Book Review: Gender and Green Governance
| Published date | 01 June 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023013482799 |
| Author | Carolyn Elliott |
| Date | 01 June 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
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Bina Agarwal, Gender and Green Governance. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2010. 488 pages. ` 625.
DOI: 10.1177/2321023013482799
Bina Agarwal’s Gender and Green Governance is a magisterial work of astounding erudition. The book
starts with a deceptively simple question: what difference does it make when more women are on local
forest protection councils? This is the same question raised by numerous studies of gender quotas in local
government. But, distinguished from the more straightforward studies, Agarwal mercilessly probes the
analytical depths of this question as though she were digging into the roots of a tree and following them
out to their farthest extensions. In the course of this exploration she unearths connections to a wide range
of literatures: local government, governance of the commons, women in politics, the politics of represen-
tation and accountability, women and development, the politics of poverty, civil society and forest man-
agement. The work is thoroughly inter-disciplinary, not only drawing on these many bodies of literature,
but also on methodology from sociology (sample surveys) and econometrics (multiple regressions) to
address questions at the centre of political science. While resplendent with field interviews and statisti-
cal tables, its ultimate significance is as a thought-provoking examination of political institutions—what
makes them legitimate, efficient, inclusive, representative and stable over time.
The book begins with an analytic discussion of the different stakes men and women have in forest
preservation and what that might mean for forest governance. Men are more interested in timber while
women are more concerned with firewood and fodder. Their interests have different time trajectories,
men’s more occasional and long-term, women’s interests more everyday. Women’s interests are cross-
cut by class, for landed women have both money and alternative private sources of firewood...
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