@phdthesis{Goetter2022, author = {G{\"o}tter, Johanna Friederike}, title = {Mahafaly pastoralists between structure and agency : development, institutional change and adaptation in South-West Madagascar}, doi = {10.26127/BTUOpen-5760}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:co1-opus4-57600}, school = {BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg}, year = {2022}, abstract = {It is well known that the development and adaptation capacities of rural communities in the developing world largely depend on the flexibility of the communities' 'social structure' (the community as a norm-group itself, together with its 'institutions' as the legal, moral and ideological framework). 'Structures' that have been identified by research as being crucial for rural livelihoods are found to be specific non-market security structures that are based on concepts of solidarity, reciprocity, and kinship. It is also widely acknowledged that 'agency' (understood as the decision-making and action-taking of individuals, including their aims to influence others) also plays a role. However, very little is known about how the interplay between 'structure' and 'agency' shapes institutional change and adaptation. Specifically, proper analytical frameworks for analyzing this interplay are missing. This dissertation aims to contribute to our understanding of development and adaptation capacities of rural communities against the backdrop of current mechanisms of social security and their evolution, to the interplay of different factors in such processes of institutional change, and the relationship between structure and agency, as well as to the required development of appropriate analytical frameworks. Empirical research was conducted on the Mahafaly Plateau in South-West Madagascar with three detailed micro-studies on cases of change, analyzing them through the lens of Contemporary Classical Institutional Economics and the Framework for Modeling Institutional Change (Ensminger 1992), then proposing suggestions on how to improve the framework. The cases reveal that indeed 'agency' is an important factor shaping institutional change on the local or regional level. Institutional change is found to be both driven by collective action as well as evolutionary mechanisms. Importantly, agency is influencing both of these mechanisms. The results may be transferred to other rural societies of the developing world that also base the enforcement of their formal institutions on orality, ideologically value personal freedom and procedural liberty, and show a high diversity of institutions of all kinds. For such societies, the results suggest that the societal environment on the one hand favors adaptation on the level of individuals or small groups and allows these actions to evolutionary change institutions. On the other hand, adaptation based on designed institutional change and collective action is difficult to plan and execute. The framework applied to the cases is shown to be suitable as it allows us to shed light on changes in institutions including ideology as a result of the interplay between individual actors and their behavior, changes in external factors such as relative prices, the constellations of actors, and their bargaining power. By modifying the framework by adding 'agency' as one of the core elements, the analysis becomes even more comprehensive.}, subject = {Institutional change; Institutions; Social change; Madagascar; Agency; Institutioneller Wandel; Institutionen; Sozialer Wandel; Madagaskar; Anpassung; Madagascar; L{\"a}ndliche Entwicklung; Institutionen{\"o}konomie; Sozio{\"o}konomischer Wandel}, language = {en} }