No sense of ownership in weak participation: a forest conservation experiment in Tanzania

Sense of ownership is often advocated as an argument for local participation within the epistemic development and nature conservation communities. Stakeholder participation in initiating, designing or implementing institutions is claimed to establish a sense of ownership among the stakeholders and s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environment and development economics 2018-08, Vol.23 (4), p.434-451
Main Author: Handberg, Øyvind Nystad
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Behavioral economics
Community involvement
Community participation
Conservation
Decision making
Developing countries
Empowerment
Environmental services
Experiments
Forest conservation
Forest management
Forestry
Hypotheses
Initiatives
Interest groups
Knowledge
Laboratories
LDCs
Nature conservation
Objectives
Ownership
Participation
Payments
Psychology
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Services
Stakeholders
Tropical forests
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Summary:Sense of ownership is often advocated as an argument for local participation within the epistemic development and nature conservation communities. Stakeholder participation in initiating, designing or implementing institutions is claimed to establish a sense of ownership among the stakeholders and subsequently improve the intended outcomes of the given institution. Theoretical and empirical justifications of the hypothesis remain scarce. A better understanding of the effects of local participation can motivate more extensive and stronger participation of local stakeholders and improve institutional performance. This paper applies theories from psychology and behavioral economics to sense of ownership. The empirical investigation is a framed field experiment in the context of tropical forest conservation and payments for environmental services in Tanzania. The results lend little support to the hypothesis in this context. The participation treatment in the experiment is weak, and a possible explanation is that sense of ownership is sensitive to the participation form.
ISSN:1355-770X
1469-4395
DOI:10.1017/S1355770X18000190