Governing the conflicted commons: Authorising resource access in the Indian tribal belt

In resource-conflict, state-building contexts, it is crucial for government action to impact authority over and access to resources in ways that democratise local political spheres. In this light, this study shows what nurtures or prevents inclusive and equitable local governance in the recently-formed federal Indian state of Jharkhand, and what local governance looks like in practice in this state-building context. It comprises three articles, empirically focussed on forest village communities of the indigenous Ho people in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district.

The first article presents how a formal local deliberative institution can nurture democratic practice based on a comparative study of two cases, arguing that several factors both within the community and external to it are requisite for local democracy.

The second article demonstrates the practices through which governmental development interventions systemically enable top-down authorisation without downward accountability and undermine local democracy by eliding development and securitisation.

The third article interrogates the mechanisms through which local actors access benefits from government services, arguing that government policies enable privileged private actors to co-opt authority over access and claim inequitably large shares of benefits at the cost of ordinary villagers.

However, instances of cooperation and local agency are also highlighted and serve as the basis to suggest specific improvements towards democratic state-building to enable equitable, inclusive authorisation of resource access.

Supervisors: Prof. Iben Nathan, Prof. Christian Lund, Prof. Laura Secco

Assessment committee: Prof. Neil Webster, Prof. Darley Kjosavic, Prof. Christian Hansen

The defense is open to the public and will be followed by a reception at 16:00 at the same venue.
IFRO, University of Copenhagen: https://ifro.ku.dk/english/