Polycentric governance and agroecological practices in the MENA region: insights from Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia

Figures & data

Table 1. Comparing central premises of agroecology vis-à-vis polycentric governance.

Political agroecology	Polycentric governance
Central role of local communities, traditional knowledge, agricultural diversification to address basic needs of family, community, region and ecologies	Organization of social affairs (i.e., collective goods provisioning) oriented towards self-organization of producers, providers and consumers, including public, private and civil society actors

Table 2. Categories of self-organization derived from theories of polycentric governance.

Sets of categories	Points of interest derived from theories of polycentric governance		Relevance to polycentric governance
I. Preference formation in relation to farming practices	a.	Are agroecological practices present among, at least, subgroups of farmers and, ideally, also food system actors?	There needs to be a basic level of knowledge among farmers and food system actors to form preferences for agroecological practices that diverge from mainstream farming practices
	b.	Do farmers hold a variety of values and preferences about farm practices?	Polycentric governance, where farmers and food system actors go after their business in distinctive, potentially self-organized ways and requires heterogeneity of preferences
	c.	Are data about the performance of the farming sector and its environmental implications readily available for farmers and consumers?	Formation of distinctive preferences on farming systems requires transparent, readily available information on different modes of farming and their implications; ideally this is complemented by actors accountable to their actions
II. Contestation and self-organization in relation to farming practices	a.	Are property/tenure rights stable in the farming sector and do they allow agents to adopt decision about their explanation with some degree of autonomy?	Incentives to engage increase when they internalize the benefits of such engagement, which presumes stable property rights and secure tenure. This extends to situations where assets are affected by the way collective goods are managed. Secure property and tenure rights also grant a greater level of autonomy in decision-making
	b.	Do local actors and local government have some independence/autonomy from the central state, and do sectoral administrations have the independence to self-organize?	Autonomy/independence of actors in the food system as well as administrations promotes self-organization at different levels. By providing for checks and balances and windows of opportunity to share different kinds of information, this is an important mode of contesting the way collective goods are produced
	c.	Are farmers and actors in the farming and food sector entrepreneurial in relation to private benefits or public goods?	For self-organizing and contesting existing modes of provisioning and production, actors need a certain attitudinal disposition towards public entrepreneurship. Obviously, this depends on the context and room to manoeuvre
	d.	Can farmers and food system actors freely organize their way of farming and food commercialization	The right to self-organize provisioning and production activities is key to polycentric governance, to enable freedom to contest existing orders, for example, through self-organization
	e.	Do farmers have the means and abilities and knowledge (also of agroecological practices) to organize themselves and farming practices?	Effective contestation through self-organization requires knowledge and abilities of how to self-organize
	f.	Does the government or public administration allow and promote cooperative behaviour by farmers and food system actors and alternative farming techniques?	Do the government/state and public administration, as well as the private sector, facilitate the association and self-organizing behaviour of farmers and, so, foster contestation through self-organization, for example, among farmers catering to agroecology? Does the government and private sector enforce ground rules in relation to modes of contestation and specifically support marginalized interests?
	g.	Can farmers, consumers and food system actors easily speak up about their preferences and potential misgivings regarding farming and its relation to the environment?	Contestation of the way collective goods are produced and provided depends in part on the ability and right to voice concerns about current ways in which alternative collectives and higher levels of jurisdiction go about collective goods provision and production