The loss of ecosystem services through land degradation continues to be a significant concern for policymakers and land users around the world. Facilitating collective action among various actors is regarded as imperative in halting land degradation. Despite extensive research on collective action, there have been few studies that continuously map social ties and detect network evolution as a way of enabling longitudinal analysis of transformative spaces. This paper seeks to examine the changing dynamics of multi-actor and multi-level actor ties over a period of two years in Machubeni, South Africa. To do this, we used Social network analysis to detect continuities and/or discontinuities of multi-actor and multi-level actor ties over time. Overall, edge density, clustering coefficient, and reciprocity scores steadily increased over the two years despite a decline in the number of active organisations within the network. Our results demonstrate that the proportion of strong ties gradually increased over time across three governance networks. However, multi-level linkages between the local municipality and the local organisations remained weak due to a lack of trust and collaborative fatigue. While the transformative space has succeeded in enhancing collaboration and knowledge sharing between local organisations and researchers, further long-term engagement with government agencies might be necessary for promoting institutional transformations, policy outcomes, and building network resilience in complex polycentric governance systems.
La perte de services écosystémiques due à la dégradation des terres continue d’être une préoccupation importante pour les décideurs et les utilisateurs des terres du monde entier. Faciliter l’action collective entre les différents acteurs est considéré comme impératif pour enrayer la dégradation des terres. Malgré des recherches approfondies sur l’action collective, peu d’études ont cartographié en permanence les liens sociaux et détecté l’évolution des réseaux comme moyen de permettre une analyse longitudinale des espaces transformateurs. Cet article cherche à examiner la dynamique changeante des liens entre acteurs multi-acteurs et multi-niveaux sur une période de deux ans à Machubeni, en Afrique du Sud. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé l’analyse des réseaux sociaux pour détecter les continuités et / ou les discontinuités des liens d’acteurs multi-acteurs et multi-niveaux dans le temps. Globalement, la densité des bords, le coefficient de clustering et les scores de réciprocité ont régulièrement augmenté au cours des deux années malgré une baisse du nombre d’organisations actives au sein du réseau. Nos résultats démontrent que la proportion de liens solides a progressivement augmenté au fil du temps dans trois réseaux de gouvernance. Cependant, les liens à plusieurs niveaux entre la municipalité locale et les organisations locales sont restés faibles en raison d’un manque de confiance et d’une fatigue de collaboration. Bien que l’espace transformateur ait réussi à améliorer la collaboration et le partage des connaissances entre les organisations locales et les chercheurs, un engagement à long terme avec les agences gouvernementales pourrait être nécessaire pour promouvoir les transformations institutionnelles, les résultats des politiques et renforcer la résilience du réseau dans des systèmes de gouvernance polycentriques complexes.
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4 Responses
Thank you Menelisi. You may check out the work of Mark Lubell http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/lubell/) who studies networks of actors in environmental policy spaces (and champions the concept of ecology of games). You have a wealth of data and more formal network analysis might be done with it.
Thank you so much Marco, will have a look at Mark’s papers also.
This is a very interesting presentation Menelisi. There seems to be a misalignment between traditional leaders and local democratic governance. How is this part of a broader challenge in South Africa (and post-colonial Africa) of situating traditional leadership within the post-1994 democratic space as Ntsebeza and others have written about?
Many scholars in South Africa argue that it is difficult to merge both traditional and democratic structures (such as Ntsebeza). The misalignment between the two structures has exacerbated deep structural tensions over the past 26 year.
However, we argue that the traditional leadership is compatible with modern democracy and has the potential to improve governance and collaboration, and also effect transformations in rural South Africa for two reasons. Firstly, from an SLM perspective, the Communal Land Tenure Policy (CLTP) mandates the traditional leaders to distribute land in their areas. As such, it is their role as traditional leaders to ensure that community needs and interests are factored into local and district planning. Secondly, the Municipal Structures Act allows traditional leaders to attend and participate in council meetings as ex-officio members, thereby enhancing co-operative governance across scales.
Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen and capacitate traditional leaders as a way of enhancing transformative governance to promote sustainability in rural South Africa. I hope I have answered your question.
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