This article explores the role of informal customary institutions (usos y costumbres) in local public goods provision in Mexico. It argues that the presence of informal customary institutions offers submunicipal village communities considerable advantages in local distributive politics. Hamlet communities with dense customary institutions have higher collective action capacity to organize their citizens for small-scale protests in municipal centers, which grants them access to more social infrastructure projects controlled by municipal politicians. This article therefore suggests a novel theoretical mechanism through which customary institutions affect development outcomes: collective contentious action. The study tests the main empirical implications of this theory, drawing on an original survey of submunicipal community presidents in the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala and qualitative interviews.

Joel Barkan had a special interest in decentralization and local development. He was persuaded that decentralization, and devolution in particular, had the potential of addressing Kenya’s longstanding challenges in regard to equity, ethnic inequalities, inclusion, and service delivery. Although political patronage and ethnic interests historically had hindered efforts to introduce decentralization, Kenya’s 2010 Constitution promised a devolved system of government to address regional imbalances in development, promote equitable access to basic services, and give powers of self-governance to the people. Will devolution under the 2010 Constitution succeed, or will it fail just like the other initiatives before it?

This paper compares the dynamics of two local pig breeds (the Porc Blanc de l'Ouest and the Nustrale pig breeds). Those breeds are bred in contrasting territories and we demonstrate by our comparative analysis the diversity of visible stakes in the link of breeds to territories. We distinguish three categories of dissimilarities between the two cases: the first is linked to biogeographic dimension of the territory, the second to the agro-economic dimension of the territory and the last to the sociocultural aspects of the territory. We develop in the discussion an invitation to pay more attention to anchorage dynamics of local breeds in their territories.

Numerous national parks have been established worldwide to protect nature, but this has not been without social consequences for neighbouring communities. Since the social and economic vitality of adjacent communities is being recognized more and more as indispensable for the success of conservation objectives, the quality of park-community relations has become a critical issue. A four-year investigation into the social impacts engendered by two national parks situated in the Saguenay region of Quebec (Canada) was conducted, according to a social impact assessment method. Several impacts and changes were identified on resource management, on the local economy, on the tourist industry, on involvement and participation of local actors and on the social organization of the neighbouring communities. The significance of these impacts varied according to the community and the actors involved. The results of the present research point to the determining role of the government in general, and of the park management in particular, in the process of local community development. In this regard, recommendations are addressed to local communities to improve their partnership with national parks.

The grass cutting programme (GCP) of Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP) has been very successful in gaining local people's acceptance of RCNP. The GCP is recognized internationally as a model for park-people conflict resolution, but has seemingly become a spent force. The aim of the present study was to assess the extent to which the GCP is a form of ‘community-based conservation’ on the one hand, or ‘nature-based development’ on the other. During the ten days of open access in 1999, almost 50 000 tonnes of biomass were removed from the Park; the total gross economic value of the GCP in 1999 was more than US$ 1 million. Illegal fuelwood was the single most important product extracted from RCNP and accounted for half of the total quantity and economic value of all resources collected. It is argued that the GCP does not, in its present form, comply with the concept of community-based conservation, but is rather an example of nature-based development, where important natural core areas are exploited in the name of development. This study suggests a two-fold approach to reappraise the importance of the GCP in solving park-people conflicts without ignoring nature conservation. Firstly, access should be provided in different areas at different times instead of opening the whole Park at the same time. Secondly, since for the last 10–15 years buffer-zone community forestry has not been able to substitute fuelwood from RCNP, other ways to address local people's energy demand should be considered. It is argued that park-people conflicts in RCNP have not been solved, but only postponed, especially by compromising forest conservation and the possibility of the GCP to supply villagers with essential products in the future.