When Local Participation Helps

John D. Montgomery When Local Participation Helps

Programs for the delivery of public goods and services are often more effective if the public participates in their planning and execution. Not all such activities benefit from public participation, however. Activities whose effectiveness most benefits from such participation are those whose local effects are variable; those that have to be made frequently but not routinely;

whose impact calls for major changes in the behavior of the public. Experience with irrigation projects in developing countries is consistent with this “sensitivity hypothesis,” but the hypothesis is probably applicable to the management of other goods and services such as social welfare, education, public health, and transportation.

Abstract those that require quick responses from the public; and those

If democracy is good for politics, how does it affect administration? Over the past thirty years, management advisers have begun to recommend decentralized styles of public administration in order to encourage local participation, which, in turn, is expected to improve government performance almost immediately, and indi- rectly to help stabilize the political system. On the whole, subsequent experience has vindicated such recommendations. Studies have shown that direct popular participation in management decisions can enhance the performance of local governments,’ increase the effectiveness of farmers’ organizations,* and improve the out- come of land reform program^.^ Buoyed by such findings? a UN- sponsored study urges decentralization of government functions wherever possible.’ International advisers try to design development projects so that they serve small groups in order to permit more local action: and development and lending agencies urge public bureaucracies to design and manage local programs in such a way as to maximize popular participation.’

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 3 , No. 1,90- 105 (1983) @ 1983 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0276-8739/83/040090- 16$02.60

When Local Participation Helps 91

Such advice is politically and morally consistent with democratic traditions, but the link between increased popular participation and improved public performance is not well understood. Impor- tant questions still remain to be answered. Does decentralization improve all government programs that require changes in public behavior? If strategic defense, for example, is a central function but tactical border defense depends partly on local cooperation, what are the implications for organizing the military? Does decentralization require setting up organizations, or merely soliciting active public concern and participation? Can general principles be adduced to define the areas in which popular participation works best? In the hope of clarifying these issues, I have reviewed the management and performance of large-scale irrigation systems on which data are available on both decision-making and productivity. Most of these systems are in Asia, where anthropologists have provided descriptions and official records are kept with some care, but data from Africa and Latin America show consistent results. The findings seem to be relevant not only to water management, but also to public health systems, to neighborhood improvement programs, to the design of transportation networks, and indeed to almost any policy area that involves the conjunction of public goods and private activities.

PUBLIC GOOD OR In the familiar distinction between public goods and private goods, PRIVATE GOOD irrigation has mixed characteristics. It is a public good to the extent

that its benefits are derived from joint action by the community. Its benefits can be diminished by the refusal of individual members to cooperate, and its value can be reduced by free riders. And in the history of the management of large-scale irrigation projects, both noncooperation and free riding have proved to be major problems.* As a result, the government usually has to intervene in order to recapture some of the original investment and to lay down the rules for the subsequent use of the resource. Prospective improvements in the “public” benefits derived from the properly managed “commons”-like conservation or social equity-do not necessarily induce “private” citizens to take the time or make the effort to participate in administrative decision^.^

Irrigation, however, also has some of the attributes of a private good; the water that is used by one person may not be available for another. Large-scale systems, therefore, are sometimes treated as commercial ventures, especially in the United States,” but they usually require substantial public investment and public control as well. Having subsidized the resource, the government plays its role as protector of the commons, requiring the conservation and over- seeing the allocation of water. The government’s role is sharpened when water is scarce and needed to protect the population from fire, disease, and thirst.” But even where water is plentiful and can be sold on the basis of user fees, government subsidies soften the discipline of the marketplace as political pressures influence the price structure to favor preferred users.” Whatever else such efforts

92 When Local Participation Helps

may have achieved, they have not succeeded in getting water priced at levels that returned the investment in irrigation facilities. The World Bank, for instance, has repeatedly recommended the adop- tion of a cost-based fee schedule for water use in projects i t finances, but observers have not yet found a case in which these charges have covered the full costs and reflected the market value of water deliv- ered to the field.”

When the government decides to use its powers to affect the distribution of water, it usually does so by assigning professional administrators to the task. The power of the resulting bureaucracies increases with the size of the engineering and managerial functions required to make the systems work.14 The massive systems they operate and the cumbersome procedures they adopt further restrict the opportunity for individual members of the public to participate in decision-making. When bureaucracies of this sort are compelled to manage a water resource from afar, they bring to the task neither special knowledge of local conditions nor an acquired sensitivity to local needs.”

These strategies for improving the performance of large-scale irrigation projects have had disappointing results. Administration from the center has ignored local variations and needs; and administration by applications of market principles has yielded to political influence.

DECENTRALIZATION AS As an alternative to relying on central bureaucracies and imperfect A N OPTION markets, many governments have begun to experiment with vari-

ous forms of decentralization, hoping that local groups could find The Field Experience ways of improving efficiency in designing and maintaining irriga-

tion systems, distributing supplies and farm inputs, and resolving disputes.

India’s approach to the problem in the 1970s used a decentralized strategy. It encouraged states to integrate local services, but permitted many variations to emerge a t local levels. The central government proposed specifically that the states set up regional semi- autonomous Command Area Development Authorities (CADA), each with an independent budget and a senior administrator sup- ported by staff assistants. The CADA was to combine functions that had previously been distributed among as many as four different ministries concerned respectively with irrigation, agriculture, soil conservation, and cooperatives.‘6 Some states responded by setting up independent Command Area Development Authorities as recommended, but in practice the agriculture and irrigation ministries were nearly always strong enough to resist complete absorption in the new organizations. A detailed organizational survey of the sub- ject showed that only one of six states was able to bring the two resistant departments under a single authority; and even in that case, the field workers from the two departments continued to work independently, not only resisting integration but sometimes actu- ally expressing hostility to each other’s functions.” The new agency was unable to do much about wasteful practices of field inundation


and unauthorized field-to-field irrigation, even though all parties were aware that these traditional uses limited the acreage reached by the formal system and thus denied potential beneficiaries the water to which they were entitled. There were attempts to organize the farmers and to bring them extension services that would improve their cultivation practices, including their use of water; but this approach to public participation was slow and painful. Wherever a few holdouts existed (usually those already receiving adequate supplies), they were sufficient to defeat the process."

These approaches shared a common weakness. They all aimed a t reorganizing irrigation services at a relatively high level, hoping to motivate the user public to improve their cultivation practices in order to make the system work better. They were not designed to be responsive to the exquisitely detailed local variations that charac- terize the uses of irrigation; they did not make distinctions between the various groups of users whose participation was essential; and they failed to consider how the process of participation might be disaggregated and specialized to accommodate local capabilities.

While approaches of this sort usually recognize the need to go beyond the engineering sciences in managing irrigation, they afford little scope for dealing with prior local claims and customs among existing users that require decision-making at the most local level. That is why so many local decisions have to take place independently of, or even in contradiction to, national water laws and administrative regulations."

Hints of what might work better, however, were emerging a t about the same time from research on irrigation practices in the Punjab and Sind provinces of Pakistan. What was happening was that the public was participating effectively in making specific decisions that depended on local knowledge. Informal local standards were being developed for water use and local sanctions were being applied to violators. Thirty-three of the forty systems studied in this region used farmer committees for these purposes. Here local self-discipline was not contravening administration so much as it was providing a substitute for the unenforceable provisions of Pakistan's Canal and Drainage Act, which, indeed, had never been invoked in the memory of any of the resident farmers.20

Criteria for Effective Identifying the areas in which public participation is most likely to Participation be productive requires analysis of the three interacting features of a

public goods system: the limits and capabilities of the system itself, those of the administering organization, and those of the users. In the case of irrigation, the major. constraints on the system derive from nature: Water does not run uphill, and it diminishes in quan- tity as it passes along a canal. Accordingly, the system must be designed to bring water to its users by the shortest possible distance consistent with the terrain and with minimum wastage en route. Maintenance of the channels and outlets are matters of common concern to all the users, through many of whose lands these common facilities will pass. Finally, systems that provide for delivery to the field at fairly precise times and in fairly precise quantities are


more efficient than those that do not. In practice, if the operation of such systems is regulated from a distant center, it proves impossible to make the infinite adjustments that will bring maximum satisfac- tion to the users. Yet if the operation of the system were to be determined by the independent commands of each user, it would fail because users are unable or unwilling to accommodate the requirements of all others.

Thus, although public participation at the local level may benefit some aspects of the management of irrigation projects, it does not benefit all the essential tasks of irrigation equally. Some decisions rest on information that varies from one district to another, such as types of soils, field topography, and cropping patterns. Some decisions have to be made frequently but not routinely (such as changing farm demands for water). Some require quick response on the part of users to an unanticipated event (such as emergency diver- sions caused by breakdowns or floods). And some require changes in cultivation practice at farm levels, which in turn may demand local changes in delivery or rationing systems?’ The central hypothesis of this article is that these four characteristics define the “sensitivity” areas-those where local participation contributes to effective decision-making. For simplicity’s sake, these characteristics will be described as (1) variable effect, (2) frequency, (3) lead time, and (4) impact. The sensitivity hypothesis assumes that local participation will make a larger contribution to decisions involving all four of these characteristics than to those that display only a single subset of them.

Studies of irrigation have neglected such organizational dimen- sions until recently.22 One recent analysis based on experience in South Asia defines the decisions entailed in managing systems in a way that permits us to predict their sensitivity to local participation. It identifies three major types of irrigation decisions: how to distribute water to the ultimate users; how to maintain the physical facilities; and how to manage c0nflict.2~ These types of decisions should show quite different effects from local participation if the hypotheses stated above are true; they differ markedly in the four characteristics of variable effects, frequency, lead time, and impact on users.

The first set of decisions, distributing the water, requires consid- erable variability to accommodate local topographical differences; such decisions have to be made very frequently; they require a quick response if the flow is to be changed without reducing crop yield; and their impact may be such as to call for major changes in cultivation practice in an emergency situation.

Maintenance of facilities is theoretically less susceptible to improvement through public participation. Local variations in maintenance operations are not very large, since systems are designed to use standard maintenance procedures; frequency of decision-making is high but it is fairly routine; no great lead time is needed to respond adequately to normal maintenance problems, such as assembling labor to repair a channel; the probability of major impact on cultivation responses to such decisions is fairly low.


Conflict resolution takes place at several levels. Many conflicts are anticipated and avoided by informal local action outside the formal management system on the basis of users’ initiatives, and are not a part of the organization’s responsibility. But the formal resolution of conflict, when it occurs, is a professional or bureaucratic process rather than a popular one. Procedures are usually fairly standardized for those purposes, rather than variable; decisions are made infrequently; little or no lead time is needed for their acceptance; and the repercussions for cultivation practice are usually limited.

On the basis of these propositions it is possible to predict the likely effectiveness of local participation in improving each of the three groups of decisions. Table 1 presents subjective ratings of each of the three decision categories for each of the four elements that are likely to affect the usefulness of local participation. The subjective rating scale runs from 0 to 10, the high values being assigned to conditions that are more conducive to local participation. For the sake of simplicity, the ratings for each of the four characteristics are added together to produce a single overall rating of sensitivity to local participation. The “sensitivity” hypothesis indicates that local participation decisions will have a somewhat more favorable impact on the efficient allocation of water than on maintenance decisions, and that formal conflict resolution will be least improved by such participation.

There are as yet no data to test these propositions in the form that is stated here. Observers of irrigation systems have only speculated on the benefits of local par t i~ ipa t ion .~~ Some evidence suggests, rather inconclusively, that greater local participation will improve decision-making, but does not indicate why this should be so or identify the types of decisions that lend themselves best to such participation. One report notes, for instance, that irrigation dams were built in the Philippines without anticipating floods that had been predicted by the local p0pulation.2~ Another study observes that 40% of the outlets in a major irrigation project had been sited incorrectly and recommends that local farmers should have a direct say in future siting.26 Still another study reports that a 97% increase in overall productivity occurred in an area of 5700 hectares after

Table 1. Subjective ratings of characteristics favorable to local participation in the management of irrigation projects (0 is least favorable, 10 is most favorable).

Formal Water Facilities conflict

Characteristics allocation maintenance resolution

Variable effect 6

Lead time 6 Impact 6

Frequency 9 4 3 8 1 5 1 3 4

Total 27 20 9


users were permitted to participate in decision-making.27 But such evidence is spotty and not convincing to irrigation engineers, who prefer centralized procedures for the sake of uniformity and con- tro1.28

Skeptics can also cite anecdotal evidence that associates local participation with gross failures. In one case, a group of 18 Indian villages had set up a board to decide how many workers each village would send to maintain a common reservoir. After a destructive flood, however, the villages could not agree on their respective obligations or get the government to step into the breach. As a result, the system collapsed, terminating all irrigation services.29 Another study reports that after independence, authorities in Sri Lanka and India had great difficulty getting villagers to accept elected individuals and committees as arbiters in irrigation dis- p u t e ~ . ~ ~ In earlier imperial times, the public eventually had accept- ed the detached colonial administrators who came to reconcile run- of-the-mill conflicts even though they did not draw their authority from the ~ommuni ty .~’

Testing the Hypothesis Anecdotal evidence of this sort accords with the hypotheses por- trayed in Table 1, but it hardly can be said to test them. In an effort to develop a preliminary test on the basis of comparative data, two of my associates collected and coded the data generated out of some twenty studies of irrigation projects, each of which provided information on public participation and on productivity; details of the twenty studies are summarized in the Appendix. These data were sufficient to analyze the effectiveness of public participation in subsets of all three types of decisions listed in Table 1. These decisions were the water allocation process, land preparation (a maintenance and operations function), and fee assessment (a process that lies somewhere between water allocation and formal conflict resolution). According to the hypothesis, local participation might well prove to be useful in all these activities, but the gain from local participation .would be largest in water allocation decisions, and less evident in fee assessment and land preparations operations.

In substance, as Table 2 indicates, the results are in accord with expectations. The participation variable is represented by the con- trast between elected or voluntary, as contrasted to bureaucratic, entities-admittedly an imperfect indication based on the assump- tion that the process of election or volunteering involves participation. The performance ratings are based on productivity records cited in the original studies, as detailed in the Appendix. The participatory decisions taken as a whole were associated with somewhat better results than the bureaucratic ones (39.1% of these enjoyed “good” productivity compared with only 8.3% of the bureaucratic decisions; and only 26.1% of them were “poor” compared with 58.4% of the bureaucratic ones). But the greatest vari- ance was in water allocation and fee assessment decisions. Land preparation decisions benefited least from local participation. In sum, these results suggest that the presence of local participation is not uniformly useful. And the characteristics described in the

OTHER APP

When Local Parficipation Helps 97

I

Table 2. Appraisal of performance of twenty irrigation projects in three types of decisi0ns.a

Water Land Fee allocation preparation assessment

bureau- elected bureau- elected bureau- elected cratic entity cratic entity cratic entity entity entity entity

by by by by by by

Total number of

Quality of cases 16 4 4 16 16 3

performance Good 1 3 0 4 2 2 Fair 6 1 1 6 5 1 Poor 9 0 3 6 9 0

aData submitted by Subramaniam Ramakrishnan and Rama Subba Rao; see Appendix.

hypotheses-variable effect, frequency, lead time, and impact- appear to predict when local participation is likely to help.

Increasing the productivity of water use is one of the most important problems in the global ecology. The planet’s margin of unex- ploited water is probably less than that of land.32 Yet as much as 50-80% of that water already available through irrigation is “wasted” in the sense that it never reaches the roots of plants it is intended to serve, or a t best does so in inefficient times and amounts.33 Most of the loss is the result of organizational deficien- cies, not of structure or de~ign.3~ The potential gain to the world’s food supply by improved management-in which decentralization is the most important known factor-justifies much greater atten- tion to the benefits of local participation. At the moment, the greatest need is for careful analysis of data specially developed to test organizational variables like decentralization and participation.

ICATIONS Since decentralization and participation are not expected to benefit OF THE SENSITIVITY all government programs equally, the operational question is: To

HYPOTHESIS what extent can differences in these benefits be anticipated from one program to the next? The sensitivity hypothesis as applied to irrigation has some predictive potential in anticipating productivity outcomes. How relevant is it to social welfare programs, education, public health, or perhaps transportation?

Social welfare programs aim at redistributive rather than strictly productive values. The sensitivity hypothesis suggests that they are less likely to benefit from local participation than do developmental programs because of differences in the impact variable. Social equity usually entails delivery of resources as a result of collective action for the benefit of those in the least advantaged position. Thus, to continue with the irrigation example, a system is said to serve

98 When Lmal Purticipation He@

equity goals when it delivers water to the most disadvantaged users-normally those situated on the smallest farms, at the tail end of a channel, or otherwise removed from the primary flow. The decisions that have to be made to accomplish these objectives are not very sensitive to local participation: The release of water to these farms does not depend on knowledge of local circumstances of the farms themselves, but on cadastral information that is readily available at a central office. The frequency of such decisions is no greater than for other users. The decisions are essentially routine. The lead time for changing cultivation practices is conventional. The impact of the decisions is likely to be substantial, but not necessarily in a favorable direction: The degree of change in the behavior of other users might be substantial and disadvantageous if they are deprived of water when needed. Thus, apart from the political unlikelihood of a local group with general participation voting preferential treatment to its least influential members, the technical requirements of such decisions do not show that much advantage would be derived from participatory forms of decentralization. The protection of the weak is a function that requires central authority and commitment.

Social welfare programs, like irrigation decisions, probably differ from one another in their sensitivity to local participation. Pro- grams designed to improve the quality of life in blighted urban neighborhoods, for example, incorporate some features that can benefit from decentralized forms of administration, along with some that would not. Local participation would improve efforts to deal with petty crimes, since these decisions produce variable effects on different families, occur unexpectedly rather than routinely, require quick response, and have an important impact on lifestyles if the affected public takes major steps to respond to the problem.

Such participation could also increase neighborhood contribu- tions through self-improvement campaigns: The provision of voluntary labor or other investments depends on highly localized appeals and circumstances; it would occur irregularly rather than routinely, and would thus rate moderately high on the frequency scale; and it would require some lead time to plan and introduce signifi- cant changes in the behavior of those expected to contribute to the common effort. Lesser benefits from local participation would come from infrastructure programs, such as the development of new parks or the regeneration of old buildings, where only minor variations in design would be required to accommodate local needs, and where the need for responsive changes would ordinarily not be frequent or urgent.

Education is another arena in which local participation-but not too much of it-is considered a good thing. Parent-teacher associations gain effective participation in issues like sports and extracur- ricular activities, presumably because local preferences vary, the activities call for frequent decisions, the lead time is likely to be short, and the impact on individual families may be substantial. But participation is rarely encountered in other educational issues

When LAC^ Participalion Helps 99

such as curricular matters or school design or location. Practice seems to conform to the expectations of the sensitivity hypothesis.

Public health issues show an even greater range of sensitivity to local participation, since some programs (building city sanitary systems, for example) require practically no local knowledge or public response, while others (improving the diet of preschool chil- dren, for example) are dependent on knowledge available only to families for their effectiveness; they require frequent decisions, afford only a short lead time, and call for major changes in the lifestyles of those involved. There are also intermediate activities (spraying for anopheles mosquito control, for example) that would gain from some form of decentralization because there are local variations to be accounted for, but the activities are routine and easily scheduled. Here again the important variable is impact: Spraying may call for changes in public behavior a t the household level.

These distinctions are still a t the intuitive stage. Their applications are not obvious, and they are not often consciously observed in organizational design. Common sense and experience explain the uses of participation in designing most public services. Transporta- tion systems in developing countries, for example, can make use of central planners because they can use traffic counts and other data on user behavior as they consider problems of design, routing, and other technical choices. But the utility of central planning will vary with different transportation modes. Airlines and airports gain little from local participation, as compared with railway operations (which .involve somewhat closer reference to land use) or public highways (use of which is sometimes very dependent on local needs and brings important changes to the lives of the users). The transportation medium that is the most sensitive to participation, the highway system, is often extended by informal feeder roads con- structed by local initiative, and may be maintained in less developed countries by village or volunteer labor. And it often produces business opportunities for roadside vendors and travelers. There are occasions for public participation here, but western-trained engineers are not'always aware of the opportunities for decentralized operation. They fail to take advantage of the resources that public participation might contribute. One startling illustration of the sensitivity hypotheses occurred recenty in Nepal, where Ameri- can, Indian, and Chinese foreign aid agencies all donated major highways for development and defense purposes. The American road was built by impressive heavy equipment imported for the project, and then left behind, The Indians brought in a large labor force, which moved along the highway in camps to carry on the construction. The Chinese foremen recruited and trained village labor for each section of the road, moving across the checkerboard in relays, and leaving behind them in each locale experienced straw bosses and workers. The costs and prospects for sustained maintenance of these three roads varied in direct proportion to the degree of local participation.

The hypothesis may gain in usefulness as it is applied to smaller

100 When Local Partic@don Helps

units of decision-making, that is, to projects as well as to whole programs. Managers of integrated development projects are aware of the importance of enlisting local political leaders in order to gain acceptance of their services and for dealing with other field organizations such as cooperative^.^^ But their impulse is to expedite these transactions indiscriminately by sharing power with local leaders, without reference to the specific advantages of popular participation. This form of decentralization exposes their activities toan elite takeover. The sensitivity hypothesis warns against indiscriminate decentralization. It proposes sharing only those functions that might benefit from the direct involvement of users, individually or in groups. By introducing local participation at appropriate levels, it protects against the twin dangers of overcentralized bureaucratic decision-making and an internal colonization by local elites.

The case for participatory decentralization is not that people can always do everything for themselves better than their government can. It focuses rather upon behavior and performance. It demands that professional administrators and planners link their efforts to the knowledge and resources of the people at those points where they can contribute most to the managemen1 of the common.

APPENDIX* The twenty case studies summarized in Table 2 provide the only available data base sufficiently detailed to carry out this study. The

The Twenty Irrigation studies, prepared at different times for different purposes, are suffi- Projects ciently comparable to allow classification of the procedures fol-

lowed in making the three sets of decisions described in the text. They are (1) Mwea (Kenya), (2) Gezira (Sudan), (3) Niger (Mali), (4) Sabi (Zimbabwe), (5) Tou-Liu (Taiwan), (6) Valencia (Spain), (7) Sragen (Indonesia), (8) Greater Chao Phya (Thailand), (9) Upper Bari Doab (Pakistan), (10) Comarca Lagunera (Mexico), and from India (11) Tungabhadra, (12) Kakrapar, (13) Bhakra, (14) Lower Bhavani, (15) Malampuzha, (16) Chambal, (17) Hirakud, (18) Matatila, (19) Mayurakshi, (20) Gangapur.

Variables such as soil quality, level of agricultural technology, farm size, and market linkages that influence productivity are not considered, nor are the cropping patterns. Thus, the productivity ratings do not imply absolute standards, but are drawn from the conclusions presented in the original studies. The performance clas- sifications are as follows:

Good Fair

Poor

Tou-Liu, Valencia, Tungabhadra, and Kakrapar Mwea, Stragen, Greater Chao Phya, Upper Bari Doab, Bhakra, Lower Bhavani, and Malampuzha Niger, Sabi, Gezira, Comarca Lagunera, Chambal, Hirakud, Matatila, Mayurakshi, and Gangapur

'The research for this appendix was performed by Dr. Subramaniam Ramakrishnan, Harvard Institute for International Development, with the assistance of Rama Sub- ba Rao, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

When Local Participation He@ 101

Sources for the Gezira Scheme, Sudan, are Arthur Gaitskell, Gezira-A Story of Development in the Sudan (Faber & Faber, 1959), pp. 263,267, and 270; D.S. Thornton, “Some Aspects of the Organi- zation of Irrigated Areas,” Agricultural Administration, 2(3) (July 1975).

Sources for the Gezira Scheme, Sudan are Arthur Gaitskell, Gezira-A Story of Development in the Sudan (City: Faber & Faber, 1959), pp. 263,267, and 270; D.S. Thornton, “Some Aspects of the Organization of Irrigated Areas,” Agricultural Administration, 2(3) (July 1975).

Sources for the irrigation systems in Taiwan are Martin E. Abel, “Irrigation Systems in Taiwan: Management of a Decentralized Public Enterprise,” Staff Paper, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, 1975; G. Levine, “The Management Com- ponent in Irrigation System Design and Operation,” Seminar Paper, Agricultural Engineering Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1971; and Y.T. Wang, “Development Impact and Man- agement of Irrigation in Taiwan,” Regional Workshop in Im‘gation Water Management,” Manila, Philippines, Asian Development Bank, 1973.

The two sources for the Srajen Rural Irrigation Project in Central Java, Indonesia, are the Srajen Rural Irrigation Project Office, “Water Management in Rural Areas in Indonesia,” Asian Develop- ment Bank Regional Workshop on Irrigation Water Management, Manila, Philippines, ADB, 1973, and a supplementary paper on Tajunn in the same volume.

The Niger Project in Mali is reported in the de Wilde study cited above, Vol. 11, pp. 257-261.

The source for the Sabi, Zimbabwe Report is Wolf Roder, The Sabi Valley Irrigation Project (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 132.

The sources for Comarca Lagunera Irrigation Project are Ronald Cummings, Water Resource Management in Northern Mexico (Bal- timore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972); E. Venezian and W. Gamble, The Agricultural Development of Mexico (New York: Praeger, 1969); and D. Lybecker, “Optimal Resource Use in Irri- gated Agriculture-Comarca Lagunera, Mexico,” Iowa State Uni- versity, Ames, IA, 1970, especially p. 262.

The report on Valencia, Spain, is based on Arthur Maass and R.L. Anderson, . . . And the Desert Shall Rejoice: Conflict, Growth and Justice in Arid Environments (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978), p. 52.

The Greater Chao Phya Project data come from Leslie E. Small, Returns to Public Investment in Water Control in South-East Asia: A Case Study of the Greater Chao Phya Project i n Thailand (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, 1975).

The irrigation systems in Pakistan have all been reported in Max K. Lowdermilk, Wayne Clyma, and Alan C. Early, “Physical and Socio-Economic Dynamics of a Water Course in Pakistan’s Punjab: Systems Constraints and Farmers’ Responses,” Water Management Technical Report No. 42, December 1975, p. 71.


The India project information (Kakrapar, Lower Bhavani, Gang- apur, Malampuzha, Tungabhadra, Hirakud, Matatila, and May- urakshi) comes from the Planning Commission of India, Programme Evaluation Organization, “Evaluation of Major Irriga- tion Projects-Some Case Studies,” New Delhi, India, 1965, supple- mented for the Chambal Project by the World Bank, Appraisal of the Chambral Command Area Development Project, Washington (IBRD). 1974; and Comparative Study of Management and Organiza- tion oflm’gution Projects, World Bank Staff Working Paper, Wash- ington, DC, 1981. The Bhakra information comes from Robert Wade, “Water to the Fields: India’s Changing Stgrategy,” South Asian Review, 8(4) (1 975); R.B. Reidinger, “Institutional Rationing of Canal Water in India: Conflict Between Traditional Values and Modern Needs,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 23( 1) (1974); and Eric Gustafsson and R.B. Reidinger, “Delivery of Canal Water in North India and Pakistan,” Economic and Political Weekly, 6(52) (December 1971).

JOHN D. MONTGOMERY is ProfRssor of Public Administration at Ha ward University .

NOTES 1. Uphoff, Norman T., and Esman, Milton J.,Local Organization forRura1 Development in Asia (Ithaca, NY: Rural Development Committee,Center for International Studies, Cornell University, 1974); Uphoff, Norman T., Ed., Rural Development and Local Organization in Asia, Vol. III (New Delhi: MacMillian. 1983, forthcoming); Williams, Arthur R., Measuring Local Government Performance: Assessing Management, Decentraliza- tion, and Participation (Ithaca, N Y : Rural Development Committee, Center for International Studies, Cornell University, 1981), pp. 53-54.

2. Morss, Elliott, Hatch, John K., Mickelwait, Donald, and Sweet, Charles F., Strategies for Small Farmer Development: A n Empirical Study of Rural Development Projects (Washington, DC: Development Alternatives, Inc., 1975, and Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1976); Paul, Samue1,Managing Development Programs, The Lessons of Success (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982). pp. 184- 191.

3. Montgomery, John D., “Allocation of Authority in Land Reform Pro- grams: A Comparative Study of Administrative Processes and Outputs,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 17 (March 1, 1972).

4. Uphoff, Norman T., Cohen, John M., and Goldsmith, Arthur A., Feasi- bility and Application of Rural Development Participation: A State-of-the- Art Paper (Ithaca, NY: Rural Development Committee, Center for Inter- national Studies, Cornell University, 1979).

5. Cheema. G. Shabbir, and Rondinelli, Dennis A., Eds., Decentralization and Development: Policy implementation in Developing Countries (Bev- erly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1983, forthcoming).

6. Rondinelli, Dennis A., and Ruddle, Kenneth, Urbanization and Rural Development: A Spatial Policy for Equitable Growth (New York: Praeger, 1978).

7. John D. Montgomery, “The Populist Front in Rural Development . . . .” Public Administration Review, 39 (1) (January/February 1979); Leonard, David K., and Marshall, D.R., Eds., InstitutionsofRuralDevelopment for t he Poor: Decentralization and Organiza t ional L inkages (Berkeley: Institute for International Studies, University of California, 1982).

When Local Participorion Helps 103

~~ ~

8. Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Colkctive Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); Popkin, Samuel, The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); Montgomery, John D., Technology and Civic Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974), Chap. 3; Murray, Charles A., A Behavioral Study and Rural Modernization: Social and Economic Change in Thai Villages (New York: Praeger, 1977).

9. Uphoff, Cohen, and Goldsmith, op cit., pp. 56-57, quoting from Saun- ders, Robert S ., “Traditional Cooperation, Indigenous Peasants Groups and Rural Development: A Look at Possibilities and Experience,” back- ground memorandum prepared for the World Bank, August 29,1977, pp.

10. Maass, Arthur, and Anderson, R.L., . . . And the Desert Shall Rejoice: Conflict, Growth andJustice i n And Environments (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978).

11. Wade, Robert, Water to the Fields, Administration and Politics in Canal Irrigation in South India (forthcoming).

12. Wolf, Charles, Jr., “A Theory of Non-Market Failure: Framework for Implementation Analysis,” Journal of Law and Economics, 22 (April 1979).

13. Bottrall, Anthony F., “Comparative Study of the Management and Orga- nization of Irrigation Projects,” Staff Working Paper No. 458 (Wash- ington, DC: World Bank, 1981).

14. Wittfogel, Karl, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957).

15. Vohra, B.B., “Better Use of Natural Resources: A New Agricultural Strategy Emerges in India” (Hyderabad: Administrative Staff College, March 4,1975); “A Policy for Water,” paper presented at Seminar on the Role of Irrigation in the Development of Indian Agriculture (Bangalore: Institute for Social and Economic Change, October 28-30, 1974); Reidinger, Richard B., “Water Management by Administrative Pro- cedures in an Indian Irrigation System,” in Coward, Walter, Ed., Im’gation andAgricultura1 Development in Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), Chap. 12.

16. Statement by the Minister of Agriculture, New Delhi, Ministry of Agri- culture, August 16, 1973.

17. Singh, K.K., “A!ternative Organizational Strategies for Command Area Development” (Hyderabad: Center for Public Systems and Policy, Administrative Staff College of India).

18. Wade, Robert, “Water to the Fields: India’s Changing Strategy,” South Asian Review, 8(4) (July/October 1975): 312.

19. Maass and Anderson, op. cit.; Radosevich, George, Vincente, George, Boira, Dinager, Daines, David R., Skogerboe, Gaylor, and Vlachos, Evan C., International Conference on Global Water Law Systems (Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, 1976), 4 vofs.; Korten, Frances F., “Building National Capacity to Develop Water User’s Associations, Experience from the Philippines,” Staff Working Paper No. 528 (Wash- ington, DC: World Bank, 1982).

20. Lowdermilk, Max K., Freeman, David M., and Early, Alan C.,Socialand Organizational Factors for Farm Im’gation Improvements (Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, 1977).

21. This approach is suggested in Hunt, Robert, Water Work: Community and Centralization in Canal Irrigation (forthcoming), drawing on the work of Gilbert Levine and Robert Wade.

22. Among the first is David Freeman, reporting on Colorado State Univer-

20-32.


sity’s studies of forty imgation systems in Pakistan, in Proceedings of Conference on Research Issues and Irrigation Systems in Developing Coun- tries (Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1977); Kelly, William Wright. Water Control in an Agrarian State: Im‘gation Organiza- tion in a Japanese River Basin 1600-1870, a dissertation a t Brandeis University, February, 1980, Chaps. 1 and 9.

23. Coward, Walter, in Proceedings of Ford FoundationlWorld Bank Work- shop on Social Organization for Irrigation, New Delhi, 1981, p. 6; Hunt, op cit., Introduction

24. Korten,op. cit., p. 19; Coward, Walter E., Jr., Ed.,“Management Themes in Community Irrigation Systems,” Irrigation and Agricultural Develop- ment in Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 206; Jayara- man, T.K., citing a chapter by Bromley, Taylor, and Parker in his paper, “Water Management Policy in Surface Irrigation Projects,” in Madan, Diesh, Pradhan, and Chandrasekharan, Eds., Policymaking in Govern- ment (New Delhi: Publications Division, Government of India, 1982).

25. Isles, C.D., “Irrigation Organization and Social Participation: A Philip- pine Experience,” paper submitted a t ADUARTYUSAID Seminar on Mobilizing Local Resources for Irrigation, Colombo, 1980.

26. Wade, Robert, “Water User Associations: Social Principles and Govern- mental Process,” author, processed, May 1981.

27. Valera and Wickham, “Management of Traditional and Improved Irri- gation Sytems: Some Findings From The Philippines” (London: Over- seas Development Institute, Workshop on Choices in Irrigation Management, September 1976).

28. Wade, Robert, The Information Problem of South Indian Canals, Water Supply and Management, 1981, p. 5; Bhaskaran, P.B., “Emergence of Farmer’s Organizations-a survey,” in Farmers Organizations for Effi- cient Water Useand IrrigatedAgriculture, Sundar, A., and Rao, P.S., Eds., (Bangalore: Indian Institute of Management, 1980), pp. 37-39; Elu- malai, G.L.,“Farmers Organizationsfor Efficient Water Use inh iga ted Agriculture, Case Study in Tamil Nadu,” in Sundar and Rao, op cit., p. 71.

29. Chambers, “Men and Water,“op cit., pp. 352-354; Jayaraman, “Farm- ers Organizations in Surface Irrigation Projects, Two Empirical Studies from Gujarat State in India,” in Sundar and Rao, op. cit., pp. 106- 107.

30. Ibid., pp. 350-351. 31. Weerakoon, B., “Role Administrators in the Context of a Changing

Agrarian Situation-A District Point of View” (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Semi- nar on Economic and Social Consequences of Improved Seeds, 1973), cited in Chambers, ibid.; see also Ongingko, P.S., “Organizations and Operation of Fifteen Communal Irrigation Systems in the Philippines,” in Water Management in Philippine Irrigation Systems: Research and Operations (Los Banos: International Rights Research Institute, 1973), pp. 240ff.

32. Eckholm, Eric P., Losing Ground (New York: Norton, 1976), Chap. 4; Milne, Lorus J . , and Milne, Margery, “Will the Environment Defeat Mankind?” Haward Magazine, 81 (3) (JanuaryJFebruary 1979): 19.

33. Chaturvedi, M., Water in Second India (New Delhi: report to the Ford Foundation, 1977); Early, Alan, Lowdermilk, Max, and Freeman, David, Farm Irrigation Constraints and Farmers Responses: Comprehensive Field Survey in Pakistan (Fort Collins, CO: CSU Water Management Technical Report No. 46, 1977); Chambers, Robert, Water Management and Paddy Production in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka, occasional series No. 8 (Colom- bo: Agrarian Research and Training Institute, 1975), pp. 19ff.


I

34. Wade, Robert, “Water to the Fields,” South Asian Review, 8(4) (July/ October 1975): 3 19; see also Frederick, Kenneth D., Water Management and Agriculture Development: A Case Study of the CUYO Region of Argen- tina (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1975); and Small, Leslie G . , Return to Public Investment in Water Control in Southeast Asia: A Capital Study of the Greater Chao Phya Project in Thailand (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1975).

35. Montgomery, John D., and Rahman, Mashiur, “Managing Integrated Rural Development: Views From The Field,” Rural Development Par- ticipation Review, ZZZ(3) (Spring 1982, special supplement).

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When Local Participation Helps