Article on understanding causes of conflict over common village pastures by Neudert et al.

New article by IASC members in the journal Society & Natural Resources proposes a combined analysis of property rights and conflicts with the examples from two distinct policy-institutional and cultural-political contexts yet with a shared post-socialist transition background.


Abstract

Conflicts in the management of renewable natural resources are situations in which actors have diverging opinions on issues of natural resource use. In the literature, among the causal factors for conflicts discussed are resource wealth or scarcity and the role of governance. The evidence, however, is contradictory. In order to analyze the role of governance in more detail, we propose a combined analysis of property rights and conflicts. In this way, an improved understanding of the causes of local conflicts over renewable natural resources can be achieved. We use comparative case study data from pasture management in the Caucasus region, first, to classify conflicts according to the bundle of property rights approach and, second, to explore how the causal factors resource scarcity and current governance contribute to those conflicts.

Keywords

Caucasus, common pool resources, common property, conflict, degradation, livestock, post-socialist transition, property rights, resource scarcity, sustainable management

Neudert, R., Theesfeld, I, Didebulidze, A., Allahverdiyeva, N and V. Beckmann (2020). Understanding causes of conflict over common village pastures – A comparative analysis of property rights in Azerbaijan and Georgia. Society & Natural Resources https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2019.1704329.

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