The Fourth Circle

by McCarthy, John F.

• ISBN13: 9780804752121
• ISBN10: 0804752125
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-22
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

This book addresses the politics of environmental change in one of the richest areas of tropical rainforest in Indonesia. Based on field studies conducted in three agricultural communities in rural Aceh, this work considers a number of questions: How do customary (adat) village and state institutions work? What roles do they play in managing local resources? How have they evolved over time? Are villagers, state policies, or corrupt local networks responsible for the loss of tropical rainforest? Will better outcomes emerge from revitalizing customary management, from changing state policies, or from transforming the way the state works? And why do projects designed by outsiders so often fail? The book describes how, as key actors interact, they create arrangements that effectively manage local resources, eclipsing adat and formal state management structures. While outside interventions try to work with adat and the state, they fail to engage fully with the main problemthat is, that district webs of power and interest, coalescing around local resources and reaching into the wider society, lead inexorably to environmental decline.

Author Biography

John McCarthy teaches at the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Governance at the Australian National University and was previously Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Australia. He has published numerous articles and one previous book, Are Sweet Dreams Made of This?: The Impact of Tourism in Bali and Eastern Indonesia (1994).

Table of Contents

Tables, Maps, and Figure	s xiii
Acknowledgments	xvii
Abbreviations	xxi
Note on Terminology	xxv
1 Introduction: Institutional Arrangements and Forest Regimes	1	(24)
2 Local Institutions in Sama Dua	25	(61)
3 Menggamat: Turning in Circles	86	(63)
4 Power and Interest in Badar	149	(50)
5 Conclusion: Institutional Arrangements in Southern Aceh	199	(15)
6 Epilogue: Alternative Policy Models: Lessons from Southern Aceh	214	(43)
Appendix: Fieldwork in Aceh: Design, Context, and Experience	257	(13)
Glossary	270	(3)
Notes	273	(43)
Bibliography	316	(31)
Index	347