Managing common Property : Irrigation in India and the Philippines.

For a long time, irrigation management was concerned almost entirely with technical details of operations and maintenance. Pol ky-makers did not accept the possibility that farmers could play a useful role in managing irrigation systems. While from the sixties, farmers' participation in irrigation works began to be accepted as an imaginative prop osition, this acceptance has remained largely at the level of recommendations to which considerable lip service is paid but very little content given.

In this important book, Prof. Sengupta establishes that farmers' participation is both feasible in practical terms and has proved beneficial wherever applied. He traces the historical origins and present status of irriga tion management policies in India and the Philippines. The author discusses the fal lacies of the 'tragedy of the commons' argu ment and posits current game theoretic find ings against that. Prof. Sengupta then devel ops his theoretical model through a formal presentation of a general irrigation situation where many farmers benefit from a single irrigation source. Investigations thereafter helped him in identifying all the conditions that determine the possibility, and nature of cooperation.

The theoretical results are upported by thir teen intensive case studies drawn from India and the Philippines which represent differ ent types of irrigation system traditional or modern, canal and communal. In conclu sion, Prof. Sengupta uses the theoretical results and empirical findings to outline the support measures which are necessary for the formation and improvement of water users' associations.

Dealing as it does with an important com mon property situation, this major study has wide relevance for the management of any other common property resource. In addi tion, the comparative nature of the study allows for a wider application of the author's conclusions. As such, the book will be of enormous interest to management experts, agricultural economists, public adminis trators and policy-makers throughout the developing world