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Acronyms
= community-based natural resource management
= community based organisation
= community forestry user groups
= common pool resources
= executive committee
= Food and Agriculture Organisation
= Non-governmental Organisation
= United Nation Children Fund
= United States of America
1. Introduction
Organisations are social units that are designed to meet the needs and collective goals of the people linked within. In all organisations, the structure of management is of critical importance, because this determines the relationship between general members and the executive members who are appointed to make decisions and carry out tasks on their behalf. This, in turn, influences the actual decisions that are made and the outcomes that result from these decisions. Moreover, organisations are complex and inter-related systems where the executive members affect, and are affected by, external social factors and influencing situations (Yadav et al., 2015b). Vecchio et al. (1988) argue that the study of organisations provides a strong framework to explore the nature of how social groups and societies as whole operate and make collective decisions. In the context of elitism, local organisations and society are often controlled by a small group of social elites who have the ability to act and exercise power for their own personal interests and gain (Farazmand, 1999). This study expands on traditional elite theory by formalising the concept of a local organisational elite model in the context of community-based natural resource management.
2. The local organisational elite model
It can be argued that a key outcome of organisational efforts, whether explicit or implicit, is that organisations facilitate the exercise of power and control by elites. In the context of community-based management of forest resources, this is so even when local organisations are established using a participatory approach whose central purpose is to establish positive change for poor and disadvantaged people and who are underpinned and interlinked with the involvement of poor households in decision-making (FAO, 1980; Kumar, 2002). Specific aims include some or all of the following:
to establish a decentralised, robust local organisation to sustainably manage forests with the purpose of enhancing the livelihood of rural people;
to meet the basic needs of local people with respect to forest products;
to provide...