Abstract
The dynamics of forest regimes in India and China are analyzed within the framework of institutional change having the elements of path dependence and adaptive efficiency. In India, forest regimes have completed a full cycle, starting with the community regime in the pre-British period through state regimes during the colonial period, and finally back to community-based forest regimes in the 1990s. In China,too, some forest regimes present in the days of Imperial China — the regime of “one field two landlords” — have re-emerged in recent years. During the colonial era in India, the changes in forest regimes were discontinuous, but path-dependent in the geographical sense. In the first phase of independent India, many self-reinforcing mechanisms(such as increasing returns, organizational and institutional inertia, and adaptive expectations) contributed to temporal path dependence. In the collectivization phase in China, changes in forest regimes were discontinuous, and the result of organizational energy similar to changes in the forest regimes in India during the colonial era. However, the emergence of the Household Responsibility System in the liberalization phase in China demonstrates the elements of temporal path dependence latest forest regimes in both countries are characterized by adaptive efficiency common elements of the dynamics of forest regimes must be used when designing forest regimes for sustainable forest management.
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Kant, S. (2001). The Evolution of Forest Regimes in India and China. In: Palo, M., Uusivuori, J., Mery, G. (eds) World Forests, Markets and Policies. World Forests, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0664-4_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0664-4_23
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