Water Property Relations and Modern Policy Regimes: Neoliberal Utopia and the Disempowerment of Collective Action
2010
Water policies and reforms are mostly discussed in seemingly neutral terms,
focusing on technical, administrative, legal or institutional means of allocating
water most efficiently and effectively. The use of technical policy language
makes water reforms appear as politically objective. Our aim with this chapter
is to show that this is dangerously inaccurate. We argue that water reforms are,
instead, deeply political. As we have argued elsewhere, this is because they
entail far-reaching redistributions of water – and of water rights, water power
and water-based profits (Boelens and Zwarteveen, 2005). But water reforms
are also an intrinsic element of the larger project of neoliberalism. For a critical
analysis of water reforms, then, there is merit in seeing water reforms as
exponents of this larger project, as driven by the dream and mission to create a
free market utopia.
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
0
References
26
Citations
NaN
KQI