State transformation and policy networks: The challenging implementation of new water policy paradigms in post-apartheid South Africa

Magalie Bourblanc
Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), UMR G-Eau, Montpellier, France; and GovInn, Department of Political Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa magalie.bourblanc@cirad.fr

ABSTRACT: For many years, South Africa had represented a typical example of a hydrocracy. Following the democratic transition in South Africa, however, new policy paradigms emerged, supported by new political elites from the ANC. A reform of the water policy was one of the priorities of the new Government, but with little experience in water management, they largely relied on 'international best practices' in the water sector, although some of these international principles did not perfectly fit the South African water sector landscape. In parallel, a reform called 'transformation' took place across all public organisations with the aim of allowing public administrations to better reflect the racial components in South African society. As a result, civil engineers lost most of their power within the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation (DWS). However, despite these changes, demand-side management has had difficulties in materializing on the ground. The paper aims at discussing the resilience of supply-side management within the Ministry, despite its new policy orientation. Using a policy network concept, the paper shows that the supply-side approach still prevails today, due to the outsourcing of most DWS tasks to consulting firms with whom DWS engineers have nourished a privileged relationship since the 1980s. The article uses the decision-making process around the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) Phase 2 as an emblematic case study to illustrate such developments. This policy network, which has enjoyed so much influence over DWS policies and daily activities, is now being contested. As a consequence, we argue that the fate of the LHWP Phase 2 is ultimately linked to a competition between this policy network and a political one.

KEYWORDS: Policy network, State transformation, water demand management, hydraulic mission, South Africa

Old wine in new bottles: The adaptive capacity of the hydraulic mission in Ecuador

Jeroen F. Warner
Sociology of Development and Change Group, Wageningen University jeroen.warner@wur.nl

Jaime Hoogesteger
Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University jaime.hoogesteger@wur.nl

Juan Pablo Hidalgo
Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), University of Amsterdam juanhidalgo_b@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT: Despite a widely embraced ecological turn and strident critique of megastructures in the 1990s, construction of large infrastructure has been reignited worldwide. While Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and River Basin Management (RBM) have at least discursively held sway as the dominant paradigm in water management since the late 1990s, we argue that the 'hydraulic mission' never really went away and has in some places energetically re-emerged. The development discourse that justified many dams in the past is now supplemented by a new set of appealing justifiers. With the help of the case of Ecuador we show that the hegemonic project of the hydraulic mission has a great discursive adaptive capacity and a new set of allies. The rise of the BRICS (especially China), South-South cooperation and private investors provides non-traditional sources of funding, making the construction of hydraulic infrastructure less dependent on Western conditionalities. The resulting governance picture highlights the disconnect between the still widely embraced policy discourse of IWRM/RBM and the drivers and practices of the hydraulic mission; questioning what value international calls for 'good water governance' have in the midst of new discourses, broader transnational political projects and the powerful dam-building alliances that underlie them.

KEYWORDS: Hydraulic mission, hydropower dams, buen vivir/sumak kawsay, Ecuador

Water management in Mexico. From concrete-heavy persistence to community-based resistance

Cindy McCulligh
Centre for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico cindymcculligh@gmail.com

Darcy Tetreault
Department of Development Studies, Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Zacatecas; Mexico darcytetreault@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: According to Mexico’s National Water Commission (CONAGUA), after dominating for 50 years, supply-side policies were replaced by demand management in the 1980s, and this focus has been superseded by 'sustainability'-oriented policies since the turn of the century, combined with greater participation in decision-making. Despite a discursive turn to demand management and a recognition of increasing environmental degradation, in this article we argue that a focus on 'concrete-heavy' projects persists, with increased private-sector participation and facing increased resistance from local communities. From the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, dam construction flourished in Mexico, not only for irrigation but increasingly for hydroelectricity and urban water supply. Since the adoption of neoliberal economic policies, from the late 1980s onward, public investment in hydraulic infrastructure has decreased but we argue that the water management model has not shifted significantly in terms of its penchant for building large dams. We review socio-environmental conflicts resulting from hydraulic infrastructure projects since the turn of the century, and analyse in greater detail the case of the Zapotillo Dam in Jalisco. We argue that these conflicts highlight the reluctance of government water authorities to shift away from water management centred on supply through large infrastructure projects, and linked to ideas of progress and development. These conflicts also highlight the increasing dissonance between official state discourse, with its stress on ecological sustainability and political participation, and the actual orientation of water policies and projects.

KEYWORDS: Water management, dams, socio-environmental conflicts, Mexico