Maria Akchurin University of Chicago
This dissertation research investigates how expert knowledge and civil society mobilization shape the institutions governing water resources. The investigators will combine comparative-historical and ethnographic methods to analyze changes in water policy from the late 1970s to the present. The research is guided by three interconnected questions. First, why did market-oriented reforms in water governance lead to durable institutional change in some settings yet fail in others? Second, how did different kinds of experts within and outside the state, on the one hand, and civil society groups, on the other, influence these institutional trajectories? Finally, how do the material and moral properties of water affect the ways in which experts and civil society groups influence water governance institutions?
The study examines these dynamics in Argentina and Chile over time, focusing on water governance in two types of settings: drinking water supply systems in densely populated urban areas, and drinking water supply systems in less densely populated areas adjacent to industrial water users. The research relies on two main types of data collected through field research: archival documentary data supplemented by secondary historical sources and semi-structured interviews with key respondents supplemented by ethnographic observation. The study bridges political sociology, the sociology of expertise, and social movement scholarship to inform how experts and civil society organizations shape and participate in pressing debates about the environment, development, and the roles of states and markets in addressing the management and distribution of a resource that is simultaneously treated as an economic good and a basic human right. The study incorporates the properties of water into an understanding of how knowledge and legitimacy around its governance are produced, and also draws insights from science and technology studies to enrich more conventional accounts of institutional change.
Broader Impacts
Water is an essential natural resource and water politics have become increasingly visible in discussions about environmental governance and socioeconomic development on a global scale. By studying trajectories of institutional change in water policies since the late 1970s, research findings will contribute to our understanding of water governance by examining historically grounded empirical questions to reflect on how states and markets mediate the relationship between environment and society. The findings will be shared via publications in the United States as well as with water experts and civil society organizations in Argentina and Chile. The project has the potential to generate interdisciplinary dialogue, contributing sociological insights to the body of knowledge about the political and social processes involved in managing water resources.
