Collective Action for a common resource: A case study on the governance of the Cañete River Basin, Peru

Abstract: Collective action can be challenging in the governance of common pool resource. While social learning has the potential to facilitate negotiations and communications, power imbalance can still challenge the common pool resource (CPR) governance. In an attempt to study collective action in that context, I undertook a qualitative case study at the Cañete basin, Peru. The primary data was manly collected in Catahuasi, a village that lies along the basin. The data was analyzed by means of Ostrom’s theory on CPR governance, and the theory of social learning. The analysis showed that collective action is more difficult in large CPR setting than smaller ones. In order to overcome the collective action challenge in larger CPR governance, Ostrom proposes nesting. The creation of a learning system in CPR governance also appears to improve stakeholders’ collaboration and knowledge sharing. Even though a learning system should in some way counterbalance the power inequality between multi-actors, the present analysis shows that power imbalance can still impede multi-actors governance of a CPR.