From Drought to Flood: Environmental Constraints and the Political Economy of Civic Virtue

The paper models co-operative engagement under varying environmental constraints giving rise to different forms of collective action problems, specifically focussing on water management in pre-industrial societies. I show that societies where water availability is strongly seasonal develop no mechanism to encourage society-wide cooperative behaviour because the benefits of water storage are fully excludable. With pre-industrial technology water storage is a pure club good, and optimal club size can be shown to be very small under credible parameter values, converging to 1 in some cases (private good). The social consequences of the environmental constraint include strongly circumscribed co-operation and rent seeking. In contrast, areas where water management involved flood control and irrigation develop society-wide institutions based on self-sustaining co-operative engagement assisted by external policing. The model thus offers an explanation of varying levels of "civic virtue" in different areas.. I would like to thank Jon S. Cohen for the initial idea and helping me develop the conceptual framework. This paper represents the first step in our joint research into the material basis of social behaviour. Comments from the participants in the Seminar at the Ente Einaudi in Rome on 12 November 2001 are gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimers apply.