Path dependency and contingent causation in policy adoption and land use plans: The case of Southeastern Peru

• Published in: Geoforum 2013-12, Vol.50, p.138-148
• Main Authors: Chavez, Andrea B., Perz, Stephen G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amazon; Complexity; Data analysis; Deforestation; Farms; Land cover; Land use; Land utilization; Peru; Peruvians; Public policy; Roads; Statistical analysis; Surveys; Testing
• ISSN: 0016-7185; 1872-9398
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.09.003

•We evaluate the importance of public policies for land use plans.•Past policy adoption explain future plans, as evidence of path dependency.•Presence of new policy incentives and infrastructure reveal contingent causation.•Results highlight the importance of policy histories for land user decision-making. This study evaluates the importance of landholder adoption of land use incentives tied to public policies for subsequent land use plans in the Southeastern Peruvian Amazon. We draw on established theoretical frameworks that highlight public policies as distant determinants and landholder characteristics as proximate determinants of land use. We focus on whether landholders who had previously adopted specific land use incentives have different land use plans. This approach affords testing for path dependencies in land use trajectories from past policy adoption that results in specific land uses, later making expansion of those land uses more likely, as opposed to contingent causation, where past policy adoption does not influence later land use plans. We present results of multivariate statistical analyses based on farm surveys with data on adoption of past policies and future land use plans. Findings confirm instances of path dependency as well as cases of contingent causation among different types of land uses.