Water governance in the twentieth-first century

Ambiente & Sociedade

José Esteban Castro¹ 

[1] ,Newcastle University School of Geography, Politics and Sociology ,UK

关键词: Water governance;    Citizenship;    Water inequality;    Water injustice;    Water crisis;    Water conflicts;    Water and sanitation;    Governança da água;    Cidadania;    Direito da água;    Conflitos pela água;    Mercadorizaçao da água;    Crise da água;    Água e saneamento;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1414-753X2007000200007

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

It is widely ackowledged that the world water crisis is mainly a crisis of governance. However, there is no shared understanding of what "governance" means, how it works, who are its actors. The prevailing conceptions of governance in mainstream water policy documents tend to be instrumental and idealistic. Perhaps the most important consequence of instrumental and idealistic understandings of governance is the rhetorical depoliticization of what is, paradoxically, a political process. The main mechanism of this "depoliticization" of governance" is the exclusion of the ends and values informing water policy from the debate. Instrumental and idealistic understandings of governance constitute a major obstacle for the scientific understanding of the process and for achieving success in policy interventions directed at tackling the water crisis. The paper argues for the development of a balance between the techno-scientific, socio-economic, political, and cultural aspects of water management activities, which may help in superseding the artificial separation of water research and practice in disciplinary and corporatist feuds.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC   
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