An Ethnographic Analysis of the Role of Power in Institutional Arrangements: Borehole cost recovery within a pastoral community in North‐Western Namibia

Abstract

The role of power in the development of institutions governing the use of common-pool resources has been given little emphasis in the leading theories in this field. A case study from north-western Namibia illustrates how power and bargaining strategies shape institutional arrangements concerning the cost recovery of a communal water point. The example shows how policy reforms based on Ostrom's design principles clash with local dynamics of power asymmetries and social interdependencies. This article indicates that Ostrom's framework does not consider the possibility that resource appropriators might develop and implement institutions that disadvantage the less powerful members of a community. To explain how such 'unfair' institutions evolve and endure, Knight's bargaining theory of institutions is offered as a supplementary model. After discussion, the article concludes with an outlook prompting a reassessment of the concepts of 'institutional failure' in which only environmental factors are implicated, while social ones are ignored. 1 This part of Namibia is characterized by marginal integration in labour and sales markets, and pastoralism is the main economic activity performed by its inhabitants. Droughts occur from time to time in this semi-arid area (200-300 mm per year), occasionally with catastrophic consequences (Bollig, 2006). 2 These principles are given to the communities in written form and in a standardized way; they are the basis of the 'water point constitution'. 3 These consist of eight maxims: (1) definition of group boundaries; (2) regulations for the appropriation and provision of the common-pool resource that conform with local conditions; (3) arrangements that allow resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process; (4) monitoring by supervisors accountable to, or part of, the appropriators' group; (5) graduated sanctions; (6) low-cost and accessible mechanisms of conflict resolution; (7) recognition by higher-level authorities of the appropriators' self-determination; and, in the case of larger systems of common-pool resources, (8) an organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises.In the past, the community had a diesel pump instead of the hand pump for two periods: once in the 1970s under the colonial administration, and later under the independent state rule, commencing in the 1990s. On both occasions, the diesel pumps were in operation for only a relatively short time, as it was an underground problem in the borehole itself that limited the amount of water that could be pumped to the surface. During the respective periods during which these diesel pumps were in operation, the 'homeland', as well as the Namibian independent administration, provided the community with diesel, carried out the necessary maintenance, and paid one villager to take care of and operate the pump. According to my informants, the competent authorities delivered diesel on time and carried out repairs shortly after the problem was reported. 11These appraisals constituted a ...

Lost in Translation: State Policies and Micro-politics of Water Governance in Namibia

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