WHAT ARE THE DETERMINANTS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS ALLOCATION? EVIDENCE FROM ODISHA'S FOREST TENURE REFORM

Abstract

The primary research question of this dissertation is “What are the determinants of property rights allocation?” The implementation of the Indian Forest Rights Act (FRA) is being analyzed in four most different districts in the southeastern state of Odisha using literature on property rights, participatory governance processes, polycentricity and a new adaptation of the Institutional and Analaysis Development (IAD) framework. The new adaptation embeds the theory of access (Ribot and Peluso, 2003), polycentric governance processes (Carlisle and Gruby, 2017) and the “web of interests” (Mwangi and Meinzen-Dick, 2009) to conduct analysis at four levels of governance (constitutional, collective, operational and individual). Equitable allocation of property rights in the four districts are different and similar based on polycentric processes, the level of collaboration between government departments, the placement of FRA implementation on the governance agenda and the type of representative participation during the FRA claims process.