Power distribution, the external environment and common property forest governance: A local user groups model

This paper presents a recursive model that links power distribution imbalances with collective benefits and costs related to local common property forest governance. Using cross-sectional analysis of 38 local common property forest user groups, ejidos and comunidades, in La Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico, we test the impacts of power inequalities on different common property forest governance outcomes. Three measures of power inequality are used: intra-group power disparities; links between the ejido authority and external political forces; and asset disparities between the authority and the group average. The proxies of power were found to be a key determinant of forest change and other collective action related variables. The findings provide evidence in favour of the hypothesis that, with greater power inequalities within the group, agents with more power are able to impose higher costs on those with less power. Powerful leaders may provide positive externalities to the group in the form of norms. However, results indicate that greater power inequality tends to lead to more illegal logging and more forest degradation.