Decentralization and Participation: The Governance of Common Pool Resources in Nepal’s Terai ARUN AGRAWAL University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA and KRISHNA GUPTA * Ministry of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi, India Summary. —Dece ntra liza tion has emer ged as an impor tant inst rume nt of envi ronmenta l and development policy in the last two decades. Presumed benefits of environmental policy decentral- ization depend in significant measure on broad participation in the programs that governments cre- ate to decentralize decision making related to resource management. This paper uses data from protected areas in Nepal’s Terai to examine who participates in environmental decentralization programs. On the basis of our statistical analysis, we highlight the fact that the likelihood of par- ticipation in community-level user groups is greater for those who are economically and socially better-off. We also find that individuals who have greater access to and who visit government offices related to decentralization policies more often are also more likely to participate in user groups cre- ated by state officials. Finally, we find a negative correlation between education and levels of par- ticipation. Our study and analysis support the argument that for decentralization policies to be successful on equity issues, it is important to build institutional mechanisms that encourage poorer and more marginal househol ds to acce ss gove rnment officia ls, impro ve acce ss to educ atio nal opportunities, and create incentives to promote more interactions between less powerful rural res- idents and government officials. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words — environment, protected areas, forests, resource management, Nepal, South Asia 1. INTRODUCTION Dec entralization has eme rged as an impo r- tant instrument of environmental and develop- ment policy in the last two decades. 1 Governments play a role in decentralizing deci- si on maki ng and poli cy impl emen tation to achi eve diverse goals: amon g them social de- velopmen t, democratic participation, resource management, and serv ice prov isio n ( Agrawal & Ostrom, 2001; De Vries, 2000; Willis, Chris- topher da, & Haggard, 1999). Although decen- tralization is sometimes seen as a good in itself, decentralizers defend their policy choices more often on grounds of increased efficiency, greater equi ty, and high er resp onsi vene ss of gove rn- ments to citizen demands. The presumed supe- riority of decentralized decision making stems * We would like to thank respondents in the surveyed vil lag es for the ir coo per ati on in our dat a colle cti on efforts, and the UNDP—Kathmandu for providing the funds necessary for the field research. Colleagues at the Nepal Forestry Resources and Institutions Program, es- peci ally Bire ndra Karn a and Muku nda Karmachar ya, assisted in the data collection effort. Successive drafts ofthe paper have benefite d from commen ts by Ashwi ni Chhatre, Clark Gibson, Elinor Ostrom, Kent Redford, and Amy Poteet e, and pr esentations to inte re st ed audie nces at Indi ana Unive rsit y, Yale Universi ty, the University of Michigan, and the fourth biennial meeting of the International Forestry Resources and Institutions Program in Nairobi, Kenya, in June 2002. Revisions ofthe paper were supported by grants from the National Sci enc e Fou ndatio n (# SBR 9905443) and the Ford Foundation (# 950-1160-2). We gratefully acknowledge the help we have received in different forms. Final revis- ion accepted: January 24, 2005. World Development Vol. 33, No. 7, pp. 1101–1114, 2005 Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0305-750X/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.04.009 www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev 1101
