Vocab and Themes Flashcards
Key dimensions of water
- Food production (globally 70% for agriculture)
- Industrial processes (water scarcity is a problem of hungry people)
- Energy (interdependent relationship)
- People (water drinking and sanitation)
- Ecosystems (provide and need water)
- Economic development and equity (the way water is allocated and managed impact economy)
- Natural hazards
- Climate change (changing water cycle)
- Transboundary basins (water is not confined to political borders)
- Global trade (virtual water)
Governance
a complex process that concerns multi-level participation beyond the state
Normative
The implicit understanding that there is a value in what you are describing. The normative statement is a statement that is based on moral and ethical values - i.e., stating that something is right or wrong
Polycentrism
(Ostrom) the idea that there are different centers of power that are making redundant decisions.
(Huitema) A polycentric governance system is one where political authority is dispersed to separately constituted bodies with overlapping jurisdictions that do not stand in hierarchical relationships to each other. Pro: These systems are more resilient and cope better with change/uncertainty. Con: collective decision-making is difficult and there is a loss of democratic accountability
Water Governance (Zwarteveen)
‘the practices of coordination and decision making between different actors around contested water distributions’ (Ref 7, p. 19). Such practices are thick with politics and culture; they are linked to creative processes of imagining and producing collective water futures, and combine political problems of scale (spatial, ecological, administrative, and temporal), with problems of coherence (the durable alignment of different people and different waters despite problems of commensurability and political tensions) (cf. Ref 8).
Water Governance (OECD, from Woodhouse & Muller)
“the range of political, institutional and administrative rules, practices and processes (formal and informal) through which decisions are taken and implemented, stakeholders can articulate their interests and have their concerns considered, and decision-makers are held accountable for water management”
Neoliberalism
(Harvey, 2005) a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices.
The three pillars of the neoliberal paradigm
(Harvey 2005) Deregulation, privatization, liberalization
Deregulation
Harvey (2005) Removing the social and environmental standards that constrain the activities of the market (e.g. reducing taxes, removing restrictions on pollutants, etc.)
Privatization
(Harvey 2005) When collective spaces/resources are acquired by private companies, based on the belief that private companies, not governments, should have control of public utilities and services
Liberalization
(Harvey 2005) When markets are freed (liberalized) of certain constraints for the interests of private companies
What does the process of Neoliberalization entail?
(Harvey 2005) The process of neoliberalization has, however, entailed much ‘creative destruction’, not only of prior institutional frameworks and powers (even challenging traditional forms of state sovereignty) but also of divisions of labour, social relations, welfare provisions, technological mixes, ways of life and thought, reproductive activities, attachments to the land and habits of the heart.
Keynesian thought
(Harvey 2007) The main approach guiding post-WWII development. “Development” is defined for the first time as the responsibility of America for the rest of the world. The state is responsible for governing the economy, ensuring it is well balanced between different interests (which are all represented); priority is ensuring employment, as high employment is seen as necessary for social stability
The Volcker Shock
(Harvey 2007) Volcker was the head of the US Federal Reserve, appointed in the late 1970s. In response to stagflation/the crisis of capital accumulation, he threw out Keynesian policy and increased interest rates. It ended a decade of high inflation, but brough on deep recession, high unemployment, and debt defaults in countries who had borrowed US money via the IMF/WB (especially countries in Latin America)
The salary-price spiral
If inflation rises, the level of salaries must rise as well
Inflation
When purchasing power decreases as a result of price increases
The Crisis of Capital Accumulation/”Stagflation”
(Harvey 2007) A period in the 1970s of recession, GDP stops growing, high budget deficits, unemployment and inflation both rising. The economic elites panic about losing wealth and political power. Tied to the OECD oil embargo.
The Yom Kippur War (1973)
(Harvey 2007) A “localized Israeli-Arabic war”; the reasons for it are not as important as the outcome: the OPEC oil embargo. OPEC reduced oil exports / production in retaliation against Israel and the west. Rising oil prices coincided with a western economic crisis, leading the US and UK to heavily consider military intervention to force production to resume. Was resolved via the Washington consensus, i.e., the “petrol dollars” agreement (OPEC money being moved through private US banks)
The Overthrow of Allende (Chile) (1973)
(Harvey 2007) The overthrow of Allende (democratically elected, left-wing) via a military coup that put Pinochet in power. Backed by the CIA. Pinochet then installed the “Chicago Boys” (a group of neoliberal economists) in positions of power -they changed the country’s economic policies and undertook the first national privatization of water.
Commodification
(Harvey 2007) Turning something into an economic good that would otherwise be freely available; related to privatization
Key moments in the development of Neoliberalism
(1) Late 1960s/1970s: the crisis of capital accumulation leading to rising unemployment and inflation
(2) 1973 - Chile (CIA-backed coup installing Pinochet, who brought in the Chicago Boys. They rewrote national economic policy as a “trial run” for neoliberalization; the first “experiment” of privatizing water.)
(3) 1973 - the Yom Kippur War and the OPEC Oil Embargo. The US and UK threatened military intervention, and the embargo was ended with the compromise of moving “petrol dollars” through private US banks
(4) 1979/1980: Thatcher in the UK, Reagan in the US, Volcker appointed head of the Federal Reserve. Total replacement of Keynesian policies and complete switch to neoliberalism.
(5) The Volcker Shock
(6) The WB and IMF begin offering SAPs for global development
SAP (Structural Adjustment Programs)
a set of economic reforms that a country must adhere to in order to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund and/or the World Bank
Water Right (simple)
(Hodgson 2006) “In its simplest conception a water right is frequently understood to be a legal right to abstract and use a quantity of water from a natural source such as a river, steam or aquifer.”
Law
the codification (formal or informal) of social behavior around specific issues
Water Law
a set of rules and principles guiding human water system interactions; an instrument for institutionalizing values into principles and instruments to achieve specific objectives pertaining to the use of water
The human right to water
(Gleick 2007) Everyone should have access to a certain quality and quantity of water
Water Right
a right, defined by the legal system in place, to use, consume, abstract, pollute, navigate etc. from a natural resource.
Common Law
(Hodgson 2006) Stemmed from Roman law (linking use/ownership of land), defined in the UK as judge-made law, and distributed through UK colonies and US power. No distinction between public and private water. Includes doctrines of riparianism, prior appropriation, and beneficial use.
