Critical Polycentric Governance: Indigenous Peoples' Tenure Security in India's Forests

Abstract

Polycentric systems of governance, where diverse institutional actors including government, community and CSOs operate across multiple jurisdictional levels interdependently, are argued to offer unique opportunities to address complex collective action problems at scale. While an extensive literature focuses on polycentric governance for natural resource management, few studies examine how critical polycentric configuration may shape Indigenous tenure security in forest commons. Similarly, studies on Indigenous tenure reforms have rarely addressed whether and how polycentric governance systems are configured and performed to influence Indigenous tenure governance. To address these research gaps, this thesis examines how power operates within an (apparently) polycentric governance system to influence institutional arrangements and interactions for Indigenous Peoples' forest tenure security in India. Employing qualitative case study methods, the research focuses on one of India's minority Indigenous groups, the Rajwar peoples of the Kumaon Himalayas. The thesis adopts Carlisle and Gruby's (2019) polycentric governance framework as a conceptual foundation, coupled with Morrison et al.'s (2019) power typology as an analytical lens for a nuanced examination of power dimensions across polycentric configurations and interactions vis-a-vis Indigenous tenure governance. This thesis problematises contemporary notions of recentralisation and justice. It argues that while India's Forest Rights Act 2006 is designed to be polycentric, where multiple actors across scales and levels are empowered to exercise decision-making in cooperation with each other to foster Indigenous Peoples' tenure security, state actors reify their authority through policy design, pragmatic exercise and framing of power, not as an attempt to recentralise absolute control in one actor or institution (such as the centralised state government), but rather to reinforce the state's hegemonic and hierarchical governance instead of nested polycentric system. Through incongruities and ambiguities in the written rules, along with historically enjoyed pragmatic and framing power, state actors across multiple scales and levels attempt to sustain the pre-existing governance arrangement, that is, hierarchical and hegemonic in nature. They do so by deliberately misinterpreting and not complying with formal rules, dismissing traditional Indigenous institutions and Peoples (here, the Rajwar peoples), and framing the incapacity of self and other actors in implementation and decision-making processes, all while sustaining their discretionary powers in de-establishing Indigenous autonomy, cooperative linkages and conflict resolution mechanisms. Extending this logic further, the thesis argues that powerful actors create a superficial veneer of polycentric structure that symbolises 'just-washing' (analogous to greenwashing) in forest reforms. Indigenous tenure reforms, while in the first instance appearing a just and transformative model of polycentric governance, upon closer examination are revealed to be deeply flawed, ambiguous and incongruous, and entwined with powerful actors' hegemonic exercise of networked patronage and governmentality towards Indigenous Peoples. These findings are critical and novel to the advancement of polycentric governance scholarship and contribute significantly to the research and praxis of forest reforms and Indigenous justice. Show more