Liquid accountability: Water as a common, public and private good in the Peruvian Andes

Karsten Paerregaard
Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden; karsten.paerregaard@globalstudies.gu.se

ABSTRACT: Taking its point of departure from the debate on 'water as commodity' versus 'water as commons', the article compares recent changes in the water governance of two rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. It draws on the anthropological tradition of controlled comparison to examine the different ways that the state and other external agents have accelerated the commodification of water in these communities and challenged their notions of water rights and water accountability. The article suggests that water is commodified through three kinds of transaction: as tribute-for-usage, which is used to manage water as a common good; as tax/tariff-for-right, which is used to manage water as a public good; and as ticket-for-product, which is used to manage water as a private good. It argues that Peru’s water users, rather than considering these three types of transactions to be conflicting forms of accountability, view them as complementary relations of exchange with the agents that control the water flow in their communities and regulate their water supply. It also proposes that, rather than being a one-way process that moves from communal control towards commercialisation and privatisation, the commodification of water is inherent in the water management of Peru’s highland communities. The article concludes that in a time of climate change and growing water scarcity the communities are keeping as many options open as possible. Managing water as at the same time a common, public and private good, and accounting for their water use to not one but several water providers, is therefore an important priority for these communities.

KEYWORDS: Water management, water accountability, water as commons, commodification of water, ethnographic comparison, Peru, Andes

Making the megaproject: Water infrastructure and hydrocracy at the public-private interface in Peru

Susann Baez Ullberg
Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; susann.baez.ullberg@antro.uu.se

ABSTRACT: To meet an increasing industrial and urban demand for water in a context of water scarcity in Peru, the state has invested heavily in hydraulic megaprojects to ensure water supply to citizens and corporations. The Majes Siguas Special Project (PEMS) in the Arequipa Region is an example of such a water infrastructure project. While the first stage of PEMS, built in the 1980s, was financed and run by the Peruvian government, the second stage that is currently underway is being co-financed and built by a private transnational consortium that will run the infrastructure for 20 years. This can be understood as a process of temporary commodification of the water infrastructure and places the hydraulic megaproject at the heart of tensions between seeing water infrastructure as public utility and seeing it as private provision. This article asks how this tension between public and private is played out in practice within the hydraulic bureaucracy and examines ethnographically how the Majes Siguas Special Project is made over time by way of the everyday practices of experts. The study finds that these experts anticipate the potential political effects of temporary commodification of water infrastructures to be both a risk and a distinct possibility. The article argues that building, maintaining and managing hydraulic megaprojects are far from straightforward processes, but should instead be understood as open-ended experimental reconfigurations that the hydrocracy deals with through contingent practices of knowledge.

KEYWORDS: Megaprojects, water infrastructures, public-private partnerships, build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, temporary commodification, hydrocracy, expertise, Majes Siguas Special Project, Peru

The formalisation of water use and conditional ownership in Colca Valley, Peru

Astrid B. Stensrud
Department of Global Development and Planning, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway; astrid.stensrud@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article discusses the production and negotiation of water ownership among peasant farmers in the Majes-Colca watershed in southern Peru, where the public water administration initiated a process of formalising user rights for potable water in 2011. While a large-scale irrigation project channels water from the headwaters to export-oriented agriculture in the desert, the supply of water is getting scarcer because of climate change. The Peruvian water resources law from 2009 acknowledges water as public property, yet emphasises its economic value and encourages private investment. The farmers in the highlands see water not only as a resource but also as a life-giving force provided by the mountain-beings to the humans living in their domains. Seeing ownership as an on-going and dynamic process, and 'commoning' as made by practices of nurture, the article argues that conditional forms of ownership emerge from relationships of reciprocity between humans and other-than-human beings. These are modes of ownership that exceed the dichotomies of private-public, commons-commodity and subject-object.

KEYWORDS: Water, ownership, formalisation, the state, nurture, Andes, Peru

Water as more than commons or commodity: Understanding water management practices in Yanque, Peru

Malene K. Brandshaug
Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden; malene.brandshaug@gu.se

ABSTRACT: Global warming, shrinking glaciers and water scarcity pose challenges to the governance of fresh water in Peru. On the one hand, Peruʼs water management regime and its legal framework allow for increased private involvement in water management, commercialisation and, ultimately, commodification of water. On the other hand, the state and its 2009 Water Resource Law emphasise that water is public property and a common good for its citizens. This article explores how this seeming paradox in Peruʼs water politics unfolds in the district of Yanque in the southern Peruvian Andes. Further, it seeks to challenge a commons/commodity binary found in water management debates and to move beyond the underlying hegemonic view of water as a resource. Through analysing state-initiated practices and practices of a more-than-human commoning – that is, practices not grounded in a human/nature divide, where water and other non-humans participate as sentient persons – the article argues that in Yanque many versions of water emerge through the heterogeneous practices that are entangled in water management.

KEYWORDS: Water, water management, commodification, more-than-human commoning, uncommons, Andes, Peru

Green infrastructure in informal settlements through a multiple-level perspective

Loan Diep
University College London, London, United Kingdom; loan.diep.10@ucl.ac.uk

David Dodman
Human Settlements Group, International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK; david.dodman@iied.org

Priti Parikh
University College London, London, United Kingdom; priti.parikh@ucl.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to highlight limits in the current conceptualisation and implementation of urban Green Infrastructure (GI), particularly in informal settlements. We propose a Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) that helps analyse and identify opportunities to overcome such limits. The article starts by discussing the concept of GI and proposes its definition through the principles of multifunctionality, interlinkages and exchange. Recognising current gaps in implementation in the context of informal settlements, we argue for the better understanding of the range of socio-political conditions which enable or impede GI practices. To reflect on these gaps, the article uses MLP to explore persisting socio-ecological-infrastructural problems in water management, which could be perpetuated through current GI practices. MLP is used as a heuristic framework to analyse influencing factors that exist at multiple interconnected societal and bio-physical levels. The framework is applied to the city of São Paulo in Brazil where traditional water management has resulted in tensions between social and ecological systems between the regime (which encompasses institutional structures) and the niche (where innovations emerge, for example through grassroots movements). Examples of community initiatives are used that demonstrate a disconnection between top-down structures and everyday practices. We conclude that if GI presents the potential to support a transition towards water management that benefits both social and ecological systems, further characterisation of the concept is required.

KEYWORDS: Green infrastructure, informal settlements, sustainability transitions, multi-level perspective, São Paulo, Brazil

Irrigation and equality: An integrative gender-analytical approach to water governance with examples from Ethiopia and Argentina

Laura Imburgia
University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, United Kingdom; l.imburgia@pgr.reading.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes the use of an integrative framework for better conceptualisation and operationalisation of research geared toward understanding irrigation systems, practices and processes, especially as relates to gender equality in water governance. More specifically, it discusses the importance of developing an integrative gender-analytical approach that enables both researchers and practitioners to analyse the complex interactions between technical and social dimensions of water governance, in order to determine how they contribute to, and thus effect, the overall success and sustainability of irrigated agriculture. Consequently, this paper provides a detailed account of the framework’s key components; including how it is informed by feminist, ecological and sociological theories. There is also an account of the framework’s practical application through a focus on specific outcomes in the dynamic field of water governance. To this end, the paper presents some results derived from an application of the integrative gender-analytical framework on data from a comparative study of small-scale irrigation systems in Ethiopia and Argentina. Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to promote a more nuanced and holistic approach to the study of water governance—one that takes both social and technical dimensions into similar account; particularly, if the aim is to promote broader social equality and the sustainability of irrigation systems.

KEYWORDS: Small-scale irrigation, gender-analytical framework, water governance, social relations, Ethiopia, Argentina

Investments in innovative urban sanitation – Decision-making processes in Sweden

Maria Lennartsson
Research and Development Coordinator, City of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden; maria.lennartsson@extern.stockholm.se

Jennifer McConville
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden; jennifer.mcconville@slu.se

Elisabeth Kvarnström
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden; elisabeth.kvarnstrom@ri.se

Marinette Hagman
Northwestern Skånes Water and Wastewater Municipal Company, Helsingborg, Sweden; hamse.kjerstadius@nsva.se

Hamse Kjerstadius
Northwestern Skånes Water and Wastewater Municipal Company, Helsingborg, Sweden; marinette.hagman@nsva.se

ABSTRACT: This paper studies decision-making processes in relation to the implementation of innovative source-separating wastewater systems in the development area of Helsingborg called H+, and the non-implementation of the same in Stockholm Royal Seaport. Two analytical perspectives were used to identify critical organisational functions, drivers for change and the anchoring of these decisions within policy: (i) a sustainability transitions framework, and (ii) a policy trickle-down study assessing policy-concept uptake by stakeholders. Critical functions supporting implementation of source-separating systems in H+ were: common vision, leadership, cross-sectoral cooperation, and an innovative approach both within the utility and in the city administration in Helsingborg. In Stockholm, with regard to source-separating wastewater systems, there was a lack of common vision and of cross-sectoral cooperation and leadership. This was also evident in the lack of uptake by stakeholders of the policies for source separation. In Helsingborg, the main drivers for source-separating wastewater systems are increased biogas generation and improved potential for nutrient recycling. In Stockholm, these drivers have not been enough to create change, but the potential for increased heat recovery from greywater at source may be the additional driver necessary for future implementation of source-separating wastewater systems. Comparison of the stalled source-separation policy in Stockholm with a successfully implemented policy in a related field found a key criteria to be the presence of inspired individuals in positions where they had the mandate as well as the ability to create a common vision for change.

KEYWORDS: Wastewater, resource recovery, source separation, sustainable urban development, Sweden

Hybrid constellations of water access in the digital age: The case of Jisomee Mita in Soweto-Kayole, Nairobi

Prince K. Guma
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; p.k.guma@uu.nl

Jochen Monstadt
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; j.monstadt@uu.nl

Sophie Schramm
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; s.schramm@uu.nl

ABSTRACT: The digital age has reshaped the supply of infrastructure services in African cities. Over the last decade, Nairobi’s water sector has opened up to infrastructure investments enabled by the uptake and integration of digital technologies. These investments have focused on one particular group: the urban poor. This paper examines a new hybrid piped water supply project called Jisomee Mita (Read your Meter) in Soweto-Kayole, a low and average income neighbourhood in Nairobi. Jisomee Mita employs digital technologies to enable self meter reading, and mobile-phone-based billing, payment, and querying systems. In our study, we draw upon science and technology studies to show how as a globally promoted technological device, Jisomee Mita has become locally anchored and appropriated in variegated ways beyond its original design. Our study illustrates how hybrid and dynamic infrastructure constellations emerge through practices of remaking, upgrading, and expansion of centralised systems of water supply through the use of digital technologies by various actors. We argue that the ways in which actors continually modify Jisomee Mita beyond its original design reveal a tension between imaginations of active citizens as 'co-providers' of services inscribed to the project’s technologies, and the users’ own visions of citizenship. This vision, we contend, becomes apparent in the ways in which these such actors appropriate the project in unforeseen and partly subversive ways.

KEYWORDS: Water infrastructure, digital technologies, urban planning, African cities, Nairobi, Kenya

Beyond the river: Elite perceptions and regional cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin

Rawia Tawfik
Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt; and German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungs Politik, Bonn, Germany; rawia.tawfik@feps.edu.eg

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that benefit-sharing literature has assumed, rather than examined, the conditions under which cooperation over shared water resources from transboundary rivers can lead to regional cooperation in other economic sectors – cooperation 'beyond the river'. Using the case of the Eastern Nile Basin, the paper illustrates how economic cooperation between Ethiopia and Sudan has progressed in the last decade despite the lack of significant improvement in their water cooperation. Egypt and Sudan, on the other hand, have largely failed to translate their downstream hydropolitical alliance into stronger interdependencies in other economic sectors. In explaining this nonlinear relationship between water cooperation and cooperation 'beyond the river', the article explores the perceptions of political elites in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on the benefits and terms of cooperation, their assumptions as to who should set these terms and lead the cooperation process, and their ideas on the meaning of cooperation itself. It also underlines how incumbent regimes in each of the three Eastern Nile Basin countries view the possibility of collaborating with their counterparts in the Basin to reap the benefits of cooperation, and assess the impact of regional and international variables on this cooperation. In addition to secondary sources and official documents, the article is based on original and up-to-date interviews conducted with government officials and experts in Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum between September and November 2017.

KEYWORDS: Benefit sharing, hydropolitics, regional cooperation, Eastern Nile Basin, Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia

Nebraska’s Natural Resource District system: Collaborative approaches to adaptive groundwater quality governance

Gregory N. Sixt
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab; and (at the time of research) Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy – Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, Boston, MA, USA; gnsixt@gmail.com

Laurens Klerkx
Wageningen University, Knowledge Technology and Innovation Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands; laurens.klerkx@wur.nl

J. David Aiken
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Agricultural Economics, Lincoln, NE, USA; daiken@unl.edu

Timothy S. Griffin
Tufts University, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy – Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, Boston, MA, USA; timothy.griffin@tufts.edu

ABSTRACT: Nonpoint source pollution of groundwater by nitrates from agricultural activity is a persistent problem for which developing effective policy approaches has proven difficult. There is little empirical information on forms of governance or regime attributes that effectively and sustainably address agricultural nonpoint source pollution of groundwater. Nebraska’s Natural Resource District (NRD) system is a rare example of a groundwater governance regime that is putting programmes in place that are likely to generate sustainable groundwater quality outcomes. We focus on three groundwater nitrate management programmes in the state that collectively represent the broader NRD system. The research shows that four elements of Nebraska’s groundwater governance regime are fundamental to its success in addressing groundwater nitrates: 1) the local nature of governance, which builds trust among stakeholders; 2) the significant authority granted to the local districts by the state, allowing for the development of locally tailored solutions; 3) the collaborative governance approach, which allows potential scale imbalances to be overcome; and 4) the taxing authority granted to NRDs, which enables them to fund locally tailored management solutions. We find that these aspects of the NRD system have created conditions that enable adaptive, collaborative governance that positions the state well to address emerging groundwater quality challenges. We present aspects of the governance regime that are generalisable to other American states as efforts to address nitrate pollution in groundwater increase.

KEYWORDS: Groundwater quality, local governance, nested regimes, nonpoint source pollution, polycentric governance, Nebraska, USA

Re-conceptualising water conservation: Rainwater harvesting in the desert of the southwestern United States

Lucero Radonic
Department of Anthropology and Environmental Science & Policy Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA; radonicl@msu.edu

ABSTRACT: Water conservation technologies and programmes are increasingly important features of water governance in urban areas. By examining people’s situated understandings and relationships with water, this article expands research on the human dimensions of water conservation beyond its traditional focus on uptake of technologies, incentives, and single metrics for evaluation. In the American Southwest prolonged drought conditions are boosting the popularity of small-scale rainwater collection systems, which are becoming formalised primarily through water conservation programmes. In Tucson, Arizona, one such programme was a success in terms of user uptake and public support; however, paradoxically, rainwater harvesting did not always result in reduced potable water consumption. To understand why this was the case, I draw on qualitative and semi-quantitative data describing how people manage their rainwater harvesting systems and how they understand and value their diverse benefits. This study contributes to ongoing policy debates over water conservation and in particular emphasizes the need to broaden our working definition of conservation beyond volumetric reduction in potable water use. Based on the observed motivations, values and practices of water users and experts, I suggest water conservation could be understood to include factors such as the reduction of waste across all water sources and the repurposing of captured water for diverse beneficial uses in urban environments.

KEYWORDS: Water conservation, urban water governance, green infrastructure, rainwater harvesting, US Southwest, Arizona

Linking water services and human well-being through the fundamental human needs framework: The case of India

Francesco M. Gimelli
School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Australia; francesco.gimelli@gmail.com

Briony C. Rogers
School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Australia; briony.rogers@monash.edu

Joannette J. Bos
Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University, Australia; annette.bos@monash.edu

ABSTRACT: Although the focus of water development in urban informal settlements has traditionally been on improving public health, development scholarship increasingly emphasises the relationship between water services and multiple dimensions of human well-being. Nevertheless, how well-being is defined in the literature remains unclear, leaving questions about what dimensions of it are to be fostered through water service development. In this paper, we argue that prominent interpretations of well-being in the water sector do not adequately represent the range of impacts of water services on the ability of informal settlers to meet their needs beyond survival. To address this gap, we make the case for the adoption of Max-Neef’s (1992) Fundamental Human Needs (FHN) framework in the water sector, which we show to present a clear, holistic and dynamic understanding of well-being. Through a case study of water service arrangements across six informal settlements in the Indian cities of Faridabad, Delhi and Mumbai, we illustrate how using the FHN framework uncovers potential pathways by which water service development can satisfy a broad range of fundamental human needs. Applying the FHN framework to these settings leads us to argue that: 1) water services should be linked to people’s aspirations as well as to their basic physical needs; 2) cultivating well-being has both intrinsic and instrumental benefits that enable individuals to become more resilient; 3) water services should be better linked with other development sectors; and 4) non-traditional water service arrangements should be re-evaluated according to their capacity to contribute to people’s well-being.

KEYWORDS: Urban informal settlements, water services, well-being, fundamental human needs, India

India’s development cooperation in Bhutan’s hydropower sector: Concerns and public perceptions

Udisha Saklani
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom; us267@cam.ac.uk

Cecilia Tortajada
Institute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore; cecilia.tortajada@nus.edu.sg

ABSTRACT: The global landscape of international development is undergoing a rapid transition, with emerging actors playing a significant role in meeting the developmental needs of developing-country partners. Over the past six decades, India has emerged as a major donor and development partner, directing a significant share of its assistance and investments to countries in South Asia. This paper provides an overview of Indiaʼs development cooperation with Bhutan, the largest and one of the oldest beneficiaries of Indian assistance, with special attention to the hydropower sector. In recent years, the scale of Indiaʼs disbursement and development cooperation activities in Bhutan has come under scrutiny. In this paper, we document the official views, and those of the international organisations and the media in India and Bhutan, on the possible repercussions of these activities in the near, medium and long term and how the different concerns are being addressed. We argue that in future India will have to work harder to alleviate the key concerns of stakeholders in Bhutan regarding Indiaʼs growing investments there.

KEYWORDS: Hydropower, energy development, public perception, development assistance, India, Bhutan

Liquid violence: The politics of water responsibilisation and dispossession in South Africa

Michela Marcatelli
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; mmarcatelli@sun.ac.za

Bram Büscher
Wageningen University, The Netherlands; Visiting Professor Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies University of Johannesburg; Research Associate Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology Stellenbosch University; bram.buscher@wur.nl

ABSTRACT: This article introduces the notion of liquid violence to explain structural and racialised water inequality in contemporary South Africa. Investigating the Waterberg region in Limpopo Province from a water perspective reveals a growing surplus population composed of (ex-)farm workers and their families. Following their relocation – often coerced – from the farms to the town of Vaalwater, these people have been forced to rely on a precarious water supply, while white landowners maintain control over abundant water resources. And yet, as we show, this form of structural violence is perceived as ordinary, even natural. Our biopolitical concept of liquid violence emphasises how this works out and is legitimised in empirical practice. The argument starts from the neoliberal idea that water access depends upon the individual responsibilisation of citizens. For the black working poor, this means accepting to pay for water services or to provide labour on farms. For white landowners, it implies tightening their exclusive control over water and resisting any improvement to the urban supply involving the redistribution of resources. Supported and enabled by the state, liquid violence operates by reworking the boundaries between the public and private spheres. On the one hand, it blurs them by transforming the provision of public water services into a market exchange. On the other hand, and paradoxically, it hardens those same boundaries by legitimising and strengthening the power of those who have property rights in water.

KEYWORDS: Individual responsibilisation, property rights, violence, water, South Africa

Cultural political economy of irrigation management in northeastern Ethiopia: The case of the Kobo-Girana Valley Development Programme

Million Gebreyes
Development Geography, Institute of Geography, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany; milliongeb@gmail.com

Detlef Müller-Mahn
Institute of Geography, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany; mueller-mahn@uni-bonn.de

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to extend a 'politicised' understanding of irrigation management using theoretical perspectives in political ecology and cultural political economy. The paper is based on a case study of the Kobo-Girana Valley Development Program in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Data was collected in the course of 20 in-depth interviews, 10 expert interviews, seven focus group discussions, and field observations. The findings of the study show that irrigation management in the Ethiopian context is a highly political enterprise involving heterogeneous state-sector offices, local irrigation users, and other actors. The state uses the hegemony of its developmental state political ideology and various governmentality mechanisms to contain the irrigation management process. Irrigation users react with a variety of counter-hegemonic strategies to resist the state’s containment measures. Such an understanding of irrigation management could help us to refocus our attention away from the conventional technologies and institutions that dominate irrigation management studies, and towards the dimensions of power and politics.

KEYWORDS: Cultural political economy, irrigation, state-society, politics, coordination, Ethiopia

Grounded and global: Water infrastructure development and policymaking in the Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar

Benoit Ivars
University of Köln, Germany; benoit.ivars@uni-koeln.de

Jean-Philippe Venot
UMR G-EAU, IRD, Univ Montpellier, France; and Royal University of Agriculture, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; jean-philippe.venot@ird.fr

ABSTRACT: Seen as hotspots of vulnerability in the face of external pressures such as sea level rise, upstream water development, and extreme weather events but also of in situ dynamics such as increasing water use by local residents and demographic growth, deltas are high on the international science and development agenda. What emerges in the literature is the image of a 'global delta' that lends itself to global research and policy initiatives and their critique. We use the concept of 'boundary object' to critically reflect on the emergence of this global delta. We analyse the global delta in terms of its underpinning discourses, narratives, and knowledge generation dynamics, and through examining the politics of delta-oriented development and aid interventions. We elaborate this analytical argument on the basis of a 150-year historical analysis of water infrastructure development and policymaking in the Ayeyarwady Delta, paying specific attention to recent attempts at developing an Integrated Ayeyarwady Delta Strategy (IADS) and the role that the development of this strategy has played in the 'making' of the Ayeyarwady Delta as a global delta. This lays the groundwork for a broader critique of recent efforts to promote a 'Dutch Delta Approach' internationally, which we contend not only contributes to, but also aims at, making this global delta a boundary object. Such efforts play a key role in structuring an ever-expanding actor network supporting delta research and (sustainable/integrated) development. However, the making of a boundary object such as the global delta also hinges on depoliticising (delta) development. This, we consider to be problematic notably in the context of Myanmar where land and water politics have strongly shaped the changes the Ayeyarwady Delta has and will continue to witness.

KEYWORDS: Boundary object, actor network, knowledge production, discourse, Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar

The Yarmouk tributary to the Jordan River I: Agreements Impeding equitable transboundary water arrangements

Mark Zeitoun
School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; m.zeitoun@uea.ac.uk

Chadi Abdallah
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Beirut, Lebanon; chadi@cnrs.edu.lb

Muna Dajani
Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK; m.d.dajani@lse.ac.uk

Saʼeb Khresat
Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan; khresats@gmail.com

Heather Elaydi
Independent researcher; heather.elaydi@gmail.com

Amani Alfarra
Independent researcher; amani.alfarra@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article explores the ways in which two international water agreements on the Yarmouk tributary to the Jordan River induce or impede transformation to equitable transboundary water arrangements. The agreements in question were reached between Jordan and Syria in 1987, and between Jordan and Israel in 1994. Following a brief review of theory and a summary of the body of knowledge on 'model' agreements, the article combines official river-gauging data with interviews and textual analysis to query the text and role of the agreements, particularly in relation to key dams and other infrastructure. Both agreements are found to i) lack important clauses that could govern groundwater abstraction, environmental concerns, water quality, and the ability to adapt to changing water quality, availability and need; and ii) include both ambiguous and rigid clauses that result in generally inequitable allocation of water and thus of the benefits derived from its use. Due to their omissions and to their reflection of the asymmetries in power between the states, both agreements are found to be 'blind' to existing use, to be incapable of dealing with urgent governance needs, and to impede more equitable arrangements.

KEYWORDS: Jordan River, Yarmouk, transboundary water politics, water treaties, water agreements, hydro-hegemony, Jordan, Syria, Israel

The Yarmouk tributary to the Jordan River II: Infrastructure impeding the transformation of equitable transboundary water arrangements

Mark Zeitoun
School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; m.zeitoun@uea.ac.uk

Muna Dajani
Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK; m.d.dajani@lse.ac.uk

Chadi Abdallah
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Beirut, Lebanon; chadi@cnrs.edu.lb

Saʼeb Khresat
Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan; khresats@gmail.com

Heather Elaydi
Independent researcher; heather.elaydi@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article explores the ways in which key components of infrastructure built on the Yarmouk tributary to the Jordan River induce or impede the transformation of existing transboundary water arrangements. Focussing on the Jordanian-Israeli Adassiyeh Weir and on the Jordanian-Syrian Wehdeh Dam, the article interprets archival documents, official river-gauging data, and interviews through a frame that highlights depoliticisation by hydrocracies within the politics of international infrastructure. The weir is found to be operated in a manner that prioritises Jordanʼs commitment to Israel when flows are low, and to be designed to bound the volume that Jordan can make use of during low or very high flows. The dam appears oversized but regulates the flow to the downstream weir when its reservoir does not lie empty. The design and operation of the infrastructure is found to partially and selectively depoliticise contentious transboundary water issues in a manner that privileges the more powerful actors. Transformation of the arrangements is impeded as the distribution and use of the flows is not questioned by the water authorities or the international diplomatic community, and alternative arrangements are not considered.

KEYWORDS: Jordan River, Yarmouk, transboundary water, treaties, agreements, international infrastructure, power, Jordan, Syria, Israel

Cultural Political Economy and critical water studies: An introduction to the Special Themed Section

Peter P. Mollinga
SOAS University of London, London, UK; pm35@soas.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: The attraction of taking a Cultural Political Economy (CPE) perspective in the analysis of questions related to water use, management and governance is threefold: (i) CPE is an effort to capture the multidimensionality of social dynamics by emphasising the cultural dimension of political economy and then investigating the internal relations of these different dimensions; (ii) CPE addresses both the structure and agency dimensions of social reproduction and transformation; it proposes a particular (strategic-relational) way of studying the two in an interlinked manner; (iii) the object of (most) CPE analysis – the state – is highly relevant to water studies, as the state is a, if not the, central actor in water governance and state action as regards water resources is increasingly set in the context of globalisation and neoliberalisation.

KEYWORDS: Critical water studies, Cultural Political Economy

Political culture in water governance – A theoretical framework

Nadine Reis
El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Demográficos, Urbanos y Ambientales (CEDUA), Mexico City; nreis@colmex.mx

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to contribute to a Cultural Political Economy (CPE) of water governance by focusing on the role of political culture in water governance. It develops a conceptual understanding of political culture and a theoretical framework for using political culture as a concept in a CPE of water governance. Three theoretical building blocks are used. First, I use Bob Jessopʼs elaborations on a relational understanding of state power, which emphasises the critical role of processes of legitimacy creation for any hegemonic state project. Second, Margaret Archerʼs understanding of culture as 'cultural system' is used in order to conceptualise the notion of 'culture' from a critical realist perspective. By understanding 'culture' as an equivalent to the concept of 'structure', it becomes possible to evade an empiricist or statist concept of culture. Political cultures can then be defined as systems of meaning comprising propositions about political legitimacy. Third, I draw on Gabriel A. Almondʼs and Sidney Verbaʼs ideas on political culture, and present three dimensions of political culture that are relevant in the analysis of water governance: system culture, process culture and policy culture. The concepts are illustrated with case study material from Vietnam and with other cases from the literature.

KEYWORDS: Cultural Political Economy, political culture, state power, state legitimacy, water governance