THE ROLE OF GROUP HETEROGENEITY IN COLLECTIVE ACTION: A LOOK AT THE INTERTIE BETWEEN IRRIGATION AND FORESTS. CASE STUDIES FROM CHITWAN, NEPAL. Ashok Raj Regmi Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree Doctor of Philosophy In the School of Public and Environmental Affairs And the Department of Political Science Indiana University February 2007 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________________________ Elinor Ostrom, Ph.D., Chair ________________________________________________ James C. Randolph, Ph.D. Doctoral Committee ________________________________________________ Kerry Krutilla, Ph.D. ________________________________________________ Michael McGinnis, Ph.D. May 12, 2006 ii © 2007 Ashok Raj Regmi ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the course of my graduate study at Indiana University I have benefited tremendously from the kindness, patience, encouragement and assistance of many individuals. Without their good wishes I do not know how I would have completed this journey. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents Ishwari Raj Regmi and Sushma Regmi for encouraging and unconditionally supporting my academic endeavor. They have always prayed for me and my family and have always wished us the best. I express my sincere thanks and appreciation to Elinor Ostrom. She has always been a constant source of inspiration to me throughout my graduate years at Indiana University. During the course of writing this dissertation I have gained a lot from her ideas, insights, questions and feedback. It is a great honor to have trained under her. I am truly grateful for her guidance, her friendship, and the training. I am also grateful to my teachers Vincent Ostrom, J.C. Randolph, John Williams, Mike Mcginnis, and Kerry Krutilla. The dissertation has benefited a lot from their suggestions and insights. The Workshop family has always been a good source of support to me. I would like to thank Carol Buszkiewicz, Ray Eliason, Charlotte Hess, Gayle Higgins, Patty Lezotte, David Price, Andy Revelle, and Nicole Todd for helping me out with many different things on many different occasions. Other individuals I would like to thank are Madar Samad from the International Water Management Institute at Sri Lanka who supported my dissertation fieldwork in iv Nepal with a grant; Harini Nagendra, research scholar at CIPEC who helped me process remotely sensed images of Chitwan; Julie England and Robin Humphrey from CIPEC who helped me set up the IFRI and NIIS databases; colleagues at the Nepal-IFRI office Mukunda Karmacharya, Birendra Karna, Shiromani Gyawali and Hari Chettri who assisted me in the field work; and all the villagers from Piple and Kathar VDC who helped me in so many different ways during the fieldwork. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife Aruna Khanal and my son Aaruk Regmi for encouraging, supporting and being patient with me for all these long years. This dissertation is dedicated to them. v Ashok Raj Regmi THE ROLE OF GROUP HETEROGENEITY IN COLLECTIVE ACTION: A LOOK AT THE INTERTIE BETWEEN IRRIGATION AND FORESTS. CASE STUDIES FROM CHITWAN, NEPAL. Although considerable agreement exists among scholars about the attributes of a resource and about resource users that are conducive to self-organization, there are also puzzling issues related to the effects of size and heterogeneity of the user group. Prior empirical studies indicate that user-group differences do not have a uniform effect on the likelihood of sustaining collective action. The effects can be either positive, negative, or unrelated to self-organization efforts. Since many of the results are derived from individual case studies, or only a small number of cases, I adopt a more rigorous strategy to address the effect of these variables on self-governance and outcomes. I draw on a relatively large number of cases from two different types of common-pool resources in Nepal – irrigation and forests – to explore associations between group heterogeneity (measured in diverse ways) and collective action to address whether local resource management efforts may be affected. Through the use of in-depth case studies, I further examine the institutions governing both types of resource systems in a setting where members from the same community use both resources. Not only does this provide insights into how resource users organize around two different types of resource systems, but also allows us to assess and compare performance of these self-governed common- pool resource institutions. Using data generated by the Nepal Irrigation Institutions and Systems (NIIS) and International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research vi programs, and my own fieldwork in the Chitwan District of Nepal, I find that some heterogeneity variables (such as, ethnic composition) are less likely than others to be an impediment to self-organization; the same heterogeneity variable (wealth disparity) may have opposite effects on different resource types; resource conditions are more likely to be affected by ability or inability of resource users to enforce rules rather than by their group differences; and that self-organized groups are able to mediate the perceived costs and benefits of organizing through institutional design. Doctoral Committee ___________________________ Elinor Ostrom, Ph.D., Chair ___________________________ James C. Randolph, Ph.D. ___________________________ Kerry Krutilla, Ph.D. ___________________________ Michael McGinnis, Ph.D. vii Table of Contents Chapter 1 GOVERNING WATER AND FOREST RESOURCES IN NEPAL ………………………………………..………………… 1 Resources in A Common Pool ………………………………………..…….. 1 Irrigation Governance and Management in Nepal ………………………..… 5 Forest Governance and Management in Nepal ……………………………… 7 Irrigation and Forest Interties …………………………………………..…… 8 Study Objectives and Research Approach ……………………………….….. 10 Chapter 2 ……………………………………………………... 12 COMMON POOL RESOURCES, HETEROGENEITY AND COLLECTIVE ACTION - A LIETRATURE REVIEW...... 12 Common Pool Resources ……………………………………………………. 12 The Conventional Theory of Common Pool Resources …………………..… 13 Conventional Theory and Its Limitations …………………………………….14 Consensus on Variables Enhancing Self-Organization ………………………18 The Effect of Group Size and Heterogeneity On The Ability to Self-Organize …………………………………………………….. 23 Group Size ……………………………………………………………………. 23 Heterogeneity ………………………………………………………….…. 26 Theoretical Approach ……………………………………………………….. 34 Chapter 3 …………………………………………………….. 39 THE STUDY AREA ………………………………………………………. 39 Overview ……………………………………………………………………. 39 Chitwan ……………………………………………………………………… 41 Climate Vegetation and Land Use …………………………………….…… 43 Settlement History ………………………………………………………… 44 Demography ……………………………………………………………… 46 Farming ………………………………………………………………….. 49 Infrastructure ……………………………………………………………… 52 Local Economy ………………………………………………..…………. 53 History of Irrigation Development Activities in Nepal ………….…………. 54 Agency Managed Irrigation Systems (AMIS) ………………………………. 55 Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems (FMIS) ………………………………... 56 Irrigation Resources of Chitwan …………………………………………….. 56 Forest Resources of Chitwan………………………………………………… 60 Forests in the Royal Chitwan National Park ………………………………... 62 Forests in the Buffer Zone …………………………………………………... 63 Forests under the Jurisdiction of District Forest Office (DFO)……………... 64 Piple Village Development Committee (VDC) …………………………….. 65 Kathar Village Development Committee……………………………………. 66 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………... 68 viii Chapter 4……………………………………………..………. 69 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY……………………………………….. 69 Overview …………………………………………………………………….. 69 Research Objective ………………………………………………………..… 69 Research Approach ………………………………………………..………… 70 Studying Irrigation Systems ………………………………………….……… 72 Large-N Study of Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems ……………………. 73 Case Studies of Irrigation Systems ……………………………………….… 76 Examining Irrigation Systems in light of the Design Principles ……………… 79 Studying Forestry Systems ………………………………………………….. 81 Statistical Analyses ……………………………………………………….. 82 Remote Sensing ……………………………………………………….… 83 Case Studies……………………………………………………………… 84 Exploring Inter-Tie between Irrigation and Forest Resources ……………….85 Study Area ………………………………………………………………….. 87 Data Collection Methods ……………………………………………………. 87 Approaches to Data Analyses……………………………………………… 89 Irrigation Resource - Macro Level Analysis ………………………………… 89 Forest Resources - Macro Level Analysis ………………………………..… 90 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….. 91 Chapter 5 ……………………………………………………... 92 A GENERAL ANALYSIS OF FARMER MANAGED IRRIGATION SYSTEMS IN CHITWAN DISTRICT OF NEPAL ……………………………………………….…..……………… 92 Overview ……………………………………………….…..……………….. 92 Data Description …………………………………………………………….. 93 Development of Irrigation Systems in Chitwan……………………………... 94 History ……………………………………………………………………. 94 Resource Mobilization………………………………………………………….. 95 Major Physical Characteristics of Irrigation Systems in Chitwan………….... 96 Water Sharing Arrangements……………………………………………….... 99 Maintenance………………………………………………………………….. 102 Organization………………………………………………………………….. 104 Rules and Regulations………………………………………………………...105 Conflict Management…………………………………………………………106 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)…………………………………………107 Results Estimation…………………………………………………………. 112 Model Assessment………………………………………………………… 115