Participatory environmental policy in developing countries: Community forestry in India

There has been a strong tendency to assume a “natural” congruence between democratic decision procedures and sound substantive environmental policy outcomes, especially in developing countries. But the developing world presents severe challenges to the ideal of participatory democracy in environmental policymaking. Stringent social and gender stratification, disparities in urbanization, low literacy levels, and the like raise the question of how a decentralized policy approach would work in the developing world. Theories of participatory democracy have not been critically evaluated with respect to their limitations in developing countries, although participatory policy has been advocated for dealing with environmental problems. In this dissertation I seek to redress this gap by examining participatory environmental policy in developing societies. In particular I analyze how extreme gender social stratification affects participatory environmental policymaking. Women are important stakeholders in natural resource policies since rural women in developing countries are responsible for most of the collection of food, fuel and firewood for commercial and domestic use. Yet when it comes to the management of these natural resources, inegalitarian gender norms limit the ability of women to participate in policymaking, even when they are not formally excluded. This research analyzes the effect of gender stratification on women\u27s participation, policy decisions and environmental outcomes by undertaking an empirical study of a community forestry program in Indian villages. It finds that women are still marginalized in decision-making, even in participatory environmental policies. Gender stratification continues to impinge upon forms of democratic decision making in developing societies. Facilitating policy tools that seek to empower such marginalized groups could be one way of making participation meaningful for all groups in society