Integrating Institutions with Local Contexts in Community-Based Irrigation Governance: A Qualitative Systematic Review of Variables, Combinations, and Effects

The literature on common-pool resources (CPRs) has mostly focused on institutional conditions for successful governance of the commons. However, many scholars have emphasized that the explanatory power of institutional variables per se is limited and that institutions should not be isolated from the context in which they operate. Consequently, the success of CPR governance requires a more nuanced understanding of specific combinations of institutions in a specific social-ecological context. Using community-based irrigation systems as an example, this paper examines how combinations of institutions and contexts affect irrigation governance based on a qualitative systematic review of 83 English language peer-reviewed articles published since 1990. The review firstly summarizes the basic characteristics, main research subjects, and development trends in the literature on community-based irrigation governance. Then, revealing the specific effects of major combinations of institutional variables and contextual variables on the performance of irrigation governance, the review suggests that (a) the congruence of institutional arrangements with attributes of actors (e.g., group size, group heterogeneity, and social capital), (b) the specific combination of institutions and contexts of resource system and related ecosystems (e.g., hydrology, soil, and agriculture), and (c) the market incentives (e.g., irrigation systems’ spatial proximity to markets) associating with formal governance organizations, are important for improving irrigation governance performance. The main findings not only reveal existing gaps in understanding how institutions and contexts interact in community-based irrigation governance, but also indicate potential pathways to theoretical construction in complex CPR systems by further exploring the relationships between institutions and the contexts in which they operate.