Baker, J. Mark (1996) Changing Contexts, Steady Flows: Explaining Patterns of Institutional Change within the Gravity Flow Irrigation Systems (Kuhls) of Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India

Conference: Presented at "Voices from the Commons," the Sixth Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Berkeley, CA, June 5-8, 1996.

Abstract: "Current theories of common property resource (CPR) systems predict that external change (such as market expansion, migration, public sector interventions, privatization initiatives, population growth and technological change) stresses CPR systems by increasing the cost of and controls upon individual choices. However, they cannot predict why and how a stressed regime will wither persist unchanged, transform to endure, or collapse. Current theory has however established the effects of social/economic differentiation within a group of resource users and their degree of reliance on the common resource on the likelihood of collective action. Based on a diachronic analysis of the differential stresses of increasing nonfarm employment on 39 gravity flow irrigation systems (kuhls) in Himachal Pradesh (India), I use insights from current theory to guide the development of an inductively derived framework which explains how and why some kuhl regimes have persisted without changing, most have transformed and endure, and a few have collapsed and are now managed by the state irrigation department. I show that the potential for caste, class or locationally derived conflict among the irrigators of a kuhl, and the degree of reliance on the irrigation water a kuhl provides, shape the stresses arising from increasing nonfarm employment. The temporal and spatial variation of kuhl regimes in their degree of role specialization and organization formalization, and the extent of state involvement in kuhl management, reflects the differential responses of kuhl regimes to these stresses. The varied roles of the state of Himachal Pradesh plays in the management of different kuhls can be best accounted for as a process of negotiation between various state agents and the individuals involved in kuhl management. When it occurs, the basis and content of this negotiation and the outcomes in terms of state involvement in water management, are also shaped by local social and ecological influences rather than by the undifferentiated application of a homogenous state irrigation 'policy' across a socially and ecologically differentiated landscape."