Water Law Commons^™

The Polycentric Turn: A Case Study Of Kenya's Evolving Legal Regime For Irrigation Waters, Stefan Carpenter, Elizabeth Baldwin, Daniel H. Cole

Natural Resources Journal

Formal legal systems comprise a major part, but not the only part, of the “rules of the game” that structure social and socialecological interactions. Throughout the twentieth century, centralization and consolidation of legal authority were dominant themes among many, if not all, legal systems. That process may have been successful in some cases, but in others the presumed economies of scale from consolidation and centralization either did not materialize or were offset by other social costs, including the failure to accommodate local knowledge, expertise, and preferences. In what could become a theme of the twenty-first century, many countries, including developing …