RESUMENEl process tracing es un método para arribar a inferencias causales sólidas. Preocupados por la fragmentación creciente de la literatura en torno a variantes de process tracing, ponemos de relieve aquello que unifica el método: la reconstitución, desde distintas entradas, de una narrativa plausible y persuasiva para explicar resultados de interés. Nuestro argumento se construye a partir de la presentación de dos procesos de investigación, seleccionados por haberse iniciado desde dos entradas distintas: inductiva en un caso -por la novedad del fenómeno-, deductiva en el otro -por la existencia de teorías previas-. Mostramos cómo hacer process tracing rigurosamente, alternando momentos inductivos y deductivos según la entrada adoptada, y destacamos que estos estudios convergen en la producción de una narrativa que articula hipótesis y mecanismos causales para explicar los resultados de interés. Palabras clave: metodología cualitativa, process tracing, inferencia causal, inducción, deducción ABSTRACT Process tracing is a method to obtain solid causal inferences. Concerned by the fragmentation of the growing literature distinguishing different types of process tracing, we highlight the elements that unite this method: the construction, through different routes, of narratives that provide plausible, persuasive explanations of the outcomes of interest. Our argument draws on the comparison of two studies with different entry points to the research process:the first one starts inductively due to the novelty of the outcome of interest, while the second study starts deductively since previous theories were available. We show how to conduct process-tracing analysis rigorously and highlight that these studies converge to produce narratives structured around hypotheses and causal mechanisms that explain the outcomes.

The recent history of groundwater use in North Africa provides a cautionary tale for climate change adaptation. Even though the short-term threats of groundwater overexploitation are clear, and territorially bounded, and involve comparatively few players, in recent decades, agricultural intensification has consistently increased pressure on the available resources. Groundwater has been governed through a dynamic interplay between formal rules and informal practices that focused more on maintaining fragile socio-political compromises than on ensuring environmental sustainability. If it is to be effective, climate change adaptation will need to muster the sort of political legitimacy that sustainable groundwater management is currently lacking. (Résumé d'auteur

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Dans la plaine agricole du Saïss au Maroc, les pouvoirs publics affichent leur inquiétude face à la surexploitation des eaux souterraines. Ils ont élaboré un « contrat de nappe » pour en réguler les usages. Quel changement cet instrument représente-t-il vis-à-vis des politiques hydro-agricoles antérieures, qui étaient tournées vers la mobilisation de quantités d’eau toujours plus massives ? Cet article avance que l’objectif environnemental de préservation de la nappe souterraine a fourni une nouvelle justification à la poursuite de grands travaux d’aménagements des eaux de surface. Mais ceux-ci cohabitent désormais avec un mode de gestion libéral des eaux souterraines. L’État aménageur libéral s’accommode d’une perte, relative, de contrôle sur les dynamiques d’irrigation, dans la mesure où ces dynamiques lui paraissent gérables politiquement et, au moins sur le court terme, désirables économiquement. Mais ces complexes accommodements politiques s’opèrent au détriment d’une gestion durable des eaux souterraines.

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This article proposes an analytical approach to conflicts and policy-making related to urban water management based on multi-level policy coalitions. This is necessary to articulate four main issues. First, the repositioning of social and political struggles for access to water, along with policy variables. Second, the analysis of the effects of ecological transition, including climate change. Third, the reincorporation of these struggles and challenges in a multi-level approach. Finally, the enquiry into the apparent contradiction, in contemporary policymaking. The article proposes a definition of multi-level coalitions as collective preference systems that influence the content of policies (ideas/advocacy, decisions, policy tools) and their implementation, groups of actors that arise from engagement in policy issues. In the first section, the article presents the objectives of research on urban water management in the Americas, within the framework of which this analytical approach by multi-level coalitions is fashioned. In the second section, the article details four analytical issues. In the third section, it gives a definition of multi-level coalitions.

Quels rapports les politiques environnementales entretiennent-elles avec le New Public Management ? Plus précisément, en quoi ces politiques sont-elles désormais structurées par les réformes et les principes néo-managériaux ? La question constitue le fil rouge de ce numéro spécial, qui rassemble quatre contributions originales sur le cas français. Dans cet article introductif, nous dressons un panorama du New Public Management et des politiques environnementales en France, avant de passer en revue la littérature sur les effets du New Public Management sur les politiques environnementales. Nous présentons ensuite les principaux apports des textes qui constituent ce volume. Nous apportons enfin quelques éléments de réflexion sur ce que change le New Public Management aux politiques environnementales.

This paper is motivated by the pressing need to understand how water use and irrigated agriculture can be transformed in the interests of both social and environmental sustainability. How can such change come about? In particular, given the generally mixed results of simplified, state-initiated projects of social engineering, what is the potential for transformations in societal regimes of governance to be anchored in the everyday practices of farmers? In this paper, we address these enduring questions in novel ways. We argue that the concept of bricolage, commonly applied to analysing community management of resources, can be developed and deployed to explain broad societal processes of change. To illustrate this, we draw on case studies of irrigated agriculture in Saharan areas of Algeria and in the occupied Golan Heights in Syria. Our case analysis offers insights into how processes of institutional, technological and ideational bricolage entwine, how the state becomes implicated in them and how multiple instances of bricolage accumulate over time to produce meaningful systemic change. In concluding, however, we reflect on the greater propensity of contemporary bricolage to rebalance power relations than to open the way to more ecological farming practices.