This section discusses some concepts that will help understand institutional development of irrigation in Bolivia (Chapter 3) and its interface with water control and peasant community dynamics.
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2.6.1 Perspectives and approaches for institutional analysis
Following up on the discussion on “collective action”in 2.4.1., four main groups of studies or approaches are scrutinized that are common to find in water control studies that analyze institutional development: new institutionalism, an approach on common-resource management (common-pool resource management), an empowerment approach and finally an approach called “post institutionalism” by Cleaver (2000) and Mehta, Leach, and Scoones (2001).
New institutional economics (new institutionalism) is an approach that has its theoretical
foundations mainly in neo-classical economics. It assumes that human behavior is grounded in individuals’ “economic rationality”, and that they seek to maximize profitability (costs and benefits) in all actions or choices they make (Seemann, 2014). It considers that natural resource use and management can be improved and therefore made more “efficient” by creating incentives through markets and institutions, minimizing or controlling any kind of “externalities” (unforeseen factors and outcomes). A key element is formalizing or legally incorporating water rights into the normative and administrative system and creating mechanisms to “facilitate market-based water allocation…” (Saleth and Dinar, 1999: 30; Duarte-Abadía and Boelens, 2016).
This makes it essential to create and formalize institutions that define the "rules of the game" and “reduce uncertainty by establishing a stable structure for human interaction" (Ellis, 2000: 38 quoting North 1990:6). Institutions are then understood, as "the formal rules, conventions
and informal codes that comprise restrictions on human interactions…"(Ellis, 2000: 38). They
are designed as "…entities defined by a configuration of legal, policy, and organizational rules,
conventions, and practices that are structurally linked and operationally embedded within a well-specified environment" (Saleth, 2004:3). That is, institutions structure organizations and
their socio-economic, political, cultural and environmental contexts (Saleth and Dinar, 1999). As economic criteria are the core of this approach, cost recovery, accountability, and financial
autonomy are leading concepts (Roth et al., 2015; Seemann, 2014).
Common Property Resource Management (CPRM). Although often largely based on the
previous approach, CPRM emphasizes local institutions’ potential to efficiently manage common-pool resources (Ostrom, 1990, 1992) and therefore the importance of local forms of regulation, cooperative behavior, and collective action. It is assumed that regulatory mechanisms and cooperative behavior can be designed in collective resource-management systems. A central concept within this approach is “property”, recognized as social relations between people who have “the right” to use and get benefits from using a resource or goods, versus those who do not have that right (Seemann, 2014). From this perspective, managing common resources implies rights to use the resource but also obligations or responsibilities and procedures regarding its management (Boelens et al., 2010). An important argument to sustain this approach and promote it as a model for a sustainable (water) resource management is that, since local people depend on natural resources for their livelihood survival, there is a strong incentive to conserve the resource (Seemann, 2014).
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As part of this approach or model, it is common to see that some “design principles” are proposed, assuming that "robust institutions” are established with "clear rules", based on "well- defined" property rights, on "well-established" boundaries and roles for the organization, with effective sanction mechanisms that prevent abuse of the resource or non-compliance with norms, and create financial mechanisms that are assumed to ensure efficiency and accountability (Ostrom 1992). The most widespread expression of this global approach, as a recipe for the water sector, has been to form water-user associations that are considered as "appropriate instruments (policy instruments) ..." and "...an innovative institutional arrangement” to implement water reforms (Bromley et al., 1980:381).
This approach and especially its design-oriented focus, has been questioned by several authors (Mayer, 2002; Mollinga, 1998; Roth et al., 2015; Zwarteveen and Boelens, 2014), arguing that it may not be applicable in many cases due to the complexities of collective action to manage a common resource; communities’ non-homogeneity and non-unity (in terms of interests, socioeconomic differentiation, culture etc.); excessive focus on locality, neglecting local- regional-national-international relationships and influences; and overlooked power relations (Cleaver, 2000; Duarte-Abadía and Boelens, 2016; Roth et al., 2005; Seemann 2014; Steins et al., 2000).
The empowerment approach emerges as a direct reaction to the "new institutionalism"
approach, suggesting that the latter neglects injustices, inequities, favoritism, etc., which are present in any form of management and access to natural resources. This approach considers institutions, seen as rules and regulations, as dynamic processes in which different interest groups meet, confront and negotiate to include their ideas and interests in a system’s organizational, technical and normative design (Boelens, 2015; Gelles, 1994). For irrigation, although interest groups can be part of the same user group, it is necessary to identify the explicit and implicit interests of "external" parties that intervene in irrigation design. Basically, empowerment through participation must come "from within", manifested as self-mobilization and creation of autonomy (Boelens, 2015; Suhardiman, 2017; Verzijl et al., 2017).
This analytical approach focuses, among others, on two angles: (1) the regulatory complexity of governing access to resources, reflected primarily in culturally and politically embedded property rights, and (2) power relations, expressed at both the individual and collective level. Different from neoinstitutionalism conceptual frameworks, where law is seen as an overarching key issue because of its supposedly mandatory nature as a safeguard for social relationships, determining most interaction among people, natural resources and state, on the contrary, empowerment approaches consider the law not as something that is “absolute and unequivocal”. Law is part of a broader regulatory complex, as a "social resource" (Roth et al., 2005). Law is hybrid and is subject to the different interests, options, limits, dilemmas and choices that are played out in societal arenas. It is deployed as a part of the strategies that people develop to achieve their goals. It is this normative complex that shapes so-called "legal pluralism". Under the perspective of legal pluralism, law is not recognized as the exclusive prerogative of the State. Rather, it is recognized as social practices that shape local and national
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standards forming a group of co-existing and mutually interacting regulatory frameworks (Benda-Beckmann et al., 1998).
Regarding (water) institutions’ power relations, Roth et al. (2005) argue for the importance of examining these relationships in policy decision-making but also in actual control over water and other associated facilities in the field. Unlike the neo-institutional approach, which considers relevant financial mechanisms as the basis to create "accountability", the empowerment focus highlights the political mechanisms that are generated.
The post institutionalism approach focuses on social behavior dynamics and the way
institutions are constantly shaped and readapted by collective action. Therefore, forming institutions is re-conceptualized as a socially-integrated process, rather than a deliberate, transparent administrative activity (Cleaver and Franks 2005). Such a vision requires different levels of analysis, starting from family or group-level institutional arrangements or agreements up to agreements within irrigation systems or within municipalities and the river basin. A key concept in this approach is "institutional bricolage" (Cleaver and de Koning, 2015). The approach conceives institutions not as static or "robust" structures in which it is assumed that human behavior is rather rigidly defined. Rather, institutions are conceived as an overlay (bricolage) of different rules, social norms and power relations formed by continuous collective action and resulting in a variety of agreements at different levels. This argument refutes the possibility of "designing institutions from outside" and especially making institutions that are expected to be "permanent and stable", as proposed by Ostrom (1990, 1992).
Based on the concepts introduced by Boelens (2015), Cleaver (2000) and Mehta et al. (2001), and contrasting them with the ways in which institutions have been shaped in Bolivia and especially around water, it is important to consider the following elements of analysis:
- The dynamic (not static or fixed-structure) character of institutions, because they are immersed in sociopolitical processes.
- The importance of considering confrontation and negotiation of ideas and interests, mediated by power relations, in shaping institutions.
- The importance of historical processes and diversity of cultural repertoires, of meanings, rules and identities that come into play.
- The multipurpose nature of institutions.
Finally, by considering that institutions are neither fixed nor developed in static socio-political and environmental contexts, but rather uncertain, requires us to consider uncertainty as another important element for institutional analysis (see also Cleaver, 2018). Uncertainty, in turn, motivates people to develop collaborative strategies and/or use different institutional repertoires (legal and institutional shopping, as suggested by Zwarteveen et al. 2005).
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