How fit turns into misfit and back: institutional transformations of pastoral commons in African floodplains
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Date
2013
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Publisher
Resilience Alliance
Abstract
We enlarge the notion of institutional fit using theoretical approaches from New Institutionalism, including rational
choice and strategic action, political ecology and constructivist approaches. These approaches are combined with ecological
approaches (system and evolutionary ecology) focusing on feedback loops and change. We offer results drawn from a comparison
of fit and misfit cases of institutional change in pastoral commons in four African floodplain contexts (Zambia, Cameroon,
Tanzania (two cases). Cases of precolonial fit and misfit in the postcolonial past, as well as a case of institutional fit in the
postcolonial phase, highlight important features, specifically, flexible institutions, leadership, and mutual economic benefit
under specific relations of bargaining power of actors. We argue that only by combining otherwise conflicting approaches can
we come to understand why institutional fit develops into misfit and back again.
Description
Keywords
African floodplains, governance, institutional change, institutional fit, New Institutionalism, pastoral commons