Environmental Entitlements: A Framework for Understanding the Institutional Dynamics of Environmental Change

Abstract

This overview paper seeks to complement and add to emerging critiques of 'community-based sustainable development' by focusing on the implications of intra-community dynamics and ecological heterogeneity.

It offers a conceptual framework which highlights the central role of institutions in mediating the relationships between environment and society, using an 'extended' form of entitlement analysis to explore how different social actors command environmental goods and services. The theoretical argument is illustrated with recent empirical research in India, South Africa and Ghana.