Abstract
This study explored the possibility of cooperation in social dilemmas of common pool resource (CPR) use among three fishers' organizations and their members at Lake Chapala, Mexico. Four objectives guided data collection regarding fishers' perceptions of resource conditions and responses to hypothetical problems of CPR use, social dilemmas of CPR use and institutions, and selected factors that influence individual cooperation and institutional performance in commons dilemmas. Informants included fishers, buyers, authorities, and others familiar with the fishery. A survey interview was administered to 127 fishers from the Chapala and San Pedro Tesistan unions and the Chapala cooperative. The study entailed tests of three hypotheses derived from previous experimental and empirical research, and subsequent theoretical development pertaining to individual and collective solutions to commons dilemmas. Hypothesis one stated that those organizations with greater autonomy would achieve better institutional performance. The fishers' organizations studied were ranked on physical, administrative, and psychological autonomy, and on their ability to resolve CPR use problems. H1 was rejected; organizations' lack of psychological autonomy was shown to counteract the positive effects of physical and administrative autonomy on institutional performance. It was recommended that psychological autonomy be included in analytical frameworks for studying CPR institutions. Hypotheses two and three predicted that strength of social identity as a fisher and economic dependence on fishing would be correlated positively with cooperation in the commons. Social identity was operationalized as principal work, reason for fishing, time fishing, and family involvement in fishing. Economic dependence was measured as respondent's dependence on income from fishing. Cooperation was measured as an index based on each group's requirements for dues and other tangible contributions. H2 was rejected based on negative correlations between social identity as time fishing and principal work (independent variables) and cooperation (dependent variable)...
Pomeroy, Caroline Macdonald (1993). Organized fishers' responses to social dilemmas of common pool resource use. Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -1482003.