In this paper we assess the institutional and environmental impacts of forest decentralization in Bolivia, Kenya, Mexico, and Uganda. We develop theories of institutional impacts based upon the specific content of decentralization reforms. We classify each country’s reforms in terms of the creation/change in local user group empowerment and accountability mechanisms. Using data from the International Forestry Resources and Institutions Program, we estimate the effects of forest decentralization on local forest investments, rulemaking, wealth inequality, and forest conditions in the four countries. Some results support our theory, but the theory is insufficient to explain the full range of outcomes.
Forest decentralization programs have rapidly spread in developing countries in the last 20 years (Agrawal, Chhatre, & Hardin, 2008; Andersson, Gibson, & Lehoucq, 2004). There is now a large literature that examines case studies of decentralization and develops theoretical frameworks to explain the causes and consequences of decentralization (Boone, 2003, Falleti, 2005, O’Neill, 2003 and Ribot et al., 2006). In this paper we use these frameworks to develop a theory of how changes in accountability and user empowerment that result from decentralization policies impact user group behavior and forest conditions. We then test this theory using a unique over-time dataset on forest resources and institutions in Bolivia, Kenya, Mexico, and Uganda, which allows us to test theories across a broader range of cases than has been possible in previous work. We find, consistent with previous theories, that in countries where reforms increase both upward and downward accountability as well as empower forest users, there are more likely to be positive results both in terms of intermediate outputs such as user group collective action and in terms of outcomes such as improved forest conditions and decreased income inequality. These effects, however, are weak and inconsistent. The theory explains the data most strongly in Mexico, the country with the most well-established and democratic decentralization in the study area, but the results from Bolivia and Kenya are mixed. Surprisingly, Uganda, the country with the least stable forest governance system, saw the greatest increase in one important measure of local collective action—the making of rules about forest governance. The mixed nature of these findings indicates that the theories we test are useful guides, but are insufficient to explain the full range of decentralization outcomes.
In this paper we have argued that the expectations of policy analysts and researchers on the effects of natural resource decentralization need to account for the content of the decentralization reforms being implemented. We illustrated that the content of decentralization, in relation to its empowerment of local people and the accountability it engenders, may be used to generate theoretical predictions about decentralization outcomes. We then analyzed decentralization policies in four different countries to test these hypotheses.
We found support for our hypothesis that decentralization reforms that empower local actors through the establishment or strengthening of local property rights and the allowance for capital transfers to local users, and which establish downward accountability, are more likely to provide incentives for local users to engage in collective action. Upward accountability helps to ensure that this collective action leads to outcomes which are consistent (in terms of wealth inequality and forest conditions) with the broader program goals of decentralization. These findings were largely confirmed in our empirical analysis, although the fact that Uganda, which had weak empowerment and weak downward accountability nevertheless engaged in collective action, was anomalous. We conjectured that this may be due to the fact that the policy instability of decentralization created a large enough vacuum that local groups risked local collective action in order to establish property rights. The fact that our findings were confirmed most strongly in Mexico, the country with the longest history of decentralized forest governance, may indicate that decentralization reforms are mutually reinforcing over time. Decentralization may work best when significant powers have already been transferred to local levels, enhancing the capacity of local actors to take full advantage of new powers.
