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Democratizing  Water:  Civil  Society  and  State  Collaboration  in  Oaxaca,  Mexico  

DRAFT  –  NOT  FOR  CIRCULATION  

by  Monique  Segarra  

Assistant  Professor  Environmental  and  Climate  Policy  The  Bard  Center  for  Environmental  Policy  Bard  College (845)  758-­‐7869 Segarra@bard.edu    

For  over  two  decades,  Integrated  Water  Resources  Management  (IWRM)  has  been  promoted  by  international  agencies  and  adopted  by  governments  throughout  Latin  America.    The  IWRM  paradigm  advocates  the  coordinated  and  sustainable  management  of  water,  land  and  related  resources  in  order  to  maximize  the  well-­‐‑being  of  water  users  while  ensuring  the  sustainability  of  water  resources.i    A  critical  component  of  this  approach  is  to  create  participatory  co-­‐‑management.  The  model  assumes  that  increased  participation  of  water  users  strengthens  water  management  by  contributing  to  a  holistic  management  vision  that  captures  the  connections  between  the  natural  and  human  environment.ii  In  many  countries,  including  Mexico,  participation  is  seen  as  a  means  to  link  technocratic  water  bureaucracies  to  social  and  cultural  values  of  water.iii  The  IWRM  model  therefore  assumes  multiple  benefits:  from  technical  and  sustainable  improvements  to  water  services  and  land  use,  to  strengthening  democracy  by  creating  partnerships  among  civil  society  actors,  business,  and  the  public  sector.      

Recently,  a  growing  literature  has  emerged  analyzing  the  effectiveness  of  the  IWRM  model  in  achieving  its  goals  of  participatory  governance  in  Latin  America.  This  attention  is  due  in  large  part  to  rising  interest  in  using  new  modes  of  water  governance  as  a  proxy  for  democratization  processes.iv  A  review  of  these  studies  shows  that  although  there  has  been  a  movement  by  states  in  the  region  to  create  co-­‐‑management  institutions,  the  extent  to  which  they  incorporate  a  wide  range  of  stakeholders  and  lead  to  participatory  practice  has  varied.v  New  water  institutions,  from  watershed  councils  to  micro-­‐‑level  groundwater  committee  and  irrigation  associations  have  been  formed,  but  they  have  not  consistently  opened  new  spaces  for  social  participation.vi  In  many  

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places  they  exist  more  on  paper  than  in  practice.    In  countries  with  strong  legacies  of  centralized  and/or  authoritarian  rule,  implementing  this  model  has  proven  to  be  particularly  challenging.vii      

Mexico  has  been  at  the  forefront  of  the  IWRM  movement.  Since  the  1980s,  it  has  implemented  a  series  of  legal  reforms  to  decentralize  water  management  by  creating  regional,  state  and  local  water  institutions  that  seek  to  engage  with  a  range  of  water  users.  Yet  the  push  to  decentralize  and  pluralize  water  management  has  not  consistently  realized  the  model’s  participatory  goals.viii  Centralized  management  continues,  and  user  participation  is  often  limited  to  larger  water  interests.  Indigenous  communities,  citizens  groups,  and  environmental  non-­‐‑governmental  organizations  rarely  are  able  to  influence  policy  making  or  management  practice.ix    Scholars  working  on  issues  of  democracy  and  resource  management  in  Mexico  explain  this  gap  by  noting  Mexico’s  tradition  of  state  created  ‘invited  spaces’  that  ostensibly  incorporate  social  participation  but  in  reality  lead  to  co-­‐‑opted  relationships.x  Moreover,  in  contrast  to  IWRM  recommendations,  Mexico  continues  to  rely  on  large-­‐‑scale  infrastructure  to  solve  its  water  problems  rather  than  on  integrated  management  practices—infrastructure  that  often  is  badly  built,  not  maintained  and  not  sustainable.xi  

Water  conditions  in  Mexico’s  southern  state  of  Oaxaca  reflect  these  national  trends.  The  state  capitol,  Oaxaca  de  Juarez,  and  the  surrounding  municipalities  in  the  Central  Valleys  are  facing  a  growing  water  crisis.  Chronic  water  shortages  and  poor  water  quality  have  been  precipitated  by  a  number  of  factors.  Rapid  and  often  unplanned  city  growth,  increasing  population,  and  inadequate  and  leaking  pipes  have  drawn  down  and  polluted  the  aquifers.  Problematic  agricultural  practices,  particularly  in  the  foothills  that  supply  the  city’s  water,  combined  with  rapid  deforestation  have  led  to  declining  agricultural  production  and  livelihoods,  stimulating  migration  to  the  state’s  urban  centers.  Water  management  is  fragmented,  reflecting  the  multiple  political  jurisdictions  through  which  the  water  flows.  Fluctuations  in  water  quality  and  quantity  pose  human  health  risks  and  equity  issues,  and  those  users  who  can  afford  to,  buy  water  privately  to  avoid  waterborne  disease  or  inconsistent  water  provision.  

To  improve  water  supply  and  coordinate  management  within  the  watershed,  Oaxaca  has  put  in  place  a  set  of  decentralized  water  organizations  based  on  ecological  rather  than  political  jurisdictions.  Yet  the  watershed  council  and  micro-­‐‑groundwater    

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committees  (COTAS)  remain  dominated  by  the  national  water  agency,  Comisiớn  Nacional  del  Agua  or  CONAGUA,  and  multi-­‐‑stakeholder  participation  is  limited.    The  state’s  preferred  solution  to  solving  the  water  crises  continues  to  be  an  engineering  one.  Federal  and  state  authorities  are  building  a  dam  and  aqueduct  system,  known  as  the  Paso  Ancho  project,  that  will  bring  water  from  the  Rio  Sola  de  Vega  watershed  90  kilometers  away  via  an  extensive  piping  and  aqueduct  system.  The  dam  will  increase  water  supply  to  the  city  and  the  Central  Valleys,  but  at  the  expense  of  communities  within  the  distant  watershed.  Critics  argue  that  not  only  is  Paso  Ancho  costly,  but  also  that  it  will  displace  communities  and  create  environmental  damage.xii  Moreover,  the  dam  project  has  generated  controversy  among  water  experts  due  to  its  replication  of  a  failed  reform  model  pursued  by  Mexico  City,  where  similar  water  pressures  led  the  city  to  build  the  Cutzamala  System.    A  massive  infrastructure  project,  the  Cutzamala  System  neither  solved  the  city’s  water  problems  nor  been  sustainable.xiii      

One  of  the  leading  critics  of  the  dam  and  an  advocate  for  sustainable  water  management  is  the  Foro  Oaxaquneo  del  Agua  (Oaxacan  Water  Forum).    Created  in  2003  by  a  set  of  local  environmental  NGOs,  the  purpose  of  the  Water  Forum  was  to  establish  a  public  space  that  bypassed  Oaxaca’s  exclusionary  political  systems.  Water  Forum  members  include  stakeholders  from  the  private,  public  and  social  sectors  who  discuss  water  problems  and  debate  policy  solutions  in  an  autonomous  and  relatively  conflict-­‐‑free  policy  venue.  In  addition  to  building  discursive  democracy,  the  initial  goals  of  the  Water  Forum  were  to  address  the  ecological  causes  of  water  problems  within  the  watershed  as  well  as  to  recognize  the  cultural  value  of  water  to  the  region.  By  the  end  of  the  2000s,  the  Water  Forum  had  deliberated  a  ten  point  set  of  water  policy  goals,  created  a  network  of  forum  members  that  crossed  state-­‐‑society  boundaries,  launched  media  and  information  campaigns  around  sustainable  water  practices,  and  raised  money  and  technical  support  from  international  and  national  organizations.    

The  success  of  the  Water  Forum  is  surprising  since  in  many  respects  Oaxaca  represents  a  ‘worst  case’  scenario  for  constructing  autonomous  state-­‐‑society  collaboration.    The  liberalization  of  Mexican  democracy  and  increased  electoral  competition  at  the  national  level  in  the  1990s,  culminating  with  the  election  of  Vincente  Fox  to  the  presidency  in  2000,  signaled  an  electoral  breakthrough  that  appeared  to  be  the  final  blow  to  the  faltering  PRI  political  machine  that  had  so  effectively,  and  often  ruthlessly,  controlled  Mexico  since  the  1930s.  Yet  Mexico’s  democratization  has  been  uneven,  and  Oaxaca,  

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one  of  the  poorest  and  most  rural  states,  is  still  dominated  by  authoritarian  politics.xiv  Until  the  2010  gubernatorial  election,  the  PRI  retained  its  hold  over  Oaxacan  state  and  local  politics,  using  a  mix  of  state  funds  and  open  coercion  to  maintain  political  control,  particularly  in  the  rural  areas.xv  Moreover,  the  destabilization  of  the  PRI’s  control  at  the  federal  level  had  the  unintended  consequence  of  devolving  increasing  power  to  state  governors,  who  became  critical  brokers  between  state  and  federal  politics.xvi    

The  concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  governor  of  Oaxaca  proved  to  be  a  challenge  to  the  impressive  gains  made  by  the  Water  Forum.  Although  Forum  leaders  had  targeted  defeating  the  Paso  Ancho  dam  project  and  persuading  the  state  government  to  adopt  an  integrated  watershed  management  approach,  they  were  not  able  to  influence  Governor  Ulises  Ruiz  (2004-­‐‑2010).  Even  with  the  election  of  Governor  Gabino  Cue  (2010-­‐‑2016),  the  first  non-­‐‑PRI  governor  in  eighty  years,  the  expected  window  of  opportunity  for  the  Water  Forum  to  penetrate  the  state-­‐‑controlled  water  policy  process  in  Oaxaca  did  not  open.  The  Forum  was  neither  able  to  block  the  Paso  Ancho  dam  proposal  nor  have  its  ten  point  water  policy  shape  the  new  administration’s  water  policies.  

Yet  despite  these  political  roadblocks,  by  2012  the  Water  Forum  had  entered  into  its  first  formal  collaboration  with  the  state  and  had  been  asked  to  take  a  place  on  the  Regional  Water  Council.    What  explains  this  change  and  to  what  extent  does  it  signal  a  move  toward  more  participatory  water  governance  in  Oaxaca?  This  article  argues  that  the  initial  failure  of  the  Water  Forum  to  influence  macro  water  policy  was  blocked  by  political  institutions,  including  the  structure  of  the  federal  system  in  Mexico  and  the  persistence  of  sub-­‐‑national  authoritarian  relations.    In  spite  of  Mexico’s  adoption  of  an  IWRM  model,  the  decision  to  pursue  an  infrastructure  solution  to  the  water  crises  was  negotiated  at  the  federal  level  by  CONAGUA  and  the  Felipe  Calderon  administration  (2006-­‐‑2012)—far  away  from  the  stakeholder  pressures  and  policy  alternatives  emerging  at  the  base.  At  the  state  level,  the  Governor’s  control  over  large-­‐‑scale  infrastructure  investment  and  budget  transfers  created  a  state-­‐‑federal  policy  synergy  that  relegated  the  Water  Forum  to  an  advocacy  role.  This  political  ‘glass  ceiling’  stimulated  a  strategic  re-­‐‑grouping  on  the  part  of  the  Water  Forum,  which  worked  to  develop  a  state-­‐‑society  planning  project  around  the  second  infrastructure  component  slated  for  federal  funding,  the  remediation  of  the  River  Atoyac,  called  a  ‘Common  Plan  for  a  Common  

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Good’  as  a  means  for  Forum  leaders  to  engage  in  a  more  formal  and  systematic  way  in  state  water  policy  and  planning.  

The  article  is  organized  as  follows.  The  first  section  briefly  reviews  the  IWRM  model  and  its  mixed  outcomes  in  Latin  America.  Section  two  presents  a  background  on  water  reform  in  Mexico,  followed  by  an  overview  of  water  and  politics  in  Oaxaca.  Section  three  analyzes  the  case  of  the  Water  Forum.  This  section  is  based  on  fieldwork  conducted  in  2010  and  2011,  including  interviews  and  participatory  observation  of  Water  Forum  members,  NGO  staff,  government  water  agencies  and  indigenous  community  leaders.    Drawing  on  a  policy  science  framework,  the  last  section  analyzes  what  the  Oaxacan  case  teaches  us  about  the  process  of  democratizing  water  reform  in  Latin  America.    

Section  I.  Literature  Review    

For  much  of  the  20th  century,  water  resources  were  viewed  as  tool  for  national  development,  playing  a  central  role  in  energy  production,  agricultural  expansion  and  urbanization.    Globally,  water  policies  privileged  a  technocratic,  supply  side  management  model  promoted  by  powerful  water  bureaucracies  based  on  large-­‐‑scale  dam  and  infrastructure  construction.xvii  Integrated  Water  Resources  Management  emerged  as  a  criticism  of  and  an  alternative  to  this  ‘hydro  despotism,’  and  it  was  promoted  in  the  United  States  and  Europe  as  well  as  in  Latin  America.xviii  In  general,  the  IWRM  paradigm  advocated  cross-­‐‑sectoral  and  decentralized  management,  focusing  on  the  river  basin  and  watershed  levels  as  the  unit  of  management.  Although  the  paradigm  emerged  in  the  mid-­‐‑century,  the  IWRM  concept  came  into  international  vogue  in  the  1980s,  and  an  updated  paradigm  was  codified  in  the  1992  Dublin  Principles  and  endorsed  in  2000  by  the  United  Nations  Global  Water  Partnership.xix  

In  Latin  America,  the  resurgence  of  IWRM  was  due  in  part  to  its  attractiveness  to  international  agencies  and  states  in  light  of  two  parallel  trends  from  the  1980s  forward:  democratization  and  neo-­‐‑liberal  policy  reform.  The  Dublin  Principles  re-­‐‑affirmed  the  interconnected  role  of  water  that  required  the  input  and  participation  of  a  range  of  water  users,  planners  and  policy  makers  at  all  levels.  But  it  added  an  equity  and  cultural  component  as  well,  recognizing  that  historically  the  economic  gains  produced  by  water  use  had  not  been  evenly  distributed  across  society,  and  that  the  social,  cultural  and  environmental  values  of  water  had  not  significantly  shaped  either  the  discourse  or  

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action  of  water  planners.  While  IWRM  fit  well  with  democracy  concerns,  it  also  reflected  neo-­‐‑liberal  policy  prescriptions  to  restructure  state  responsibilities  regarding  service  provision  and  state  intervention  in  the  economy.    Under  this  model,  water  is  defined  as  a  commodity  and  water  reform  requires  dismantling  states’  subsidies  and  opening  water  demand  and  supply  to  market  conditions.xx    Policy  recommendations  by  international  organizations  included  privatizing  water  utilities  and  increasing  rates  and  user  upkeep  for  large-­‐‑scale  irrigation.xxi        By  the  2000s,  the  IWRM  model  had  come  under  increasing  criticism  over  its  divorce  from  political  and  institutional  realities.  One  of  the  main  critiques  is  that  the  model  requires  political  prerequisites  that  may  not  be  in  place.  The  first  of  these  is  a  functioning  democracy,  a  condition  that  is  not  always  met  even  within  formally  democratic  regimes.xxii  The  democratic  decentralization  envisioned  by  IRWM  as  a  transfer  of  power  to  actors  at  lower  territorial  levels,  who  in  turn  are  accountable  to  local  water  users,  is  often  skewed  by  intermediary  political  institutions  that  are  clientelistic  and  exclusionary  and  that  block  accountability.xxiii  IWRM  assumes  as  a  well  a  capable,  responsive  and  flexible  state  bureaucracy  willing  to  engage  both  with  other  agencies  and  with  a  range  of  actors  from  political  and  civil  society.  Even  when  water  agencies  are  open  to  experimenting  with  collaborative  and  sustainable  management,  the  increased  complexities  and  vagueness  of  how  to  achieve  integrated  management  can  be  a  disincentive.    

Recent  assessments  of  water  reform  in  Latin  America  and  Mexico  confirm  many  of  these  criticisms.  Some  analysts  have  stressed  the  continuing  impermeability  of  political  institutions  to  new  stakeholders.xxiv  Others  have  noted  the  conflict  inherent  in  IWRM:  its  neo-­‐‑liberal  policies  may  be  at  odds  with  cultural  and  political  realities  on  the  ground.xxv  Many  scholars  point  out  that  policy  experiments  with  IWRM  are  coerced  responses  by  the  states  to  international  pressure  or  a  means  for  state  leadership  to  gain  other  economic  goals.  This  is  the  case  in  Mexico,  where  the  creation  of  water  markets  was  part  of  a  larger  strategy  to  support  privatization  of  communal  lands.xxvi      In  many  countries,  sweeping  water  reforms  advocating  decentralization  devolved  responsibilities  to  state  and  local  governments  that  often  lacked  the  capacity  to  undertake  them.xxvii  

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These  criticisms  notwithstanding,  the  push  for  water  reform  in  Latin  America  did  in  some  cases  provide  openings  for  crafting  new  relationships  across  state  and  society  around  water  management.  In  their  analysis  of  more  than  a  decade  of  water  decentralization  policy  in  Brazil,  Keck  and  Abers  (2009)  found  that  collaboration  and  reform  across  state  and  civil  society  did  emerge  under  certain  conditions.  These  include  having  policy  activists  within  the  state  engage  with  reform  allies  in  society  who  bring  resources  to  the  table  in  the  form  of  grants,  expertise,  constituent  links,  and  policy  information  that  contribute  to  state  capacity.xxviii    

Applying  a  policy  science  framework  has  proved  fruitful  in  following  the  construction  of  reform  coalitions  that  often  occur  after  the  state  has  adopted  but  not  fully  implemented  water  reform  policies.  Drawn  from  the  policy  science  literature,  this  framework  focuses  on  the  critical  role  of  policy  entrepreneurs  played  by  individuals  and  organizations  that  utilize  a  range  of  domestic  and  international  resources,  ideas  and  knowledge  to  promote  new  policy  ideas  and  innovation.  These  entrepreneurs  work  as  bridge  builders  or  brokers,  creating  advocacy  coalitions  and  networks  of  practice  that  stretch  across  institutional  locations  and  political  jurisdictions.xxix  This  approach  is  process  oriented,  and  although  the  literature  stresses  the  importance  of  timing  and  windows  of  opportunity  for  reform,  another  strand  of  the  literature  notes  that  the  policy  process  can  be  a  long  one,  and  that  even  if  a  dramatic  event  creates  the  opportunity  to  promote  reform,  implementation  and  institutionalization  of  new  policies  take  a  much  longer  period  of  time.xxx    

Oaxaca’s  experience  in  water  reform  mirrors  many  of  the  issues  raised  in  the  literature.  Yet  in  contrast  to  state-­‐‑initiated  water  organizations,  Oaxaca’s  Water  Forum  is  a  different  type  of  governance  body—created  by  civil  society  actors  but  integrating  the  state  and  private  sectors.  In  the  face  of  persistent  state  and  party  control  over  water  the  process  of  building  collaborative  partnerships  from  below  has  been  slow  and  iterative.    

 

Mexico’s  Water  Regime    

The  Mexican  water  regime  consolidated  by  President  Cardenas  in  the  1930s  targeted  water  as  a  critical  component  for  national  development.  Water  management  was  highly  centralized,  with  operational  and  fiscal  control  in  the  hands  of  the  Secretary  of  Water  in  

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Mexico  City.xxxi  State  control  over  water  played  a  central  role  in  supporting  industrial  and  agricultural  expansion,  and  over  the  course  of  the  20th  century  the  Mexican  government  built  dams  for  energy  production  and  large-­‐‑scale  irrigation  systems.  In  the  1950s,  Mexico  began  a  concerted  drive  to  achieve  food  independence  and  to  increase  its  agricultural  export  sector.  An  early  participant  in  the  Green  Revolution,  Mexico  was  able  to  go  from  a  food  insecure  importer  to  an  exporter  of  grain  in  the  space  of  twenty  years  because  of  the  combination  of  plant  hybridization  (improved  breeds)  and  increased  chemical  inputs.xxxii    The  rapid  growth  of  the  agricultural  sector,  however,  had  serious  consequences  for  the  environment  and  for  the  political  economy  of  water  use.  The  new  crop  breeds  required  the  intensive  application  of  fertilizer  and  pesticides—and  irrigation.  The  large-­‐‑scale  infrastructure  built  by  the  state  to  aid  agricultural  expansion  was  both  inefficient  and  heavily  subsidized.xxxiii    

Additionally,  Mexico’s  cities  and  municipalities  grew  at  a  rapid  pace  during  the  second  half  of  the  twentieth  century,  making  Mexico  one  of  the  most  urbanized  countries  in  Latin  America.xxxiv    This  demographic  shift  placed  additional  demands  on  water  supply  and  generated  growing  problems  of  waste  disposal.    In  many  cities,  insufficient  or  aging  water  systems  added  to  the  stress,  due  to  water  loss  from  leaking  pipes  (close  to  50-­‐‑80%)  and  severe  problems  with  water  quality.xxxv    By  end  of  the  20th  century,  Mexico  was  one  of  the  most  water  challenged  states  in  Latin  America.      

Although  Mexico’s  water  system  was  arguably  in  crises,  it  was  not  until  the  1980s  that  the  centralized  administration  of  water  was  seen  as  a  key  contributor  to  the  problem.  Prompted  in  large  part  by  the  onset  of  the  1982  debt  crises  and  furthered  by  neo-­‐‑liberal  policy  reforms  promoted  by  international  financial  institutions  (IFIs),  in  1983  Mexico  amended  its  constitution  to  transfer  responsibility  for  managing  drinking  water  and  sewage  to  its  states  and  municipalities.  Mexico’s  initial  attempt  at  water  reform  was  hampered,  however,  by  a  lack  of  resources  and  expertise  at  the  state  and  local  level.    Decentralization  was  an  unfunded  mandate  since  contemporaneous  tax  reforms  restrained  the  ability  of  state  and  municipalities  to  raise  taxes  to  cover  the  additional  services.  Water  reform  was  further  undermined  by  foot-­‐‑dragging  by  federal  water  officials  preoccupied  with  maintaining  personal  and  organizational  power.xxxvi  Moreover,  in  Mexico  water  is  a  resource  shared  across  a  range  of  policy  arenas,  including  energy  and  industry,  that  have  their  own  respective  sets  of  federal  agencies,  each  with  their  own  claim  over  water.    Decentralization  alone  could  not  integrate  the  

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complex  set  of  competing  jurisdictional  demands,  interests  and  authority  over  water  management.    

 President  Salinas  (1988-­‐‑94)  sought  to  address  these  problems  by  creating  the  National  Water  Commission  (CONAGUA,  Comisiớn  Nacional  del  Agua)  in  1988.    As  a  semi-­‐‑autonomous  agency  within  the  Ministry  of  Environment  and  Natural  Resources  (SEMARNAT),  CONAGUA’s  role  was  to  link  and  coordinate  federal  agencies  concerned  with  water,  to  facilitate  technical  management  and  to  promote  participatory  water  management  at  the  state  and  municipal  level.xxxvii  In  1992,  to  further  water  reform,  the  National  Congress  enacted  the  1992  ley  del  agua  (LAN).  The  LAN  encouraged  greater  efficiency  by  opening  the  door  for  water  utility  privatization  and  establishing  a  market  for  water  rights.  It  created  a  set  of  regulatory  tools  to  enhance  an  environmental  focus  on  water  usage,  including  environmental  impact  statements,  the  polluter  pays  principle,  and  the  adoption  of  a  watershed  management  framework  .  To  strengthen  CONAGUA’s  ability  to  coordinate  with  water  stakeholders  at  the  state  and  local  level,  the  LAN  created  a  series  of  decentralized  water  organizations  ranging  from  regional  basins  to  micro-­‐‑basins  to  groundwater  committees.  This  approach  addressed  both  technical  and  political  elements  that,  it  was  assumed,  would  improve  water  governance.xxxviii  

The  new  law,  however,  deepened  the  tensions  inherent  in  the  IWRM  approach,  which  simultaneously  stressed  the  complex  socio-­‐‑ecological  value  of  water  and  the  economic  value  of  water.    Many  analysts  viewed  the  market  focus  on  water  as  a  direct  strategy  to  further  neo-­‐‑liberal  policies  to  privatize  indigenous  and  communal  landholdings—freeing  water  and  land  for  large-­‐‑scale  agriculture  or  acquisition  by  expanding  urban  areas.xxxix  By  the  2000s,  it  was  clear  that  the  1992  ley  del  agua  had  created  a  complex  set  of  water  governance  bodies  that  had  not  consistently  resulted  in  increased  or  balanced  stakeholder  voices.  The  resulting  complexity,  lack  of  political  will  to  enforce  and  extend  decentralization  and  consultation  limited  the  extent  to  which  the  law  altered  previous,  centralized  control.  In  2004,  the  government  amended  the  law  to  strengthen  the  role  of  Watershed  Councils  in  order  to  streamline  water  management,  increase  public  participation  and  improve  the  allocation  of  water  resources.xl  

Despite  this  renewed  reform  push,  at  the  federal  level  a  preference  for  large-­‐‑scale  infrastructure  persisted.  In  conjunction  with  CONAGUA,  the  incoming  president  Felipe  

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Calderon  (2006-­‐‑2012)  laid  out  a  set  of  strategic  projects  in  the  National  Infrastructure  Program  (2007-­‐‑2012)  to  be  prioritized  under  his  administration.xli  Two  projects  were  slated  for  Oaxaca:  the  Paso  Ancho  Dam  and  the  cleanup  and  remediation  of  the  Atoyac  River.xlii    It  is  around  each  of  these  two  projects  that  the  Oaxacan  Water  Forum  organized  much  of  its  policy  work.  In  the  case  of  the  Paso  Ancho  dam,  the  Forum  and  environmental  NGOs  were  unable  to  persuade  the  state  government  to  cancel  the  project.  The  Water  Forum  leadership,  however,  turned  this  setback  into  a  learning  experience  that  resulted  in  a  strategic  re-­‐‑thinking  of  how  to  engage  with  the  state  around  the  remediation  of  the  Atoyac  River.    

Problems  of  Water  and  Democracy  in  Oaxaca  

In  the  1940s,  the  city  of  Oaxaca  de  Juarez  had  a  population  of  approximately  50,000.  Set  in  the  midst  of  two  valleys,  the  area  comprising  the  Atoyac-­‐‑Salado  watershed  was  dominated  by  agriculture,  with  the  city  forming  the  nexus  of  commercial  trade  between  the  state  and  the  national  level.xliii  By  the  2000s,  however,  agricultural  production  in  the  Central  Valleys  was  declining  due  to  a  combination  of  deforestation,  soil  erosion,  increasing  water  shortages  and  rising  costs  of  inputs.xliv  Within  the  state  of  Oaxaca,  the  city  had  become  a  magnet  for  rural-­‐‑urban  migration.    By  the  end  of  the  decade,  Oaxaca  de  Juarez  had  over  half  a  million  residents  in  urban  and  peri-­‐‑urban  areas  as  the  city  boundaries  sprawled  into  surrounding  municipalities.xlv  

 Although  Oaxaca’s  demographics  were  changing,  Oaxaca’s  political  culture  and  power  structure  remained  stubbornly  rooted  in  the  past.    The  PRI  retained  its  hold  on  formal  and  informal  political  structures,  and  despite  the  rise  of  party  competition  at  the  national  level,  Oaxaca  remained  a  bastion  of  authoritarian  politics.  As  the  nation  elected  Vicente  Fox  (2000-­‐‑2006)  as  the  first  non-­‐‑PRI  president  in  seventy  years,  Oaxaca’s  electoral  path  seemed  to  entrench  authoritarian  PRI  Governors,  first  Jose  Murat  (1998-­‐‑2004)  and  then  his  hand-­‐‑picked  successor  Ulises  Ruiz  (2004-­‐‑2010),  whose  hold  on  civil  society  and  policy  tightened  through  a  combination  of  clientelism  and  repression.xlvi      

Within  this  oppressive  political  environment,  Oaxaca’s  state-­‐‑created  water  organizations  provided  little  opportunity  for  stakeholder  participation  outside  of  large-­‐‑scale  agricultural  users  and  CONAGUA.    Yet  in  the  1990s  some  changes  were  emerging  that  laid  the  basis  for  participatory  water  management  to  be  spear-­‐‑headed  from  society  rather  than  by  the  state  organizations.    These  included  new  laws  regarding  indigenous  

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community  practices,  a  rapid  thickening  of  civil  society  through  an  explosion  of  community  and  nonprofit  organizations,  and  new  openings  in  electoral  party  competition  at  the  municipal  level.xlvii    

One  of  the  most  culturally  diverse  states  in  Mexico,  Oaxaca  has  over  fifteen  indigenous  languages.  The  resilience  of  its  indigenous  languages,  cultures  and  political  practices  has  been  the  focus  of  much  scholarly  attention.xlviii  Indigenous  communal  organization  of  authority  and  power  survived  the  colonial  era  and  rolled  over  into  the  modern  Mexican  state.  Indigenous  communities  maintained  community  assemblies,  resources,  and  self-­‐‑help  committees  where  community  members  (male)  rotated  unpaid  positions.  Those  who  had  served  were  then  eligible  for  selection  by  the  assembly  for  leadership  roles.xlix    Since  the  1930s,  formal  party  and  electoral  participation  have  been  laid  on  top  of  these  governance  practices,  with  the  PRI  sanctioning  the  communal  leaders  by  running  them  as  PRI  candidates.  Communities  hold  land  jointly,  and  communities  exert  significant  input  into  land  and  natural  resource  management.    

In  the  1990s,  an  important  opening  emerged  to  unlock  the  potential  for  community-­‐‑based  water  management.    In  1995,  a  state  law  formally  recognizing  usos  y  costumbres—leadership  selection  according  to  customary  indigenous  practices  rather  than  parties  and  secret  ballots—was  passed.l  The  passage  of  the  law  resulted  from  growing  political  pressures  in  the  mid-­‐‑1990s  on  Governor  Diodoro  Carrasco  (1992-­‐‑1998)  and  the  PRI.  Concerned  that  the  1994  indigenous  Zapatista  uprising  in  the  neighboring  state  of  Chiapas  would  spill  over  into  Oaxaca,  the  Governor  sought  to  act  preemptively  to  address  indigenous  demands.li    The  adoption  of  usos  y  costumbres  was  also  supported  by  conservative  elements  within  the  PRI  as  a  means  of  undermining  rising  electoral  competition  in  municipios  from  the  PAN  and  the  PRD.lii  Whatever  the  motivation,  many  participatory  water  advocates  argue  that  strengthening  the  communal  basis  for  local  government  provides  a  potential  building  block  for  decentralized  water  management.    liii    

In  the  same  period,  Oaxaca  experienced  a  rapid  growth  and  diversification  of  autonomous  civil  society  organizations.  The  non-­‐‑governmental  sector  was  at  the  forefront  of  this  expansion.  Domestic  NGOs  working  in  education,  health  and  the  environment  channeled  increasing  levels  of  international  funding,  ideas  and  practices  from  the  1980s  onward—often  filling  the  gaps  of  shrinking  state  services.liv    One  of  the  

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leading  environmental  NGOs  formed  in  the  1990s  was  the  Instituto  de  la  Naturaleza  y  la  Sociedad  de  Oaxaca  (INSO).  INSO’s  organizational  ethos  reflected  a  commitment  to  addressing  environmental  issues  in  a  culturally  appropriate  way.  The  rationale  was  that  indigenous  communities  had  both  valuable  local  knowledge  of  their  surroundings  and  a  powerful  cultural  commitment  to  nature  and  in  particular  to  water,  that,  combined  with  a  tradition  of  communal  management,  could  provide  a  valuable  foundation  on  which  to  build  more  democratic  and  participatory  governance.  This  organizational  belief  in  the  cultural  value  of  water  became  a  building  block  of  INSO’s  work  and  approach  to  the  Water  Forum,  of  which  it  was  a  founding  member.    

INSO  played  an  early  role  as  a  policy  entrepreneur  able  to  attract  international  and  domestic  funding  to  support  its  projects  in  sustainable  water  management,  permaculture  and  watershed  restoration.  As  Oaxaca’s  water  crisis  deepened,  INSO  attempted  to  shape  the  public  perception  of  the  crisis  away  from  a  shortage  of  water  to  the  problem  of  ‘fast’  water  that  arrived  and  disappeared  during  the  rainy  season  without  re-­‐‑charging  the  aquifer  in  contrast  to  ‘slow’  water  that  in  the  past  had  been  trapped  by  healthy  ecosystems  and  retained  for  use  throughout  the  year.  In  large  part,  ‘fast’  water  was  caused  by  modern  land  management  and  agricultural  practices.    INSO  focused  as  well  on  demand  management,  promoting  better  urban  planning  and  sustainable  cities.  

At  the  municipal  level,  although  the  PRI  retained  its  hold  on  the  governorship,  there  was  increasing  electoral  competition  among  the  PRI,  PAN  and  the  PRD,  particularly  in  the  larger  cities  of  the  state.lv  In  the  late  1990s  a  PAN  candidate  won  the  mayoral  election  in  Oaxaca,  followed  by  the  election  of  a  convergencia  party  candidate  Gabino  Cue  in  2000.    Cue,  later  elected  Governor  in  2010,  proved  open  to  working  with  civil  society  actors  over  municipal  policy.  Cue’s  election  reflected  a  shift  within  urban  civil  society  that  saw  the  emergence  of  new  civil  society  groups—composed  of  students,  intellectuals,  and  NGOs—not  captured  by  the  PRI.lvi  

Despite  these  politically  liberalizing  trends  in  the  1990s,  the  election  of  Governor  Murat  (1998-­‐‑2004)  reinforced  the  power  of  PRI  and  exclusionary  politics.lviiA  cacique,  or  political  strongman,  within  a  state  renowned  for  them,  Murat  used  state  resources  as  a  means  of  control  and  clientelism.      lviiiHis  hand-­‐‑picked  successor,  Ulises  Ruiz(2004-­‐‑2010)  continued  this  stance,  using  state  authority  over  water  as  a  means  of  tightening  state  

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control  over  land  and    prioritizing  the  construction  of  the  Paso  Ancho  Dam.  Under  Governors  Murat  and  Ruiz  many  reform-­‐‑minded  bureaucrats  were  purged,  civil  society  groups  repressed  and  indigenous  communities’  formal  rights  curtailed.    lixAccess  by  society  to  policy  formation  was  limited  to  party  and  administration  insiders.    lxIt  was  within  this  politically  charged  atmosphere  that  the  Water  Forum  was  founded.    

The  Inception  of  a  New  Space—the  Oaxacan  Water  Forum    

In  2003,  INSO  helped  create  the  Oaxacan  Water  Forum.  The  initial  goal  of  the  Forum  was  to  create  a  discursive  space  around  water  policy  that  would  circumvent  the  political  exclusion  and  cooptation  found  within  state  water  organizations.    Water  Forum  participants  included  civil  society  actors  such  as  environmental  NGOs,  academics,  business  associations  and  indigenous  representatives  from  the  municipalities  surrounding  the  city,  often  those  most  affected  by  sprawl  or  those  whose  communities  were  located  at  the  site  of  the  four  springs  that  provided  the  bulk  of  the  city’s  water  supply.  Importantly,  bureaucrats  from  relevant  municipal,  state  and  federal  agencies  working  on  water-­‐‑related  issues  in  Oaxaca  were  participants  as  well,  creating  a  mix  of  social,  private  and  public  sectors  absent  from  the  formal  water  organizations.  

The  Forum  styles  itself  as  a  mesa  or  table  where  stakeholders  can  meet  in  a  neutral  or  non-­‐‑politicized  space.  Forum  meetings  are  held  four  times  a  year,  and  locations  rotate  among  the  city  and  surrounding  municipalities  within  the  watershed  to  downplay  the  traditional  dominance  of  the  city  and  to  emphasize  the  interconnected  nature  of  water  across  jurisdictions.  Housed  within  INSO,  the  Water  Forum’s  Technical  Secretariat  organizes  the  meetings,  writes  and  published  minutes,  and  manages  a  range  of  media  (facebook,  radio  programs).  The  Technical  Secretariat  disseminates  information  among  Forum  participants,  works  to  raise  public  awareness  around  the  cultural  value  of  water,  and  communicates  the  position  of  the  Water  Forum  on  sustainable  solutions  to  problems  of  water  quantity  and  quality.    

During  its  first  eight  years,  the  Water  Forum  played  three  primary  roles:  providing  a  deliberative  space,  supporting  policy  knowledge  and  channeling  policy  advocacy.    As  was  noted  above,  the  Forum’s  discursive  role  created  a  new  venue  for  state  and  civil  society  actors  to  come  together  to  address  issues,  from  the  chronic  shortages  of  water  within  the  city  to  causes  of  water  pollution  within  the  Central  Valleys.  Debate  within  

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the  Forum  was  often  contentious,  but  in  sharp  contrast  to  normal  state-­‐‑society  interactions,  community  leaders  and  state  actors  could  air  grievances  without  breaking  relationships.      

The  Water  Forum’s  policy  role  was  equally  important.  To  improve  policy  formation  within  the  watershed,  INSO  and  the  Forum  worked  to  improve  science-­‐‑based  data  gathering  to  provide  a  baseline  analysis  of  the  watershed  and  to  inform  policy.1    The  Technical  Secretariat  sought  to  disseminate  information  about  watershed  restoration  projects  run  by  Forum  members,  both  within  the  Forum  and  to  non-­‐‑members  as  well.    The  Water  Forum  engaged  in  policy  advocacy,  promoting  its  vision  of  culturally  appropriate  and  sustainable  water  policy  via  its  ten  point  policy  plan.  Specifically,  it  advocated  against  depending  primarily  on  a  supply  side,  engineering  solution  to  water  in  favor  of  a  more  integrated  and  sustainable  approach.  It  calculated  the  cost  of  the  proposed  Paso  Ancho  dam  and  aqueduct  against  the  cost  of  a  range  of  watershed  restoration  options  from  constructed  wetlands  to  best  management  practices  (BMPs)  in  agriculture  to  minimize  soil  erosion  and  pollution  from  chemical  inputs.    

This  collaborative  work  and  the  construction  of  new  working  relationships  across  state  and  civil  society  weathered  the  civil  unrest  that  swept  the  city  in  2006.  Widespread  accusations  of  electoral  fraud  framed  the  2004  start  of  Ruiz’s  controversial  governorship.  Discontent  with  his  authoritarian  style  grew,  and  by  2006  conflict  with  the  teachers  union,  the  National  Union  of  Education  Workers  (SNTE  or  Sindicato  Nacional  de  Trabajadores  de  la  Educacion)  over  wage  increases  escalated  rapidly  into  large-­‐‑scale  civil  society  protests  against  the  Governor.  The  emerging  social  movement  was  guided  by  the  Popular  Assembly  of  the  Peoples  of  Oaxaca  (APPO,  or  Asamblea  Popular  de  los  Pueblos  de  Oaxaca)  an  organization  composed  of  unions,  NGOs,  activists  and  indigenous  groups.  For  over  six  months  the  city  was  in  mobilization  mode,  and  the  Governor  fled  as  APPO  pressed  for  democratic  reform.  The  conflict  ended  after  seven  months  with  violence  and  repression  when,  responding  to  the  Governor’s  request,  the  federal  government  sent  in  troops  and  police  to  disperse  protesters.    lxiIn  the  wake  of  the  uprising,  the  Governor  viewed  civil  society  organizations  not  directly  linked  to  the  PRI  or  personally  connected  to  him  as  suspect.  Thus,  in  2009  when  representatives  of  the  

1    International  partners  or  allies  include  the  World  Wildlife  Fund,  Water  for  Humanity  and  the  Bard  Center  for  Environmental  Policy  to  name  a  few.    

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Water  Forum  and  INSO  met  with  Ruiz  with  their  alternatives  to  the  proposed  Paso  Ancho  dam  they  received  a  cool  reception.  Presenting  their  cost-­‐‑benefit  analysis  and  emphasizing  the  need  for  sustainable  and  culturally  sensitive  approaches  to  water,  they  argued  against  moving  forward  with  the  dam  project  in  favor  of  upgrading  and  expanding  existing  infrastructure,  and  implementing  sustainable  management  practices.  This,  along  with  the  ten  policy  points,  found  little  traction  in  the  administration’s  water  policy  and  did  not  sway  the  Governor’s  preference  for  an  infrastructure  solution  to  Oaxaca’s  water  crisis.    

Yet  by  the  end  of  the  decade  the  Water  Forum  not  only  had  survived  but  grown,  even  within  this  highly  conflictual  and  authoritarian  setting.  A  critical  component  of  its  success  was  the  work  done  by  a  key  group  of  policy  entrepreneurs  within  the  Forum,  who  strove  to  build  personal  relationships  and  collaborative  partnerships  with  federal,  state  and  municipal  actors.  The  civil  society-­‐‑driven  format  enabled  the  Forum  to  play  a  role  as  an  intermediary  between  state  actors  and  community  groups,  most  notably  indigenous  leaders,  who  viewed  the  state  with  either  hostility  or  suspicion.  Moreover,  the  Forum  proved  to  be  an  important  venue  for  airing  inter-­‐‑community  strife  as  well  as  serving  to  navigate  the  internal  divisions  within  communities  that  housed  the  springs  that  provided  water  for  the  city  and  surrounding  municipalities.  Finally,  the  technical  secretariat  and  INSO  were  able  to  attract  significant  international  funding  and  collaboration  through  grant  writing  and  partnerships  to  channel  additional  resources  to  water  policy.  These  international  relationships  were  useful  for  state  actors,  who  came  to  see  the  Water  Forum  and  its  members  as  contributing  to  state  capacity.    

These  achievements  notwithstanding,  the  ability  of  the  Forum  to  shape  practical  policy  decisions  or  to  have  a  recognized  voice  in  water  policy  making  was  limited.    Many  Forum  members  viewed  the  key  barrier  as  the  political  class,  including  both  elected  officials  and  political  appointees  within  the  bureaucracy.2  Although  many  reform  minded  bureaucrats  participated  in  the  Forum,  others  did  not  and  remained  resistant  to  “outside”  advice.  This  impasse  prompted  a  strategic  re-­‐‑thinking  by  the  Forum.  In  2010,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Technical  Secretariat,  the  Forum  initiated  new  lines  of  policy  action  in  order  to  engage  more  systematically  with  the  state.  These  included  proposals  to  collaborate  with  Oaxaca’s  municipal  government  on  planning  and  zoning  support,  as   2 Interview  Juan  Jose  Consejo,  INSO  January  2012,  

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well  as  the  formation  of  a  science  committee  to  provide  data  and  recommendations  to  relevant  state  agencies.  The  impetus  for  the  organizational  reform  was  a  response  as  well  to  a  growing  sense  of  “participation  fatigue”  of  Water  Forum  members.    As  one  executive  committee  member  noted,  “We  talk  and  talk,  but  now  we  need  to  take  action.”    lxiiIf  the  Forum  was  not  able  to  shape  macro  water  policy,  then  the  alternative  option  was  to  focus  on  building  itself  into  water  governance  through  practical  action3    

The  Water  Forum’s  organizational  reform  was  timed  to  coincide  with  the  2010  election  of  Gabino  Cue  as  Governor.  Cue  was  seen  by  many  civil  society  organizations  as  representing  a  rupture  with  the  political  past  and  presenting  a  window  of  opportunity  to  remake  state-­‐‑society  ties  in  a  more  democratic  and  less  conflictual  manner  than  under  Governor  Ruiz.  While  mayor  of  Oaxaca  de  Juarez  (2002-­‐‑2004),  Cue  had  responded  to  protest  led  by  a  NGO,  the  Patronato  Pro  Defensa  y  Conservación  del  Patrimonio  Cultural  y  Natural  del  Estado  de  Oaxaca  (PRO-­‐‑OAX),  against  locating  a  McDonalds  on  the  city’s  historic  zocolo  through  private  meetings  with  the  group  and  by  holding  public  hearings.  Despite  the  support  of  the  influential  local  chapter  of  the  Camara  Nacional  de  la  Industria  Restaurantera  (CANIRAC),  the  municipal  government  pulled  McDonalds’  permit.4  Building  on  his  mayoral  experience,  Cue  ran  on  a  platform  during  the  2010  gubernatorial  race  that  promised  a  more  open  and  accessible  government.  Supported  by  the  Peace  and  Progress  multi-­‐‑party  coalition,  Cue  easily  defeated  the  PRI  candidate  Eviel  Perez  Magana,  ending  80  years  of  PRI  rule  in  Oaxaca.  

The  first  year  of  the  Cue  administration,  however,  proved  to  be  a  disappointment  to  many  Water  Forum  participants.5  Members  of  the  Forum,  including  the  Secretariat  and  

3  In  2010,  the  Secretariat  entered  into  a  formal  agreement  with  the  municipal  government  of  Oaxaca  to  provide  expertise  to  the  Mayor’s  office  to  support  the  development  of  new  zoning  and  planning  regulations  and  processes.  Zoning  and  planning  are  critical  components  in  Oaxacan  water  management  since  unplanned  growth  and  sprawl  is  one  of  the  key  areas  straining  the  urban  water  system.

4 This  is  striking,  given  the  power  of  the  commercial  class  in  Oaxaca  and  the  fact  that  McDonalds  was  part  of  a  string  of  US  imports  from  Walmart  to  Cosco  that  had  been  brought  in  through  these  linkages.

5   The  Water  Forum  was  stalled  in  its  efforts  to  work  with  the  municipality  of  Oaxaca  as  well.    Although  the  Mayor  signed  the  agreement  at  a  profiled  public  meeting,  actual  engagement  with  the  Forum  around  the  zoning  did  not  move  forward  because  of  municipal  elections.    Despite  the  expectations  of  the  WF  and  actors  within  the  Mayor’s  office  regarding  collaboration  over  zoning  and  planning,  the  

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INSO,  had  felt  optimistic  that  Cue  would  be  open  to  consulting  them  on  the  issue  of  water  reform.  Yet  their  request  to  meet  with  the  Governor  was  not  responded  to,  lxiiidespite  Cue’s  statement  that  one  of  his  top  priorities  was  to  solve  Oaxaca’s  water  crisis.    The  second  blow  to  the  Water  Forum’s  hopes  was  that  under  the  new  governor,  the  Paso  Ancho  dam  project  moved  forward  even  with  a  strong  anti-­‐‑dam  campaign  by  environmental  NGOs,  scientists  and  water  bureaucrats  across  agencies  at  the  national  as  well  as  state  and  municipal  levels.  6  

As  is  the  case  with  many  electoral  transition  teams  in  Latin  America,  the  incoming  Cue  administration  faced  both  overt  and  subtle  challenges  by  the  outgoing  PRI.  Resources,  ranging  from  budget  to  office  supplies  were  drawn  down  or  missing,  information  regarding  in-­‐‑place  programs  and  importantly,  regarding  the  budget  cycle,  were  withheld,  and  lack  of  understanding  of  “how  to  get  things  done”  in  a  system  where  bureaucrats  worked  across  a  set  of  complex  agencies  and  bureaucracies  necessitated  the  retention  of  PRI  stalwarts  in  the  bureaucracy.7  Therefore,  the  clean  sweep  promised  by  the  campaign  was  not  a  viable  option  and  key  holdover  PRI  bureaucrats—or  the  status  quo  within  the  bureaucratic  machine—remained  in  place  after  the  political  transition.lxiv  

In  addition  to  internal  transition  politics,  in  its  push  against  the  dam,  the  Water  Forum  had  underestimated  the  continuing  influence  of  national  state  control  over  local  water  policy.    The  decision  over  the  dam  was  made  upstream  in  the  policy  process  in  2007  at  the  federal  level  by  CONAGUA  and  the  incoming  administration  of  Felipe  Calderon.  Financing  for  the  dam  was  provided  via  federal  budget  transfer.    The  fact  that  close  to  90%  of  Oaxaca’s  state  budget  comes  from  the  federal  level  deepens  the  leverage  of  the  federal  government  over  state  and  local  programs  and  projects.  Thus,  the  continuing  preference  for  large-­‐‑scale  infrastructure  within  the  national  water  agency  was  shared  by   Mayor  developed  cold  feet  once  the  agreement  had  been  signed.  The  working  relationship  remained  on  paper  alone.      

 

6    Many  privately  expressed  doubts  about  infrastructure  quality  and  system  maintenance,  as  well  as  about  possible  corruption  involving  contracts  and  the  problem  of  disrupting  the  Sola  de  Vega  watershed.  There  was  a  concern  as  well  that  the  dam  deflected  work  on integrated and sustainable policy and demand management by focusing predominately on a supply solution (Private Communication, 2012).

7 Personal Communication, January 2012.

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politicians  at  the  state  level.  This,  combined  with  the  federal-­‐‑state  budget  structure,  trumped  concerns  privately  expressed  by  many  state  actors  that  Paso  Ancho  was  a  flawed  solution  to  Oaxaca’s  water  problems.    Since  funding  for  the  project  was  already  earmarked  prior  to  Cue’s  election,  expecting  the  new  administration  to  turn  down  a  project  of  close  to  thirty  million  dollars  was  politically  untenable.    

In  addition  to  the  federal  fiscal  incentive,  many  highly  placed  bureaucrats  in  state  and  local  water  agencies  favored  the  dam  as  well.  The  water  utility  serving  the  city  of  Oaxaca  and  the  metropolitan  area,  Administracion  Directa  de  Obras  y  Servicios  de  Agua  Potable  y  Alcantarillado  de  la  Ciudad  de  Oaxaca  (ADOSOPACO),  had  come  under  increasing  political  pressure  to  supply  water  on  more  consistent  basis  and  to  improve  water  quality.  Some  ADOSOPACO  bureaucrats  participated  in  Water  Forum  meetings  or  had  formed  relationships  with  INSO  and  other  Forum  participants  and  had  adopted,  at  least  rhetorically,  many  of  the  concepts  of  integrated  water  management  from  the  Forum  and  the  ten-­‐‑point  plan.lxv  Yet  the  scale  and  time  pressure  to  solve  the  water  issue  made  the  dam  and  aqueduct  a  highly  attractive  solution.    Planners  within  the  Agency  saw  integrated  water  management  as  important,  but  as  a  supplement  to  rather  than  a  replacement  for  the  dam.lxviMoreover,  ADOSOPACO  was  a  sub-­‐‑agency  to  the  Secretaria  de  las  Infraestrcuturas  y  el  Ordenamiento  Territorial  Sustentable  (SINFRA),  the  state  branch  of  the  national  infrastructure  agency.  SINFRA  strongly  supported  Paso  Ancho  as  reflecting  a  core  component  of  its  institutional  mission.    

Creating  Practical  Authority—the  Common  Plan  for  a  Common  Good  

As  the  Paso  Ancho  dam  project  moved  forward,  the  Water  Forum  focused  its  efforts  to  shape  the  second  federally  earmarked  project  for  Oaxaca,  the  remediation  of  the  Atoyac  River  and  the  Verde  River  Watershed.    lxviiStarting  in  the  foothills  of  the  Sierra  Madre,  the  Atoyac  River  runs  through  the  Central  Valleys  to  the  city,  crossing  political  jurisdictions  and  impacting  a  wide  range  of  users.  By  the  time  that  it  reaches  the  outskirts  of  city  of  Oaxaca,  the  river  is  foul;  polluted  and  turbid,  its  poor  water  quality  and  varying  quantity  contribute  to  problems  from  human  health  to  dwindling  supply.    In  2011,  federal  monies  for  river  clean  up  had  sparked  a  scramble  among  federal,  state  and  local  actors  to  access  the  federal  budget.  By  2011,  there  were  over  ten  plans  being  proposed  in  varying  stages  of  development,  each  pushed  forward  by  different  actors  

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and  agencies,  from  the  municipal  to  the  federal  levels.  The  multiple  plans  reflected  competing  political  jurisdictions  and  the  lack  of  a  central  coordinating  institution.    

The  Water  Forum  perceived  a  role  it  could  play  as  a  coordinating  body  across  the  various  plans.  To  that  end,  the  Forum  proposed  a  project  entitled  A  Common  Plan  for  a  Common  Good  (Un  Plan  Comun  para  un  Bien  Comun).  The  purpose  of  the  Water  Forum’s  Common  Plan  was  to  reconcile  the  various  proposals  for  river  remediation,  thereby  preventing  the  fragmentation  and  overlap  of  planning  and  project  work.  The  Common  Plan  was  pitched  both  to  international  and  domestic  donors  and  to  the  state  as  a  nexus  for  sharing  information,  expertise,  funding  sources,  planning  and  coordination.    The  Common  Plan  was  not  to  be  new  remediation  plan  but  rather  to  serve  as  a  flexible  planning  process  linking  together  stakeholders  within  the  watershed.  

In  2011  the  Water  Forum  signed  a  memorandum  of  agreement  with  the  Oaxacan  State  Ministry  of  Finance,  the  city  government  of  Oaxaca  de  Juarez  and  surrounding  municipalities,  CONAGUA,  and  a  set  of  local  and  international  NGOs  and  formalized  the  Common  Plan.    The  first  phase  of  this  collaborative  work  was  divided  into  a  set  of  concrete  actions  among  various  members  of  the  Water  Forum  and  state  actors.  Working  with  CONAGUA  and  the  state  office  of  the  Instituto  Nacional  de  Estadistica  y  Geographia  (INEGI),  in  2012  INSO  staff  began  to  use  GIS  technology  to  map  the  micro-­‐‑basins  within  the  watershed  and  to  create  a  baseline  of  community  water  management.    In  addition  to  geographic  mapping,  INSO  worked  directly  with  indigenous  communidades  to  gauge  their  water  and  land  use  practices  and  to  educate  community  members  about  how  these  practices  impact  water  and  the  watershed.  The  INSO  staff  in  turn  provided  information  and  training  about  agricultural  and  land  use  practices  that  can  improve  water  quality  and  quantity.  INSO  provided  its  state  partners  with  social  and  cultural  information  about  indigenous  communities  and  their  relationship  to  water.  INSO  staff  members  emphasize  that  the  relationship  between  these  rural  communities  and  the  INSO-­‐‑state  team  is  an  autonomous  and  voluntary  one  rather  than  one  that  is  controlled  and  imposed.    lxviii  

The  newfound  willingness  of  the  state  government  to  work  with  the  Water  Forum  was  derived  from  a  combination  of  the  Forum’s  fundraising  capacity,  international  pressure  to  move  forward  with  pluralistic  water  governance,  and  personal  connections.  For  example,  funding  for  INSO’s  work  on  the  Common  Plan  is  derived  in  large  part  from  

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grants  written  by  Water  Forum’s  Technical  Secretariat,  resources  that  partially  finance  the  Common  Plan.  Governor  Cue  had  determined  that  addressing  the  water  crisis  was  one  of  his  key  goals.  To  that  end,  his  administration  invited  the  World  Bank  and  the  United  Nations  Development  Program  (UNDP)  for  advisory  talks  on  water  reform  in  the  summer  of  2010.  Both  agencies  promote  an  IWRM  approach  and  requested  to  meet  with  representatives  from  civil  society  in  addition  to  state  actors  while  in  Oaxaca.  The  Water  Forum’s  Technical  Secretariat  was  thus  invited  to  a  meeting  with  the  UNDP  and  the  World  Bank  teams  and  the  Governor’s  administration  and  presented  the  position  of  the  Water  Forum  on  integrated  watershed  management,  raising  its  profile  as  a  potential  partner  for  state  and  international  actors.  

Domestic  connections  played  an  important  role  as  well.  The  head  of  the  Harp  Helu  Foundation  recommended  that  the  Governor’s  administration  consult  with  INSO  and  the  Water  Forum.  The  Harp  Helu  family  is  highly  active  in  Oaxaca,  providing  funding  for  restoring  historical  and  cultural  sites  in  the  city  and  supporting  environmental  services  in  the  Central  Valleys,  and  the  introduction  began  to  open  doors.  In  addition  to  the  formal  collaboration  in  the  Common  Plan,  INSO  was  invited  to  sit  as  a  civil  society  organization  on  the  Regional  Watershed  Council.  This  work  brings  INSO  and  the  Forum  into  a  closer  coordination  with  state  and  federal  agencies,  despite  their  differences  over  the  Paso  Ancho  dam.  

Democratizing  Water  Management  in  Oaxaca—Challenges  and  Opportunities  

Over  the  past  decade,  the  Water  Forum  and  its  lead  policy  entrepreneurs,  INSO  and  the  Technical  Secretariat,  have  made  significant  gains  in  promoting  a  new  space  for  civil  society  in  Oaxaca’s  water  governance.  In  the  face  of  exclusion  and  clientelism,  the  initial  formation  of  the  Water  Forum  was  an  attempt  to  create  a  neutral  venue,  one  that  would  remain  autonomous  from  the  state  and  contribute  to  an  ongoing  dialogue  with  and  across  multiple  stakeholders  from  state  and  society  in  Oaxaca.  It  withstood  the  turbulence  of  the  2006  uprising  and  expanded  its  organizational  role  and  policy  expertise.    The  achievements  of  the  Water  Forum  in  this  regard  are  significant.    

Conversely,  federal-­‐‑state  political  institutions  and  sub-­‐‑national  authoritarian  practices  created  a  glass  ceiling  for  the  Water  Forum.  Although  over  the  decade  it  became  a  discursive  and  deliberative  body,  it  lacked  clout  in  terms  of  actually  influencing  state  practice.  To  avert  participation  fatigue  by  its  constituents,  the  Forum  turned  to  working  

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at  a  mid-­‐‑level,  concrete  scale  through  the  Common  Plan  and  its  new  place  on  the  Watershed  Council.  The  Water  Forum  diversified  its  organizational  framework,  adding  a  Scientific  Committee  to  bring  the  Water  Forum  into  coordination  with  academic  and  state  institutions  and  to  contribute  to  state  capacity  through  the  enhancement  of  a  science-­‐‑based  watershed  management  process.  Through  the  Common  Plan  and  its  partnership  with  INEGI  and  CONAGUA,  the  Water  Forum’s  mapping  of  the  Valleys’  micro-­‐‑basins  was  combined  with  an  assessment  of  local  community  and  indigenous  knowledge  about  local  water  conditions  and  management  as  well  as  a  linkage  of  state  agencies  with  a  cultural  perception  of  water.  This  created  a  scientific  and  cultural  baseline  for  the  watershed,  one  of  the  recommendations  of  the  IWRM  model.    It  was  through  these  mid-­‐‑range,  concrete  steps  that  the  Water  Forum  moved  to  engage  with  the  state  by  creating  what  Abers  and  Keck  lxixterm  achieving  practical  authority.    

The  Oaxacan  case  exemplifies  recent  work  on  the  gap  between  theory  and  practice  in  democratizing  water  management.  Water  reforms  in  Mexico  appeared  to  signal  a  water  policy  transition  defined  as  major  change  in  water  policies.    lxxImplementation,  however,  has  been  shaped  and  often  impeded  by  a  set  of  pre-­‐‑existing  formal  and  informal  political  institutions,  from  the  federal  to  the  local  levels.    

Yet  the  opening  presented  by  decentralization  and  a  participatory  rhetoric  created  opportunities  for  entrepreneurial  agents  at  the  state  and  local  level  to  move  forward  with  their  vision  of  enhanced  and  sustainable  watershed  management.  These  policy  entrepreneurs  included  both  state  bureaucrats  and  NGOs.  In  the  face  of  co-­‐‑opted  decentralized  water  organizations,  the  formation  of  a  non-­‐‑state-­‐‑created  body  was  a  strategic  step  forward  in  fostering  a  policy  community  that  incorporated  the  range  of  stakeholders  envisioned  in  the  IWRM  model.    The  Water  Forum’s  Technical  Secretariat  and  INSO  worked  as  brokers  or  bridge  builders,  linking  together  indigenous  community  leaders,  state  and  federal  agency  actors,  private  sector  representatives  and  scientists  and  international  partners  to  begin  to  acknowledge  different  ‘ways  of  knowing’  water,  from  technocratic  or  engineering  solutions  to  water  supply  to  international  watershed  BMPs  to  local  perceptions  of  water  as  sacred  and  communal  rather  than  a  commodity.  In  this  process,  the  Water  Forum  enabled  bureaucrats  located  in  different  agencies  concerned  with  re-­‐‑forestation  efforts,  biodiversity  preservation  or  water  supply  issues  to  see  that  a  mix  of  infrastructure  and  watershed  restoration  practices  presented  solutions  to  a  multiple  problems.    

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These  positive  benefits  assumed  under  an  IWRM  model  were  occurring,  however,  outside  of  formal  water  institutions,  and  the  ability  to  change  formal  water  governance  and  policy  was  therefore  limited.  The  strong  policy  narrative  developed  by  INSO  and  the  Water  Forum—that  the  problem  was  not  a  shortage  of  water  quantity  but  rather  a  problem  of  fast  water—held  little  power  in  the  face  of  ADSOCPACO  and  CONAGUA’s  argument  that  the  problem  was  of  water  shortage  on  the  scale  that  could  only  be  dealt  with  by  the  Paso  Ancho  Dam.  The  setbacks  created  by  the  continuing  lock  on  water  planning  by  federal  agencies  and  state  politicians  generated  an  organizational  learning  process  that  resulted  in  the  Water  Forum  and  INSO  focusing  on  crafting  a  formal  relationship  with  the  state  over  coordinating  ongoing  and  proposed  work  on  river  remediation  through    the  Common  Plan.  Through  a  combination  of  personal  connections,  international  influence  and  the  ability  to  bring  resources  to  the  table  in  the  form  of  grants,  scientific  and  sociological  knowledge,  the  Water  Forum  and  INSO  were  able  to  present  themselves  as  practical  agents  capable  of  partnering  with  a  range  of  state  agencies  and  municipal  and  local  authorities.  

This  article  has  illustrated  several  points  regarding  the  ongoing  disconnect  between  water  reform  policies  advocated  by  international  water  agencies  that  have  been  widely  adopted  but  unevenly  implemented  by  states  in  Latin  America.  The  course  of  formal  water  reform  in  Oaxaca  confirms  much  of  the  work  in  the  literature,  which  notes  that  state  decentralization  and  the  new  inclusive  rhetoric  of  user  participation  and  multi-­‐‑stakeholder  governance  is  often  merely  organizational  deconcentration,  with  power  remaining  in  the  hands  of  key  water  bureaucracies  and  powerful  political  actors.  The  interest  in  incorporating  social  and  environmental  concerns  in  water  management  is  still  weak  in  the  face  of  preferred  engineering  solutions  to  water  supply.  This  preference  is  embedded  in  the  mission  and  vision  of  water  agencies  and  also  part  of  a  politician’s  repertoire  for  visible  political  achievements,  not  to  mention  opportunities  for  clientelism  and  pork-­‐‑barrel  politics.    

The  Oaxacan  case  shows  as  well  that  within  these  challenges,  alliances  across  state  and  society  can  move  the  implementation  of  water  reform  forward,  albeit  slowly.  Reaching  the  full  transition  to  decentralized  co-­‐‑management  requires  interim  steps  such  as  the  practical  collaboration  among  INSO  the  Forum  staff  and  state  and  federal  agencies  in  mapping  the  watershed,  in  building  a  science  based  baseline  and  in  the  process  testing  

23

new  relationships  that  begin  to  activate  some  of  the  goals  participatory  and  knowledge  goals  of  the  IWRM  model.    

 

 

 

 

   

24

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25

Gustavo  Esteva,  “The  Oaxaca  Commune  and  Mexico’s  Coming  Insurrection,”  Antipode  42(4)  (2010),  978-­‐‑993.  

John  Ackerman,  “Co-­‐‑Governance  for  Accountability:  Beyond  ‘Exit’  and  ‘Voice,’”  World  Development,  32(3)  (2003),  447-­‐‑463.  

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Juan  Pablo  Rojas,  “La  hidropolitica  en  Jalisco  en  los  albores  del  siglo  XXI:  Tres  escenarios  de  conflict  y  negociacion  politica  en  torno  al  proyecto  public  de  la  presa  de  Arcediano,”  Estudios  Sociales  2  (2007),  224.  Retrieved  December  10,  2011,  from  Universidad  de  Guadalajara  Centro  Universitario  de  Ciencias  Sociales  y  Humanidades  website:  http://www.publicaciones.cucsh.udg.mx/period/estsoc/pdf/estsoc07_2/estsoc07_2_103-­‐‑135.pdf  

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Philippus  Wester,  Eric  Mollard,  Paula  Silva-­‐‑Ochoa,  and  Sergio  Vargas-­‐‑Velazquez,  “From  half-­‐‑full  to  half-­‐‑empty:  the  hydraulic  missions  and  water  overexploitation  in  the  Lerma-­‐‑Chapala  Basin,  Mexico,”  in  F.  Molle  and  P.  Wester  (Eds.),  River  Basin  Trajectories:  Societies,  Environments  and  Development  (CAB  International,  2009).  Retrieved  March  10,  2012,  from  http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Publications/CABI_Publications/CA_CABI_Series/River_Basin_Trajectories/Protected/Chap04%20Wester.pdf  

Rebecca  Neaera  Abers  and  Margaret  E.  Keck,  “Muddy  Waters:  The  Political  Construction  of  Deliberative  River  Basin  Governance  in  Brazil,”  International  Journal  of  Urban  and  Regional  Research  30(3)  (September  2006),  601-­‐‑622.

26

i Alex Ricardo Caldera Ortega, “Precesos politicos, instituciones e ideas en la gestion del agua: una propuesta desde el neoinstitucionalism discursive,” paper presented at the Primer Congreso Red de Investigadores Sociales Sobre Agua (March 2010). Retrieved December 9, 2011, from http://redissa.hestoei.com/rissa/Caldera-Ortega.pdf, Global Water Partnerships, retrieved December 12, 2011, from http://www.gwp.org/The-Challenge/What-is-IWRM/

ii Christopher A. Scott and Jeff M. Banister, “The dilemma of water management ‘regionalization’ in Mexico under centralized resource allocation,” Water Resources Development, 24(1) (2008), 61-74. Celia Tortajada and Nancy Contreras-Moreno, ‘Institutions for Water Management in Mexico’ in pp99-127 Chapter 5 in Chennat Gopalakrishnan, Cecilia Tortajada and Asit. K. Biswas, Water Institutions: Policies, Performance and Prospects (Springer, 2010).

iii Patricia Avila Garcia, “El valor social y cultural del agua,” in Vasquez Garcia, V., Soares Moraes, D., de la Rosa Regalado, A. and Serrano Sanchez, A. (Eds.), Gestion y cultura del agua. Tomo II (Mexico: Institucion Mexicano de Tecnologia del Agua (IMTA) / Colegia de Postgraduados en Ciencias Agricolas (COLPOS), 2006). Retrieved December 10, 2011 from http://www.ecominga.uqam.ca/ECOMINGA_2011/PDF/BIBLIOGRAPHIE/GUIDE_LECTURE_4/9/1/Avila_Garcia.pdf  

   

iv Margaret Wilder, “Water governance in Mexico: political and economic apertures and a shifting state-citizen relationship,” Ecology and Society 15(2) (2010), 22. Rebecca Abers, Organizing for Governance: Building Collaboration in Brazilian River Basins, World Development, 35 8 2007 pp1450-1463.

v Anne Browning-Aiken, Margaret Wilder, and Rebecca Carter, “Disjuncture between Mexican water policy and practice: case studies in Sonora, Mexico,” paper presented at the 2004 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Las Vegas, Nevada (October 2004). Scott and Bannister, 2008.

vi Robert Andolina, ‘The Values of Water: Development Cultures and Indigenous Cultures in Highland Ecuador’ Latin American Research Review, Volume 47, no. 2, 2012 pp.3-26. Wilder 2010.

vii Rebecca Neaera Abers and Margaret E. Keck, “Mobilizing the State: The Erratic Partner in Brazil’s Participatory Water Policy,” Politics and Society 37 (2009), 289.

27

viii Margaret Wilder and Patricia Romero Lankao, “Paradoxes of decentralization: water reform and social implications in Mexico,” World Development 34(11) (2006), 1977-1995. Scott and Bannister, 2008.

ix Wilder, 2010. Maria Luisa Torregrosa, Gestion integrada, descentralizacion y con participacion social del agua en Mexico. Un prceso en construccion (Instituto de Investgiaciones Sociales UNAM, 2006). Retrieved November 2, 2011, from http://octi.guanajuato.gob.mx/octigto/formularios/ideasConcyteg/Archivos/12042006_GESTION_INTEG_DESCENT_PART_SOCIAL_AGUA.pdf. Cecilia Tortajada, “River basin management approaches in Mexico,” VertigO – la revue electronique en sciences de l’environnement (2004). Retrieved November 2, 2011, from http://vertigo.revues.org/1927

x Jonathan Fox, Accountability Politics: Power and Voice in Rural Mexico (Oxford University Press, 2008) chpt. 1. Andrea Cornwall and Vera Schatten Coelho, “Spaces for Change?: the Politics of Participation in New Democratic Arenas” Cornwall and Schatten Coelho editors, Spaces for Change?: the Politics of Citizen Participation in New Democratic Arenas (London: Zed Books 2007).

xi Jose Castro, “Urban Water and the Politics of Citizenship: the Case of Mexico City Metropolitan Area during the 1980s and 1990s” Environment and Planning, 36 (2) 2004 pp.327-346. Cecilia Tortajada, “Water Management in Mexico City Metropolitan Area” Water Resources Development Volume 22, no. 2, 2006 pp. 353-376.

xii El Tiempo, 2012.

xiii The  Cutzamala  System,  built  from  1970s  to  the  1990s,  has  127  kilometer  of  aqueduct,  7  reservoirs,  tunnels,  canals  and  water  treatment  plants.  The  cost  of  the  system  is  over  1  billion  dollars  and  currently  it  is  operating  at  47%  of  its  capacity  due  to  technical  breakdowns  and  the  draw  down  on  Cutzamala  River  and  aquifer  (Sosa-­‐‑Rodriguez,  2010).

xiv Edward Gibson, Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) chapter 5

xv

xvi Esteva (Interview)

xvii P. Jeffrey and M. Geary, “Integrated Water Resources Management: Lost on the Road from Abitition to Realization?” Water Science & Technology, 53 (1) 1-8. 2006.

28

xviii Scott and Bannister, 2008.

xix AK Biswas, “Integrated Water Resources Management: Is it Working?” International Journal of Water Resources Management, 24 (1) 2008 pp. 5-22. Aileen Anderson, “Synthesis: IWRM Lessons for Implementation” Water SA 34 (6) 2008. ANDERSON, Aileen; KARAR, Eiman and FAROLFI, Stefano. Synthesis: IWRM lessons for implementation. Water SA (Online) [online]. 2008, vol.34, n.6 [cited 2013-06-13], pp. 665-669 . Available from: <http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1816-79502008000600002&lng=en&nrm=iso>

xx Liverman, Diana, and Silvina Vilas. 2006. “Neoliberalism and the Environment in Latin America.”Annual

Review of Environment and Resources 31: 327–63.  

   Wilder  &  Lankao,  2006

xxi International Policy –need citation

xxii Wilder

xxiii Larson  &  Ribot,  2005

xxiv Scott  &  Bannister,  2008;  Wester  et  al.,  2003

xxv Wilder,  2010;  Pablo  Rojas,  2007;  Avila,  2006

xxvi Grayson  2010;  Ruiz  Marrero,  2005

xxvii Abers  &  Keck,  2009

xxviii Abers  &  Keck,  2009;  Hochstetler  &  Keck,  2007

xxix Deborah Brautigam and Monique Segarra, “Difficult Parternships: The World Bank, States and NGOs” Latin America Politics and Society, 49 (4) Winter 2007, pp. 149-181.

xxx Need citation here

xxxi Wilder 2010.

xxxii R.E. Evenson and D.Gollin, “Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution: 1960-2000” Science 300 (5620): 758-762  

   

xxxiii Joseph Cotter, Troubled Harvest, Agronomy and Revolution in Mexico, 1880-2002, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003 :234

29

xxxiv By  2010  urbanization  rates  were  78%  in  Mexico.    CIA  World  Fact  Book,  accessed  May  5,  2013  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-­‐‑world-­‐‑factbook/geos/mx.html

xxxv Leaking  pipes  often  contribute  to  a  migration  of  sewage  and  polluted  water  from  one  set  of  pipes  into  those  carrying  potable  water.

xxxvi Barkin  &  Klooster,  2006;  Castro,  1995

xxxvii Scott  &  Bannister,  2008

xxxviii Perhaps  more  salient  than  expectations  around  increased  participation,  President  Salinas  was  responding  as  well  to  increasing  international  pressure  to  show  a  response  by  Mexico  to  the  upcoming  NAFTA  agreements  (Dominguez,  2004;  Fox,  2008).  Wilder  (2010)  argues  that  the  reform  was  riddled  with  contradictions  as  the  key  policy  goal  was  to  bolster  agrarian  production  and  free  markets  rather  than  strengthen  participatory  management.

xxxix Romero  Lankao,  2001    

xl Rojas,  2007;  Wilder  &  Lankao,  2006

xli Calderon’s  narrow  election  as  President  in  2006  (PAN)  over  the  PRD  candidate  Lopez  Obredor  was  highly  controversial.  Lopez  refused  initially  to  concede  defeat,  arguing  that  the  narrow  margin  was  due  to  widespread  electoral  fraud.  In  the  wake  of  the  political  turmoil  surrounding  the  election,  Calderon  moved  to  consolidate  his  administration  by  taking  a  strong  stance  on  water  reform  and  management  and  to  reward  supportive  governors  with  lucrative  infrastructure  investment.    See  Gibson,  2012.

xlii Conagua (pull from bibliography)

xliii Durazo  Herrmann,  2010

xliv Poole 2004.

xlv This  rural  to  urban  growth  pattern  was  reflected  throughout  the  state  as  municipalities  experienced  tremendous  growth  without  the  concomitant  resources  to  absorb  migrants  and  provide  adequate  services,  including  water  (Cohen  &  Rodriguez,  2005;  IDB,  2011).

xlvi Gibson,  2005;  Herrmann,  2010;  Grayson,  2010    

30

xlvii Fox  2008,  Moore  2010

xlviii Munoz,  2005;  Eisenstadt,  200x

xlix Reference –Munoz?

l Eisenstadt,  2007;  Fox,  2008

li Grayson,  2010;  Interview  Esteva,  2011

lii Eisenstadt,  2007;  Munoz,  2004

liii Laurie  et  al.,  2002;  Andolina,  2011;  Boelens,  2008;  Schoups  et  al.,  2006

liv Moore  et  al.,  2006;  Jones  et  al.,  2011

lv Gibson,  2012

lvi Durazo-­‐‑Herrmann,  2010

lvii Reforma,  10/19  2003;  Grayson,  2010

lviii Reforma,  10/19  2003;  Grayson,  2010

lix Gibson,  2012

lx Esteva  interview  June  15  2011,;  Herrmann,  2011

lxi Gibson,  2005;    Durazo-­‐‑Herrmann,  2010

lxii Carlos  Rojas,  Communidade  de  San  Felipe  June  16,  2011

lxiii Interview  Jose  Consejo  and  Technical  Secretariat,  2011

lxiv Personal  Communication,  2012

lxv Interview,  ADOSOPACO  Director,  2012

lxvi Interview  Vargas  Palacios,  January  24  2012

lxvii CONAGUA,  2007

31

lxviii INSO  website

lxix Manuscript,  Forthcoming

lxx Sander  Meijerink  and  Dave  Huitema,  “Policy  Entrepreneurs  and  Change  Strategies:  Lessons  from  Sixteen  Case  Studies  of  Water  Transitions  around  the  Globe,”  Ecology  and  Society,  15(2)  (2010),  21.