How fit turns into misfit and back: institutional transformations of pastoral commons in African floodplains

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dc.creatorHaller, Tobias
dc.creatorFokou, Gilbert
dc.creatorMbeyale, Gimbage
dc.creatorMeroka, Patrick
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-29T13:19:31Z
dc.date.accessioned2025-08-05T07:46:38Z
dc.date.available2025-04-29T13:19:31Z
dc.date.created2025-04-29T13:19:31Z
dc.date.issued2013
dc.description.abstractWe 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.
dc.identifierHaller, T., G. Fokou, G. Mbeyale, and P. Meroka 2013. How fit turns into misfit and back: institutional transformations of pastoral commons in African floodplains. Ecology and Society 18(1): 34
dc.identifierhttps://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/6681
dc.identifier.urihttp://repository.costech.or.tz/handle/20.500.14732/100216
dc.languageen
dc.publisherResilience Alliance
dc.subjectAfrican floodplains
dc.subjectgovernance
dc.subjectinstitutional change
dc.subjectinstitutional fit
dc.subjectNew Institutionalism
dc.subjectpastoral commons
dc.titleHow fit turns into misfit and back: institutional transformations of pastoral commons in African floodplains
dc.typeArticle

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