The role of common pool resource institutions in the implementation of Swiss natural resource management policy

Abstract

By analysing Swiss common pool resource (CPR) institutions, this paper aims to contribute to the debate on comanagement while demonstrating how important it is to take into account the structuring role played by public policies in the regulation of natural resource use in western countries characterized by significant state intervention. The comparative analysis of three detailed case studies dealing with hunting, flood protection and landscape management policies leads to three main conclusions: (1) CPR institutions strengthen the coherence of resource regimes to the extent that they constitute social institutions which can facilitate the "mediation process," i.e. the transformation of the collective identity, self-perception and, therefore, behaviour of policy target groups in the direction defined by the stated policy objectives; (2) one of the main conditions for the perpetuation of CPR institutions is their capacity to organize their activities around a collective problem defined as such by a policy; (3) the integration of CPR institutions into the political-administrative arrangement contributes to the reinforcement of the functional and territorial coordination between payers, decision makers and beneficiaries in regional and local institutional regimes.