The global concern for deforestation, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change has prompted the implementation of strategies to mitigate observed damaging socioecological impacts. One contemporary strategy being promoted to tackle these crises is Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR). FLR interventions are often implemented with a landscape approach and take the form of polycentric governance systems as they involve multiple sectoral actors across scales that act as decision-making centers. However, pervasive institutional fragmentation, power imbalances, and lack of integration across such decision-making centers/actors disparately involved in restoration endeavors represent complex governance challenges. Addressing such challenges requires effective institutional functions and mechanisms such as coordination, social learning, and equitable resource distribution. Also, the diversity of sectoral actors within a landscape may result in governance failure if enough attention is not devoted to power struggles and asymmetries.
This study aims to elucidate the nature of the institutional functions and processes and related power dynamics in FLR polycentric governance systems, identifying which mechanisms are necessary for effective governance in restoration interventions. Using two case studies from Ghana, this study leverages a polycentricity theoretical lens to examine how multi-scale governance structures, institutional processes, and their interactions facilitate effective integrated restoration polycentric governance systems.
The study will blend insights from a social network analysis with qualitative data, including interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis, to analyze (1) institutional mechanisms and processes that facilitate restoration implementation; and (2) how power relations impact these governance processes.
Theoretically, this research will fill knowledge gaps in polycentricity studies by engaging empirically with institutional structures, processes, and mediating factors like power dynamics. Shedding light on the complexity of situated restoration governance systems and power relations can help unravel why and how governance failure and conflicts occur and what necessary institutional functions and processes to put in place to mitigate them.
