Abstract Evidence-based policy guidance necessary for addressing mixed outcomes of community-based rangeland management (CBRM) is limited, dominated by case studies, and lacking coverage of diverse ecological settings. In remedy, we studied 65 traditional neighborhoods and 77 formally-organized CBRM groups across four ecological zones and investigated how and when CBRM obtains greater social outcomes than non-CBRM neighborhoods. We measured pastoralists’ social capital, rangeland management practices, and behavior using a mixed-methods approach including qualitative interviews, focus groups, and quantitative questionnaires of 706 herder households. We applied a conditional process analysis method, novel to CBRM studies, to investigate potential mechanisms by which CBRM