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Introduction

A consensus seems to be emerging in both academic and policy-making circles about the desirability of participatory models of local resource management.

According to a survey carried out by Food and Agriculture Organisation, more than 50 developing countries have adopted participatory forest protection programmes [Agrawal and Gibson 2001:1].

The advocates of such participatory models basically belong to two categories: one which views participation as a means to achieve institutional efficiency; and the other, which sees participation as furthering the goals of empowerment, equity and democratic governance. Given the current fascination of both academic and policy-making thinking with the ideas of people-centred policies, civil society and social capital, the second category seems to dominate, at least at the rhetorical level.Participation, whatever its goals may be, is in itself a fuzzy concept having acquired varied meanings over a period of time – at one end of the spectrum it could mean just a nominal membership in a group, and at the other end it could imply having an effective voice in the decision-making process.1 In this paper, I seek to analyse the broad contours of the discussion that informs the concept of participation, by first elucidating its theoretical underpinnings, then by giving concrete examples from real-life situations for a better understanding, and then following it up with a broad analysis of the kind of policy implications of the discussion.