Governing the Commons

The difficulty in defining a field for the so-called institutional economics is the uncertainty of meaning of an institution. Sometimes an institution seems to mean a framework of laws or natural rights within which individuals act like inmates. Sometimes it seems to mean the behavior of the inmates themselves. Sometimes anything additional to or critical of the classical or hedonic economics is deemed to be institutional. Sometimes anything that is "economic behavior" is institutional. Sometimes anything that is "dynamic" instead of "static," or a "process" instead of commodities, or activity instead of feelings, or mass action instead of individual action, or management instead of equilibrium, or control instead of laissez faire, seems to be institutional economics.

On Institutional Economics

The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale . By Oran R. Young. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. 221p. $55.00 cloth, $21.95 paper

Economics of Outdoor Recreation

Integrated water resources management provides a set of ideas to help us manage water more holistically. However, these ideas have been formalized over time in what has now become, in capitals, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), with specific prescriptive principles whose implementation is often supported by donor funding and international advocacy. IWRM has now become an end in itself, in some cases undermining functioning water management systems, in others setting back needed water reform agendas, and in yet others becoming a tool to mask other agendas. Critically, the current monopoly of IWRM in global water management discourse is shutting out alternative thinking on pragmatic solutions to existing water problems. This paper explains these issues and uses examples of transboundary water governance in general, groundwater management in India and rural–urban water transfer in China to show that there are (sometimes antithetical) alternatives to IWRM which are being successfully used to solve...

From IWRM back to integrated water resources management

In 2000, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) as the main advocate of the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), proposed a definition that is now the reference, despite the ambiguity that persists in its interpretation. At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the State representatives committed themselves to launch "plans for integrated water resources management and water efficiency by 2005". Some states immediately honoured this commitment by adopting new national water policies inspired by IWRM principles. Do these implementation plans respond to all the challenges of the IWRM? Or have these states simply reorganized their water resource policies to give an impression of conforming to the framework? In response to these questions, we present a history of IWRM and its conflicting interpretations followed by a case study of reforms enacted in Burkina Faso, to highlight some problems which are inherent to IWRM and how IWRM was transposed on a national scale.

Integrated Water Resources Management: From general principles to its implementation by the state. The case of Burkina Faso

The notion of hydrosolidarity has permeated international discourses on water management, but it has received little comprehensive review. This paper traces the intellectual origins of hydrosolidarity and it explores how the concept has been applied by water scholars, organizations and in global water venues, like World Water Forums. Evolving conceptions and meanings of hydrosolidarity are presented and its kinship to related, sometimes oppositional terms, untangled. In particular, it explores how hydrosolidarity has evolved to serve as a socio-ethical annex to integrated water resources management. The paper concludes by examining some critiques and addressing the potential of hydrosolidarity in water management.

Hydrosolidarity and beyond: can ethics and equity find a place in today's water resource management?

Afin de prevenir la surexploitation des eaux souterraines et de resoudre les conflits d'usage, deux solutions ont traditionnellement ete proposees par les economistes : le marche et l'Etat Aujourd'hui, compte tenu de l'implication croissante des usagers dans la gestion de l'eau, une telle dichotomie ne semble plus operante Face a cette mutation, notre recherche vise a reconsiderer la gouvernance des eaux souterraines, dans une perspective de developpement durable Nous appelons gouvernance, le compromis qui s'etablit entre la coordination des actions individuelles (approche marchande) et deux formes distinctes d'action collective que nous denommons action collective d'interet public (intervention publique) et action collective d'interet communautaire La coordination des actions individuelles est analysee sous l'angle d'une critique de la theorie des droits de propriete et de la ‘‘nouvelle economie des ressources'', puis par le biais d'une confrontation de points de vue sur le fonctionnement des marches de l'eau Par ailleurs, l'examen attentif de l'action collective d'interet public nous permet d'identifier trois formes distinctes : hierarchique, incitative et participative Nous engageons ensuite une reflexion sur l'action collective d'interet communautaire, en mobilisant conjointement l'institutionnalisme et le courant de la propriete commune L'etude de la gouvernance des eaux souterraines en France (et plus particulierement de la nappe de Beauce) revele la necessite d'organiser l'information et de favoriser la communication au sein des communautes d'usagers A cette fin, nous proposons la construction et l'utilisation du logiciel NAPTIC, qui cherche a confronter les valeurs et les pratiques, pour accompagner la concertation sur la gouvernance durable des eaux souterraines

https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00386474/document

De la coordination des actions individuelles aux formes de l'action collective: une exploration des modes de gouvernance des eaux souterraines

In the last 50 years, the study of groundwater governance has given birth to rich and differentiated analytical approaches. This article proposes an exchange between the main heuristic viewpoints, results and theses of three approaches which studied groundwater governance: the study of groundwater governance as collective action initiated by E. Ostrom, the analysis made by T. Shah on informal groundwater economies and the works of A. Prakash, A. Mukherji and T. Birkenholtz drawing on political ecology. The aquifers on which each approach originally built its analysis played a key role in the design of analytical frameworks which, in the case of the first two approaches, were later applied to a much larger set of cases. The three approaches share many commonalities in their heuristic methods. However, they differ in the content of governance systems recommended to achieve sustainable groundwater use, and especially in the benefits of involving water users in the implementation of governance. Therefore, they also differ on what should be the focus of academic analyses. It is thus of interest to organize joint readings of cases of groundwater governance and to discuss the contents of research programs able to provide fruitful analyses of these cases, based on local specificities.

Convergent readings of groundwater governance? engaging exchanges between different research perspectives

/pdf/convergent-readings-of-groundwater-governance-engaging-42ohcme1px.pdf

Olivier Petit

Papers

Integrated Water Resources Management: From general principles to its implementation by the state. The case of Burkina Faso

Hydrosolidarity and beyond: can ethics and equity find a place in today's water resource management?

De la coordination des actions individuelles aux formes de l'action collective: une exploration des modes de gouvernance des eaux souterraines

Convergent readings of groundwater governance? engaging exchanges between different research perspectives

Convergent readings of groundwater governance? engaging exchanges between different research perspectives