A framework for analysing the development and implementation of sport hunting

In chapter 1 I showed how sport hunting and conservation governance have evolved over the years: from customary norms to formal legislations that institutionalised ‘fortress

conservation’, to community-based conservation (CBC), and now market-based conservation (MBC). The new sport hunting analysed in the empirical Chapters 3-5 is implemented applying both CBC and MBC approaches. The text below provides a summary of how I conceptualised Uganda’s national sport hunting policy, transposed and implemented as local level sport hunting policy arrangements around LMNP and KKTGMA, using the PAA and the concept of governance capacity. I operationalised the concept of governance capacity by using the concepts of congruence (to analyse indicative governance capacity) and effectiveness (to analyse performative governance capacity).

With this, the thesis is firmly positioned in the regime, institutional and governance literatures, and DI more specifically. Together, these theories and concepts enabled the analysis and evaluation of the development and implementation of the sport hunting policy arrangements, explaining their evolution over the years and evaluating their impacts. The analysis was based on the argument that a low indicative and/or performative governance capacity might cause changes in an arrangement, in terms of deployment of (new) actors, rules of the game, resources and/or discourses. Such an evolution of a policy arrangement could over time lead to the realisation of the policy goals (see Figure 2.1).

33

Figure 2.1: A framework for analysing the development and implementation of sport hunting policy arrangements and their impacts

Following Figure 2.1, I situate the development and implementation of the national sport hunting policy in the left box. This is where Chapter 3 (which is the first empirical chapter) is situated. In this chapter I broadly analyse the introduced hunting policy at the national level and draw examples from around LMNP. The analysis is only loosely inspired by the Policy Arrangement Approach and its dimensions. Contrary to Chapter 4, where I will, following the PAA, conceptualise and analyse the national sport hunting policy as a multi-actor arrangement implemented at the local level (and encompassing the interwoven policy discourses, rules, actors and resources).

Chapter 4 then focuses on the left and the middle boxes including arrow 1 that joins the left and middle boxes in the framework, by analysing the development and implementation of two local sport hunting policy arrangements, that is, the translation of the national policy to the local context around LMNP and KKTGMA. It concentrates on the indicative governance capacity of these two policy arrangements including how the national policy has shaped the

Sport Hunting Policy

Indicative Governance Capacity

(Internal & External) Congruence

Performative Governance Capacity

Effectiveness in terms of: enhancing local development, reducing poaching and changing residents’ attitudes

towards wildlife

(Wider institutional) context in Uganda

e.g. climate change, agriculture, environmental, forestry, oil and gas, wildlife, land use and tourism policies

local policy arrangements. Thus, in Chapter 4, I analyse and explain the potential of the policy to achieve its goals by using the Policy Arrangement Approach together with the concept of congruence to provide a better understanding of the causes of the temporary stability and/or change experienced in the arrangements over the years. Here I will focus on the internal congruence as well as on how it affects and/or is affected by the institutional context. This is represented by arrow 4, which joins the middle box to the feedback loop arrow 3. External congruence (represented by arrow 5, which joins the middle box to the wider institutional context) will only briefly be dealt with in the three empirical chapters and the concluding chapter, and is therefore not explicitly included in the research questions. This study is not the first to analyse only the internal dynamics of a policy arrangement dimensions, Arts & Buizer (2009) also analysed only the internal dynamics of global forest policy arrangement. The other external aspects were considered as part of political modernization (Arts & Buizer, 2009).

Chapter 5 is situated in the right box and includes a discussion of arrow 2 (joining the middle and right boxes) so as to understand how, and the extent to which, congruence influences performance. The focus in this chapter is on the analysis of the performative governance capacity of the sport hunting policy arrangements and to understand how congruence (or the lack of it) influences the performance of the arrangements. I specifically analyse the social and economic impacts of the policy at the local level, but also analyse impacts in terms of the number of hunted animals and number of arrested poachers, since the policy was introduced to address local challenges, applying both rational-instrumental and interpretative approaches to policy evaluation. The aim is to determine the impacts of the policy in terms of reducing human-wildlife conflicts (especially by addressing poaching and retaliatory killing) by distributing benefits to the local communities with a view to improve local attitudes towards wildlife. Also, the arrows 3 and 4 with the institutional context and arrow 5 with wider institutional context are partially discussed in chapter 5 by reflecting on the different policies (e.g. sport hunting, oil exploration or even agriculture etc.), which contrarily have different aims and objectives. For example, the translocation of animals from around LMNP to Katonga wildlife reserve which was not really done for conservation purposes but for the benefit of sport hunting – as sport hunting is also practiced in the area. I also pay attention to how the stakeholders’ perceptions of the sport hunting policy arrangements influence their interactions, and how these interactions shape the continued sport hunting policy implementation. The main aim is to evaluate the three objectives of the national sport hunting policy to understand how –

35

through the feedback loop (represented by arrow 3) – the policy impacts influence the policy re(design).

Finally, in Chapter 6, I focus on the framework as a whole, including all the arrows, to understand how congruence influences the performance of the arrangements and how the direct institutional context is of influence, since the policy impacts are expected to have an effect on the policy (re)design and its continued implementation. The analysis also loosely includes the wider institutional context. This is expected to provide an understanding of how policy outcomes lead to a shift or stability in any of the policy arrangement dimensions (on the national as well as on the local level), and whether or not this can lead to a new state in the arrangement all together, by attracting new actors. In case new actors do enter the arena, they can potentially bring new discourses with them that could lead to the adjustment of certain rules in order to institutionalise their interests and preferences as well as to enable them to mobilise resources to achieve certain policy outcomes in society.

37

CHAPTER 3: HUNTING FOR CONSERVATION? THE RE-