The Hydraulic Mission and the Mexican Hydrocracy: Regulating and Reforming the Flows of Water and Power

In Mexico, the hydraulic mission, the centralisation of water control, and the growth of the federal hydraulic bureaucracy (hydrocracy) recursively shaped and reinforced each other during the 20th century. The hydraulic mission entails that the state, embodied in an autonomous hydrocracy, takes the lead in water resources development to capture as much water as possible for human uses. The hydraulic mission was central to the formation of Mexico’s hydrocracy, which highly prized its autonomy. Bureaucratic rivals, political transitions, and economic developments recurrently challenged the hydrocracy’s degree of autonomy. However, driven by the argument that a single water authority should regulate and control the nation’s waters, the hydrocracy consistently managed to renew its, always precarious, autonomy at different political moments in the country’s history. The legacy of the hydraulic mission continues to inform water reforms in Mexico, and largely explains the strong resilience of the Mexican hydrocracy to "deep" institutional change and political transitions. While the emphasis on infrastructure construction has lessened, the hydrocracy has actively renewed its control over water decisions and budgets and has played a remarkably constant, hegemonic role in defining and shaping Mexico’s water laws, policies and institutions

The success of a policy model: Irrigation management transfer in Mexico

This thesis studies the emergence, process and outcomes of the Mexican policy of Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT). Under the influence of neo-liberal government policies, the transfer of government-managed irrigation districts to water users' associations (WUAs) has radically changed irrigation management inMexicoduring the past fifteen years. Internationally,Mexico's IMT programme has been heralded as a success and has drawn widespread attention because of its rapid implementation. Consequently, it has been propagated as a model for other countries seeking to improve the performance of their public irrigation systems and cut burgeoning public expenditures. This study firstly critically examines the emergence of this policy model and its proclaimed success. Secondly, it discusses the impacts this has on everyday irrigation management. On the one hand, the thesis offers a comprehensive analysis of the entire life cycle of the IMT policy. It traces the idea of transfer back to its bureaucratic roots and reviews how the idea gained political commitment as the consequence of a prolonged bureaucratic struggle. This shows that the IMT policy has a fascinating history that it is tied up with the past and the future of the hydraulic bureaucracy (involved with hydraulic resources and water management). The formerly influential and autonomous Ministry of Water Resources lost its autonomy and its control over the irrigation districts inMexicowhen it was merged halfway the 1970s with the agricultural bureaucracy (responsible for the agricultural sector). At the end of the 1980s, the IMT policy played an important role in the reconstitution of the hydraulic bureaucracy in the Comisión Nacional del Agua (CNA: National Water Commission), which regained autonomy and control over the irrigation districts.On the other hand, this book takes a close look at the everyday organisational practices that have emerged in a WUA around the strategic resources of water, maintenance machinery and irrigation fees. It shows how a political group based in a WUA maintains a network of political and institutional relations by controlling this set of resources. The contribution of this thesis as a whole to the study of policy reform and irrigation management is that it consistently analyses them as political practices that are also expressive of the cultural dimension of human action and social ordering

Cultural Performance, Resource Flows and Passion in Politics: A Situational Analysis of an Election Rally in Western Mexico

This article contributes to a growing body of literature that questions state-centred approaches to analysing politics, adopting a more de-centred and cultural perspective. It does so by presenting a situational analysis and detailed ethnography of a local election rally in Western Mexico. The analysis of this event as a cultural performance highlights the dramatic enactment of culturally significant acts as a central part of electoral behaviour and shows how everyday organisational life, resource flows, public ritual and passion play a part in politics. That such acts are not merely symbolic is demonstrated by what occurs behind the scenes of political ritual: a local political group appropriates a Water Users' Association and draws on its staff, facilities, resources and wider power relations for its political campaign. Such practices also indicate the unanticipated outcomes of recent administrative decentralisation reforms. New producer organisations created by these reforms to administer former government tasks more efficiently are appropriated politically, not simply in an instrumental, but also in a culturally specific manner

The Practices and Politics of Making Policy: Irrigation Management Transfer in Mexico

This article argues that policy making is an interactive and ongoing process that transcends the spatio-temporal boundaries drawn by a linear, rational or instrumental model of policy. We construct this argument by analysing the making of the Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) policy in Mexico in the early 1990s, focusing on different episodes of its re-emergence, standardisation, and acceleration. During this period a standardised policy package was developed, consisting of a set of specific policy technologies to effect the transfer to Water Users’ Associations (WUAs). These technologies were assembled in response to geographically dispersed trials of strength: experiments, consultations and clashes in the field, and negotiations at the national and international level. A newly installed public water authority increasingly succeeded in coordinating the convergence and accumulation of dispersed experiences and ideas on how to make the transfer work. Our analysis shows how this composite package of policy technologies worked to include a network of support and to exclude opposition at different levels, while at the same time stabilising an interpretation of policy-related events. In this way the policy gathered momentum and was 'made to succeed

The pivotal role of canal operators in irrigation schemes: The case of the Canalero

This paper presents empirical material of the role of canal operators, canaleros, in one irrigation scheme in Mexico over a period of two decades. The open canal infrastructures are fitted with manually operated adjustable gates and intakes. During the period of observation, both management set-up and the canal infrastructure changed. The case of the canalero shows how low-ranked field personnel play an important role in scheduling and implementing water distribution. The canalero emerges as a key actor who makes the system work. Canaleros have created their own semi-autonomous field of action; an area of competence from which they derive a certain degree of authority. The case study findings are compared with relevant published sources complemented with electronic interviews with experts. In large- and medium-scale open canal irrigation systems with flexible and manually operated irrigation devices, positions similar to those of the canalero exist. Canal operators seem to play similar key roles yet no systematic review or comparative analysis of their position exists. This paper makes a first contribution to explain why such field level staff can perform such significant roles and continue to do so

Organising Water Education Regionally: the Innovations, Experiences and Challenges of three Southern Water Networks

The paper presents and contrasts the experiences and challenges of three Regional Water Education Networks in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) - WaterNet (Southern and Eastern Africa), Crossing Boundaries (South Asia) and Concertacion (Andes, Latin America). These continental water networks emerged in the new millennium primarily out of dissatisfaction with traditional North-South development and scientific cooperation. Rather than concentrating on centres of excellence that provide universal one-size-fits-all-models, these regional networks of knowledge centres set out to develop a contextual knowledge base on water resources management and build capacity in accordance with regional training needs. These collaborative partnerships have now gained experience in training a new generation of water professionals, who have learnt to appreciate the regional diversity in water problems and design relevant solutions for their regions, often in cooperation with local stakeholders. In this paper, we document and discuss the experiences of these regional networks, focusing especially on the networks' different approaches to 1) interdisciplinary and gender approaches, 2) the connection between capacity development, research and policy advocacy