Farmer Participation and Institutional Capture in Common-Pool Resource Governance Reforms. The Case of Groundwater Management in California

Farmers are often critically important to the success of common-pool resource governance reforms. Nevertheless, their participation in these off-farm reform processes has received limited research attention. This paper investigates farmer participation in state-mandated common-pool resource governance. Using groundwater governance in California as a case study, we show that existing social networks, in combination with asymmetries in resource access within the farming community, and a collective identity framed against central government intervention, explain participation and representation in groundwater governance processes. An important governance paradox has emerged, in which groundwater-dependent users are unequally represented in the very groundwater management agencies that have been developed to protect them. This case sheds light on documented shortcomings of common-pool resource governance reforms and aims to inform the design of future reform processes.