Chronic Poverty and Its Relational Perspective: implications for

institu-tional analysis

Adopting a historical perspective, one might ask  – responding to Knight’s analysis – why is it that some are well endowed with assets and others are not (cf.

Nitsch 1989)? Why do some own large tracts of land allowing him or her to play a decisive role in munici-pal politics whereas the other is landless?³⁹ From a chronic poverty perspective, the answer is to be found in the historically evolved social relations that tie the poor and the non-poor together. Green and Hulme (2005, 871) discussing the concept “social exclusion” provide an illustrative example of what this focus implies. They argue that the concept of social exclusion is misleading, as it “(…) separates the poor and thus poverty from the rest of society, so that poverty appears as a problem of the excluded.”

However, the poor are integral to society although they occupy marginalised social positions. From this perspective poverty as an effect “(…) can be appre-hended as an outcome of the social relations which tolerate, or promote, such effects” (ibid). Poverty and wealth are “causally linked” (Harriss 2007, 12).⁴⁰ Does this juxtaposition of individualist and relational perspectives lead back to an irreconcilable position-ing of structure versus agency in explainposition-ing the sources of power? It does not need to. Several authors suggest approaches to reconcile the influ-ence of both on social phenomena (Giddens 1984;

Bourdieu 1990). Below, I will outline an emergentist account of social structures as developed by Elder-Vass (2007a) building on Archer (1995).⁴¹ Then, I will discuss how institutions establish social structures and show how the emergent properties of social structures can be important sources of power.

Archer (1995, 7f) proposes to approach the question of structure and agency from the perspective of

“analytical dualism.” “Analytical dualism suggests that structure and agency can be distinguished over time. It rests on two propositions: “that structure necessarily pre-dates the action(s) leading to its reproduction and transformation and that structural elaboration [changes in structures because of these actions] necessarily post-dates the action sequences which give rise to it” (Archer 1995, 15). What are the reasons for the pre-existence of social structures?

Briefly stated, “as individuals we are born into a set of structures that are not of our making” (Hodgson 2000b, 11). Language, customs, or beliefs have to be learned by social actors. The churchgoer or the fam-ily member needs to acquire rules and the behaviour that is considered to be adequate for a particular social position. The social positions that are being allocated to us at the time of our birth might funda-mentally influence the abilities of a given individual.

Think, for example, of the Indian caste system. For the reason of being born into a particular social posi-tion, Dalits have fundamentally different options than a member of the Brahman caste. Reviewing the work of Bhaskar and Archer (1995), Hodgson (2000b, 12) concludes, “Individual interactions with a social structure are engagements with something already made; in this sense, social structure pre-dates the individual. As individuals we do not make society: it is there in some form at our birth, bearing the marks of past practices of the former – even deceased – gen-erations.” ⁴²

With this conceptualisation, Archer’s “Morphoge-netic Approach” offers a dialectical perspective on the question of structure and agency, which serves as a basis for the emergentist perspective offered here.⁴³ This emergentist perspective acknowledges the causal efficacy of social structures (which implies that social structures are more than the individuals constituting them) without denying agential powers within the social structures. The concept of emer-gence is central, as the name indicates. Emeremer-gence implies that an object has properties which can not be reduced to its constituent parts. “A property is emergent at the level where the parts of the entity possessing it would not themselves have the prop-erty if they were not organised into this sort of whole” (Elder-Vass 2007b, 236). For social structures

to become causally effective in their own right, they have to have emergent properties that justify their treatment as ontologically different from agents. ⁴⁴ To make this claim, I need to clarify what I mean by social structure.⁴⁵

According to the emergentist perspective, social structures are composed of agents, the relations between them, and the properties that emerge because of this relationship. The emergent proper-ties cannot be attributed to its constitutive parts.

While a relation between the agents is the precondi-tion for an emergent property, it does not fully explain the process through which the emergent property emerges. In the terminology advanced here, this explanation lies in the causal mechanisms that sustain the emergent property. “Causal mecha-nisms are processes that depend on interactions between the parts, interactions that only occur when those parts are organised in the particular relations that constitute them into wholes that possess this emergent property” (Elder-Vass 2007b, 230). Think of the example of an intermediary who is the sole buyer of valuable hardwood in a municipality. Would it be coherent to attribute his capacity to buy logs at low prices from the communities to his entrepre-neurial capacities? Following the elaborations above it would not; it would represent a case of an “elimina-tive reduction” (Elder-Vass 2007b, 236). His capacity to buy logs at a very low price evolves from the dependence of the smallholders on him. This depen-dency relation puts the buyer in a social position that vests him with this particular power. If the sellers could choose among other buyers, his capacity is likely to diminish. This capacity is different from his capacity to speak to the sellers of timber. This ability rests with the agent and attributing it to the social structure would be an “untenable reification” (ibid).

What is the relationship between the term institu-tion and the term social structure? In contemporary institutional economics the individualist perspective prevails and a link to the concept of social structure is largely missing. Maybe as a corollary to this absent debate, terminological clarity is sometimes lacking.

Some authors treat the two concepts of institution and social structure interchangeably (Ishihara and Pascual 2009, 1550). I will not attempt to resolve this discussion. Instead, I advance that treating social

structure as a meta-concept to institutions offers valuable insights into the way institutions affect indi-vidual behaviour.⁴⁶ These effects, in turn, are emer-gent properties relevant to an analysis of power in institutional change. This does not imply that all social structures are institutions. Social positions might also evolve because of, for example differential command over tangible resources in a singular inter-action (cf. Knight 1992). Institutions according to Hodgson (2006, 18), are “(…) systems of established and embedded social rules that structure social interactions.” Two emergent properties of institu-tions stand out: the allocation or perpetuation of social positions and their influence of individual hab-its.

First, institutions can give rise to social structures (as defined above) by creating relationships between agents that vest agents with powers they would not possess, if the institution establishing the relation-ship would be absent. That is, institutions establish social positions, which are emergent properties of the resulting social structure. Property rights are an example. A property right as an institution assigns a rights to a right holder and corresponding duties to other members of society. The ability of the right holder to enjoy the benefits of a resource is an emer-gent property of the institution property right.

Haugaard (2003, 109) refers to this as “power created by social order.” Several institutions allocating social positions coexist at the same time, which might rein-force or contradict each other. Scholars of legal plu-ralism show that this pluplu-ralism allows actors to apply

“forum shopping” strategies (Benda-Beckmann 1981), that is, to refer to the social order that suits their needs. Competing land rights administration systems are an example. An actor might refer to land rights backed up by the more recent legislation that favours rights based on title or he or she might only accept land allocation decisions taken by a group of elders. Of course, not all agents are in the similar position to make use of forum shopping. The web of social relations does not entail that all actors enjoy the same power to use and benefit from resources.

That is, “power [is also] created by system bias”

(Haugaard 2003, 109). Institutions do not only cre-ate power to do something, they also put some in social positions that leave them very little room for action. However, “power created by system bias” is

not only negative or inherently biased against certain societal groups. It is also a necessary correlate of

“power created by social order.” If property rights are not accompanied by corresponding duties of non-right holders, they are meaningless. Having said this, the active use of a preferential position within the web of social structures to ones benefit also occurs frequently. Take the example of unsuccessful agrarian reforms. The close ties between owners of large landholdings and members of the political par-ties in power, for example, often worked against the implementation of redistributive land reforms (Kuh-nen 1982, 338). Studies on the effects of decentralisa-tion of forest management provide another line of empirical evidence for “power created by system bias”: If specific measures to protect the rights of poorer segments of the rural society are not employed, the traditional elites are able to benefit from the decentralisation measures at the expense of the livelihoods of the poor (Larson, Pacheco et al.

2007). As Green and Hulme (2005, 872) observe:

“The question becomes not why are some people poor in society, but why some societies tolerate pov-erty as an outcome and for whom, and how this tol-eration becomes embedded within institutional norms and systems.” Institutions do not only allo-cate social positions, they also serve to perpetuate them.

Second, Hodgson (2007a) points at a mechanism that contributes to the perpetuation or reproduction of social positions: the influence of institutions on agents’ habits. This second emergent property of institutions involves a process, which he calls “recon-stitutive downward causation.” Recon“recon-stitutive downward causation describes the phenomenon that institutions can cause agents’ intentions (Fleetwood 2008). Through “reconstitutive downward causa-tion” institutions can cause changes in habits, defined as “propensity to behave in a particular way in a particular class of situations” (Hodgson 2004, 652). How does “reconstitutive downward causa-tion” work? By constraining agents’ behaviour over extended periods of time, agents acquire habits con-sistent with these constraints. Even if the constraints are removed, agents continue to behave in the same manner. This does not mean that deliberation is absent but that there can be other significant forces at work as well. Habits are inscribed into agents’ tacit

knowledge that is distinct from the type of knowl-edge that agents can put into words (discursive knowledge). Hence, acts of reproducing an institu-tion (even if it is detrimental to the one reproducing it) can occur habitually. Agents maintain an institu-tion because they were socialised within it without actually reflecting on it (that is, transforming the tacit knowledge into discursive knowledge).

Haugaard (2003, 100f ) refers to this way of creating power as “power created by tacit knowledge.” Agar-wal’s (2002) analysis of women’s land rights provide an example. She finds that women “slightly internal-ized” the statement of some men that they were use-less as agricultural labourers and could only work under supervision (ibid, 24).

Vatn (2005, 31) refers to this type of socialisation in which actors internalise the basic rules of the society as “primary socialisation.” He distinguishes this from the socialisation that takes place in smaller societal groups that might be of our choosing, such as the professional training that we experience in the departments of a university (“secondary socialisa-tion”). The underlying mechanism is the same.

Haugaard (2003, 106) refers to this “secondary socialisation” as “power created by discipline.” In his analysis “disciplinary power” is a way of maintaining social order. With regard to natural resource use, we can observe more mundane forms. By reference to

“scientific” findings, the knowledge of communities is frequently ruled out. Holmes-Watts and Watts (2008, 441) observe with regard to participatory nat-ural resource governance in South Africa: “’I man-age, you participate’ (…) appears to dominate the atti-tudes of state conservation officials in interacting with local communities. The continued existence of protectionist conservation in South Africa despite the abundance of legal frameworks for participatory conservation reveals the difficulties in weeding out entrenched institutional cultures.”

Government agencies often remain inaccessible to forest-dependent people contributing to their disempowerment. Closed office of the national land reform agency INCRA in Anapu.

In summary, chronic poverty focuses on the analysis of social relations – without ruling out other sources of entrenched poverty. This emphasises the need to investigate the pre-existing institutions, which estab-lish or perpetuate social positions and significantly affect agents’ capacities to act. Although social posi-tions might evolve because of differential ownership over tangible resources – as Knight suggests – there are also other influences. Social relations, to turn the argument around, are also decisive in getting access to resources or might substitute for the lack of them.

Further, a social position of an agent evolves because of his or her embeddedness in many social relations.

If these relations all put an agent in a marginal social position (instead of contradicting each other), escap-ing this position might become insurmountable.

From an analytical perspective, a focus on emergent

properties of social structures established by institu-tions calls for attention to habitual behaviour. This does not rule out rational decisions and deliberation but underlines that there are other forces shaping agent’s behaviour. In line with other scholars (cf.

March and Olsen 1998), the agents are conceptual-ised as being able to take decisions based on deliber-ation although they might at times act habitually (Elder-Vass 2007c). In comparison to the individual-ist perspective, this allows for a broader account of how power influences the process of institutional change.

3.4 Chronic Poverty, Discourses, and