Institutional benefit pathways in development

•The benefit pathway framework explains the politics of resource distribution and uneven access to them.•Local institutions are highly diverse and their involvement in development can vary substantially.•Building institutional partnerships need a full understanding of the local interplay.•Even among marginalized groups, the ability of individuals to benefit from institutions differ.•Together, institutional partnerships and access can assist sustainable development goals. Farmers make livelihood and landholding decisions within institutional contexts that deliver and shape access to resources they need. I develop an ‘institutional-benefit-pathway framework’ to help explain the politics of resource distribution and how farmers access resources that support their livelihoods, such as seeds, farmland improvement technology, and microcredit. Based on qualitative evidence collected over 16 months of fieldwork among 212 smallholder households and 60+ civic, state, and market institutions in Telangana, India, this paper identifies three pathways: a state pathway illustrated by a millet promotion initiative; a state-civic society pathway highlighted by watershed management; and a state-civic society-market pathway that delivers climate information and microcredit, while promoting pesticide-free agricultural practice. Benefit pathway analysis reveals the institutional rules and roles that demarcate direction and access to benefits by illustrating the complexities of local institutional interaction and the roles of institutional power in access to resources. The cases show that state and NGO actors hold disproportionate influence over resource distribution, while smallholders are largely unable to influence the development policy process. Smallholders are, in this context, unable to correct the unevenness in benefit distribution, and affect the type of benefits, which are all ironically meant for them. However, the cases also uncover mechanisms that farmers use to gain access to resources. Results suggest that mere partnership of state and non-state actors will not necessarily lead to better development outcomes and that institutionally mediated benefits are as vulnerable to capture from powerful institutions as they are from local elites. Through the cases, I argue that development assistance is more effective and equitable when farmers are able to influence the elements and distribution of benefits.