Irrigation institutions typology and water governance through horizontal agreements

Irrigation institutions typology and water governance through horizontal agreements Reference Number: 608a (Tenth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property : http://www.iascp2004.org.mx/indexesp.html Oaxaca 9-13 August, 2004) Jacinta Palerm-Viqueira jpalerm@colpos.mx http://www.geocities.com/jacinta_palerm Colegio de Postgraduados, MexicoIntroduction Research on the existence and capacities of self- governance organizations for the management of irrigation systems has seen important advances in recent years. There are a growing number of case studies, greater systematization of case study analyses and, as a result, a greater capacity to realize comparative analysis and establish typologies. But concepts such as self governance, andbureaucratic and non bureaucratic management are still vague, as well as their implications. Also, research attention has centered on irrigation system institutions, with little attention of interactions between institutions, or with other water user institutions. In this paper, on the one hand we will review concepts such as self governance, and bureaucratic and non bureaucratic management and we willintroduce the concept of centralized/ decentralized self governance which is, in fact, another name for organizational levels. We will briefly review the nexus between organizational type and land tenure size as well as irrigation system size; and, finally, we will establish some implications of different organizational types (decentralized self- governance and non bureaucratic management/centralized governance and bureaucratic management), illustrated with data from a in depth case study, that raise doubts on the benefits of bureaucratic management and centralized self governance.

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We propose that land tenure and irrigation system size are relevant in choosing the most sustainable organizational design, and that fringe benefits such as “empowerment” through development of localcapabilities are important for small landholders. On the other hand, we will review cases in which irrigation institutions establish horizontal agreements between themselves, without creating a new institution or organizational tier. In all the cases reviewed either the irrigation system tract is not well defined, or the irrigation systems overlap, the irrigation system and the irrigationinstitution are not isomorphic, or they involve river management, that is they fall outside the sphere of a discrete, well defined “irrigation system” 1 . with its authority structure (Hunt, 1988): Besides developing the concept of horizontal agreements, in each reviewed case we indicate where the sphere of a discrete, well defined irrigation systems is broken, and negotiation and horizontal agreementstake place. These cases are theoretically interesting, as the horizontal agreements lack a governance body, save the agreement itself, and lack a specific management body. These cases show that lack of institutions does not necessary mean lack of governance. Horizontal agreements break with the technocratic or bureaucratic model for water management. And thus with some of the conclusions of theso called hydraulic hypothesis (Wittfogel, 1957). Irrigation institutions typology: self governance and bureaucratic and non bureaucratic management The evidence from case studies allows us to propose that institutions for the administration of irrigation systems, can be typified, (a) by governance type, that is governance by the irrigators themselves (“self- governance”2 ) or by the State; (b)by management type, non bureaucratic or bureaucratic, that is, when the irrigators themselves carry out the fundamental tasks on the basis of a body of accumulated local knowledge, filling all of the necessary positions from among their ranks the management type is non bureaucratic ---and might be properly called “selfmanagement”; and when the fundamental tasks are done by hired specialized or...