Development through bricolage rethinking institutions for natural resource management

Why despite an emphasis on ‘getting institutions right’ , do development initiatives so infrequently deliver as planned? Why do many institutions designed for natural resource management (water user associations, forest management councils, irrigation committees) not work as planners intended? The book disputes the mainstream model of institutional design and proposes instead that institutions are formed and evolve through processes of bricolage. The book synthesizes a number of strands of contemporary thinking about collective action, participation, governance, natural resource governance, political ecology and wellbeing, to delineate an emerging school of ‘critical institutional’ scholarship. Within this critical approach Cleaver proposes ‘ institutional bricolage ‘ as an innovative theoretical lens for generating new understandings of how and why people act to manage resources and how access is secured or denied. A variety of case studies ranging from the management of water ( Zimbabwe), conflict and cooperation over land,grazing and water ( Tanzania) and the emergence of community management of forests ( Sweden) illustrate both the context specific and the generalised nature of institutional bricolage and the resultant challenges for development policy and practice.