Comparative Analysis of Nature-Related Transactions and Governance Structures in Pasture Use and Irrigation Water in Central Asia

Ulan Kasymov and Ahmad Hamidov
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Ulan Kasymov: Resource Economics Group, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Ahmad Hamidov: Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 9, 1-18

Abstract: Central Asian countries have experienced a transition from a centralized state-managed economy to a decentralized market-oriented one, and gained valuable experience in designing institutions involving common-pool resource (CPR) management. Top-down policy interventions have affected natural resource usage practices and had environmental, social and economic consequences. On the other hand, in a bottom-up transformation process, many informal practices for using local resources and many forms of cooperation have emerged and become institutionalized, adapting to the changing socio-economic context. This paper demonstrates an empirical application of the Institutions of Sustainability (IoS) framework, analyzing these emerged institutions, and governance structures in pasture and irrigation management. It studies how the physical nature-related transactions are institutionalized through the operationalization of a discriminative alignment principle. The research results show that actors’ interdependencies caused by the attributes of nature-related transactions play a decisive role in institutional development in CPR management in Central Asia. The authors argue that differences in the properties of physical nature-related transactions in pasture and irrigation water use can be linked and explained through differences in the key characteristics of governance structures.

Keywords: common-pool resource; governance structure; institutions; pasture; irrigation; sustainability; Kyrgyzstan; Uzbekistan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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