (1998) Exploring the concept of user involvement in mental health through a participation continuum. Journal of Clinical Nursing 7(1), 83–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horowitz, JK and Mcconnell, KE (2002) A review of WTA/WTP studies. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 44(3), 426–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Innes, JE (1996) Planning through consensus building. A new view of the comprehensive Planning Ideal. Journal of American Planning Association 62(4), 460–472.Google Scholar
Johnson, EJ, Häubl, G and Keinan, A (2007) Aspects of endowment: a query theory of value construction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 33(3), 461–474.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D, Knetsch, JL and Thaler, RH (1991) Anomalies: the endowment effect, loss aversion, and status quo bias. Journal of Economic Perspectives 5(1), 193–206.Google Scholar
Krugman, HE (1966) The measurement of advertising involvement. The Public Opinion Quarterly 30(4), 583–596.Google Scholar
Lachapelle, P (2008) A sense of ownership in community development: understanding the potential for participation in community planning efforts. Community Development 39(2), 52–59.Google Scholar
Lawrence, A (2006) ‘No personal motive?’ Volunteers, biodiversity, and the false dichotomies of participation. Ethics, Place & Environment 9(3), 279–298.Google Scholar
Leal, PA (2007) Participation: the ascendancy of a buzzword in the neo-liberal era. Development in Practice 17(4–5), 539–548.Google Scholar
Lie, JHS (2015) Developmentality: indirect governance in the World Bank–Uganda partnership. Third World Quarterly 36(4), 723–740.Google Scholar
Lund, JF and Saito-Jensen, M (2013) Revisiting the issue of elite capture of participatory initiatives. World Development 46, 104–112.Google Scholar
Lund, JF and Treue, T (2008) Are we getting there? Evidence of decentralized forest management from the Tanzanian Miombo Woodlands. World Development 36(12), 2780–2800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lund, JF et al. (2017) Promising change, delivering continuity: REDD+ as conservation fad. World Development 89, 124–139.Google Scholar
Maddux, WW et al. (2010) For whom is parting with possessions more painful? Cultural differences in the endowment effect. Psychological Science 21(12), 1910–1917.Google Scholar
Manning, R and Ginger, C (2007) An owner's manual to “ownership”: a reply to Lachapelle and McCool. Society & Natural Resources 20(2), 187–192.Google Scholar
Mansuri, G and Rao, V (2013 a) Can participation be induced? Some evidence from developing countries. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 16(2), 284–304.Google Scholar
Mansuri, G and Rao, V (2013 b) Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Marks, SJ and Davis, J (2012) Does user participation lead to sense of ownership for rural water systems? Evidence from Kenya. World Development 40(8), 1569–1576.Google Scholar
Markussen, T, Putterman, L and Tyran, J-R (2013) Self-organization for collective action: an experimental study of voting on sanction regimes. The Review of Economic Studies 81(1), 301–324.Google Scholar
Morewedge, CK and Giblin, CE (2015) Explanations of the endowment effect: an integrative review. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19(6), 339–348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
North, DC (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Norton, MI, Mochon, D and Ariely, D (2012) The IKEA effect: when labor leads to love. Journal of Consumer Psychology 22(3), 453–460.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E (1990) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pierce, JL, Kostova, T and Dirks, KT (2001) Toward a theory of psychological ownership in organizations. The Academy of Management Review 26(2), 298–310.Google Scholar
Pretty, JN (1995) Participatory learning for sustainable agriculture. World Development 23(8), 1247–1263.Google Scholar
Reed, MS (2008) Stakeholder participation for environmental management: a literature review. Biological Conservation 141(10), 2417–2431.Google Scholar
Ribot, JC (2008) Building Local Democracy through Natural Resource Interventions An Environmentalist's Responsibility. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.Google Scholar
Ribot, JC, Lund, JF and Treue, T (2010) Democratic decentralization in sub-Saharan Africa: its contribution to forest management, livelihoods, and enfranchisement. Environmental Conservation 37(1), 35–44.Google Scholar
Richards, C, Blackstock, K and Carter, C (2004) Practical Approaches to Participation. Aberdeen: The Macaulay Institute.Google Scholar
Rodrik, D (2000) Institutions for high-quality growth: what they are and how to acquire them. Studies in Comparative International Development 35(3), 3–31.Google Scholar
Schultz, L, Duit, A and Folke, C (2011) Participation, adaptive co-management, and management performance in the world network of Biosphere Reserves. World Development 39(4), 662–671.Google Scholar
Sen, AK (1999) Development as Freedom. New York, NY: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Stern, N (2006) Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stieger, S, Voracek, M and Formann, AK (2012) How to administer the Initial Preference Task. European Journal of Personality 26(1), 63–78.Google Scholar
Sutter, M, Haigner, S and Kocher, MG (2010) Choosing the carrot or the stick? endogenous institutional choice in social dilemma situations. Review of Economic Studies 77(4), 1540–1566.Google Scholar
Thaler, R (1980) Toward a positive theory of consumer choice. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 1(1), 39–60.Google Scholar
TNRF (2009) Using the Nation's Resources to Reduce Poverty. Arusha, Tanzania: Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (TNRF).Google Scholar
Treue, T et al. (2014) Does participatory forest management promote sustainable forest utilisation in Tanzania? International Forestry Review 16(1), 23–38.Google Scholar
Tyran, JR and Feld, LP (2006) Achieving compliance when legal sanctions are non-deterrent. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 108(1), 135–156.Google Scholar
UN-REDD Programme (2011) The UN-REDD Programme Strategy 2011–2015. Geneva, Switzerland: FAO, UNDP, UNEP.Google Scholar
URT (2012) National Strategy for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Vice President's Office, United Republic of Tanzania (URT).Google Scholar
Weiss, L and Johar, GV (2013) Egocentric categorization and product judgment: seeing your traits in what you own (and their opposite in what you don't). Journal of Consumer Research 40(1), 1543–1559.Google Scholar
World Bank (2008) Putting Tanzania's Hidden Economy to Work: Reform, Management, and Protection of its Natural Resource Sector. Washington, DC: World Bank.
World Bank (2016) Participation at Project, Program & Policy Level. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Handberg supplementary material 1

Appendix

Download Handberg supplementary material 1(PDF)
PDF 874.9 KB