An Ethnographic Analysis of the Role of Power in Institutional Arrangements: Borehole cost recovery within a pastoral community in North-Western Namibia

The role of power in the development of institutions governing the use of common-pool resources has been given little emphasis in the leading theories in this field. A case study from north-western Namibia illustrates how power and bargaining strategies shape institutional arrangements concerning the cost recovery of a communal water point. The example shows how policy reforms based on Ostrom's design principles clash with local dynamics of power asymmetries and social interdependencies. This article indicates that Ostrom's framework does not consider the possibility that resource appropriators might develop and implement institutions that disadvantage the less powerful members of a community. To explain how such unfair' institutions evolve and endure, Knight's bargaining theory of institutions is offered as a supplementary model. After discussion, the article concludes with an outlook prompting a reassessment of the concepts of institutional failure' in which only environmental factors are implicated, while social ones are ignored. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment