Browsing by Subject "Power"

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The role of informal institutions in agricultural development : case studies from Kenya, Pakistan and Malawi
(2017) Aberman, Noora-Lisa; Birner, Regina
Why have so many countries lagged behind in terms of agricultural development, structural transformation and poverty alleviation? This thesis is based on the proposition that a lack of attention to institutions and governance is partly responsible for the limited success in meeting food security and development goals in many developing countries, in spite of significant investments in agricultural development. In particular, the interplay between formal and informal intuitions has not been thoroughly explored, in part because this interplay is not well captured in the quantitative analytical approaches that dominate the literature on agricultural development. Informal and non-market institutions play an important role especially in early phases of agricultural development. Therefore, a better understanding of informal institutions and their interaction with formal institutions is expected to provide valuable insights on how to facilitate agricultural development more effectively and to better use its potential to promote food security, and poverty reduction. Institutions can be defined as the socially constructed formal and informal rules that constrain human behaviour and provide the framework of incentives that shapes economic, social and political life. In the literature on agricultural development, institutional analysis typically builds on the theory of neoclassical economics and draws on its analytical tools, but it appears useful to explore theoretical approaches developed in other branches of the social sciences and to apply their methodological approaches to analyse the role of institutions in agricultural development. Qualitative methods are particularly promising to provide new insights into the role of institutions in agricultural development, in particular with regard to informal institutions. The main objective of this thesis is the development and application of novel methodological approaches to analysing the interplay of informal and formal institutions in agricultural development. The thesis is based on four case studies conducted in three developing countries: Malawi, Pakistan and Kenya. The case studies deal with three selected themes of institutional development in agriculture, where the interplay of formal and informal institutions is particular important. Two themes relate to specific sub-sectors of agriculture: institutions for managing irrigation systems and institutions that facilitate agricultural exports. The third theme is cross-cutting and addresses the question how gender equity can be promoted in institutions that matter for agricultural development. Considering that institutions are nested, the case studies cover different levels, including the household, farmer group, local government and national government level. Together the case studies provide insights on how institutional analysis—with an emphasis on social institutions, informal rules, perceptions, and norms—affect agricultural development initiatives. The case studies make use of methodological approaches that are relatively novel in the field of agricultural development studies and thus serve to broaden the toolkit of methods for institutional analysis. These methods include two versions of a participatory mapping tool called Net-Map and Process Net-Map. As a third approach, qualitative interviews with the inclusion of tactile power mapping exercises have been applied. As the case studies cover different levels, the data collection methods have been applied with a wide range of participants that had highly diverse social and educational backgrounds, ranging from national-level policy actors to farmers residing in remote areas. Epistemologically, these methods support a social constructionist research approach, wherein the informal and socially constructed aspects of agricultural policy and governance can be assessed. Four distinct case studies are presented here, from Kenya, Pakistan and Malawi. Taken together, the case studies show that in a developing country context, the informal rules (described as “rules-in-play”), which are based on social norms, often play a more significant role in guiding the behaviour of economic actors than the formal rules and regulations of the state. Thus, the consideration of social norms is critical when devising policy reform strategies, devolution processes, and addressing corruption. The studies identified the following factors, which should be considered when undertaking policy development or policy reform: a) the capacity of the government to enforce rules and laws; b) social norms that determine the extent to which rules-are followed; and c) the impact of additional rules that aim to promote compliance on transaction costs. The case studies also provide insights on the role of that informal institutions play with regard to gender, power and community groups. The findings indicate that gender norms are slowly changing even in the remote area of Kenya where the case studies were conducted, which is confirmed by other empirical work. The findings indicate that such change is very slow due to internal societal pressures against it. However, a better understanding of when and how informal institutions are changing provides entry points for action. The studies indicate that there is a potential for community groups to serve as a parallel institution to that of the home, governed by constitutions and by-laws, that do enable women to push the boundaries of community gender norms, although both are embedded in the same community. And although gendered participation in groups is mixed, there are drivers that can be supported to flourish by development partners and government.
Using genome-wide association studies to map genes for complex traits in porcine F2 crosses
(2018) Schmid, Markus; Bennewitz, Jörn
In the era of genomics, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have become the method of choice for gene mapping. This is still of great interest to infer the genetic architecture of quantitative traits and to improve genomic selection in animal breeding. Formerly, linkage analyses were conducted in order to map genes. Therefore, many F2 cross populations were generated by crossing genetically divergent lineages in order to create informative experimental populations. However, a small number of markers and the limited meiotic divisions led to imprecise mapping results. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the use of existing porcine F2 cross data, extended towards single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip genotype information, for quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping in the genomic era. A special focus was on mapping genes that also segregate within the Piétrain breed since this is an important sire line and genomic selection is applied in this breed. Chapter 1 is a review article of statistical models and experimental populations applied in GWASs. This chapter gives an overview of methods to conduct GWASs using single-marker models and multi-marker models. Further, approaches taking non-additive genetic effects or genotype-by-environment interactions into account are described. Finally, post-GWAS analysis possibilities and GWAS mapping populations are discussed. In chapter 2, the power and precision of GWASs in different F2 populations and a segregating population was investigated using simulated whole-genome sequence data. Further, the effect of pooling data was determined. GWASs were conducted for simulated traits with a heritability of 0.5 in F2 populations derived from closely and distantly related simulated founder breeds, their pooled datasets, and a sample of the common maternal founder breed. The study showed that the mapping power was high (low) in F2 crosses derived from distantly (closely) related founder breeds and highest when several F2 datasets were pooled. By contrast, a low precision was observed in the cross with distantly related founder breeds and the pooling of data led to a precision that was between the two crosses. For genes that also segregated within the common founder breed, the precision was generally elevated and, at equal sample size, the power to map QTL was even higher in F2 crosses derived from closely related founder breeds compared with the founder breed itself. Within and across linkage disequilibrium (LD) structures of such F2 populations were examined in chapter 3 by separately and jointly (pooled dataset) analyzing four F2 datasets generated from different founder breeds. All individuals were genotyped with a 62k SNP chip. The LD decay was faster in crosses derived from closely related founder breeds compared with crosses from phylogenetically distantly related founder populations and fastest when the data of all crosses were pooled. The pooled dataset was also used to map QTL for the economically important traits dressing out and conductivity applying single-marker and Bayesian multi-marker regressions. For these traits, several genome-wide significant association signals were mapped. To infer the suitability of F2 data to map genes in a segregating breeding population, GWAS results of a pooled F2 cross were validated in two samples of the German Piétrain population (chapter 4). All individuals were genotyped using standard 62k SNP chips. The pooled cross contained the data of two F2 crosses, both had Piétrain as one founder breed, and consisted of 595 individuals. Initially, GWASs were conducted in the pooled F2 cross for the production traits dressing yield, carcass length, daily gain and drip loss. Subsequently, QTL core regions around significant trait associated peaks were defined. Finally, SNPs within these core regions were tested for association in the two samples of the current Piétrain population (771 progeny tested boars and 210 sows) in order to validate them in this breed. In total, 15 QTL were mapped and 8 (5) of them were validated in the boar (sow) validation dataset. This approach takes advantage of the high mapping power in F2 data to detect QTL that may not be found in the segregating Piétrain population. The findings showed that many of the QTL mapped in F2 crosses derived from Piétrain still segregate in this breed, and thus, these F2 datasets provide a promising database to map QTL in the Piétrain breed. The thesis ends with a general discussion.