The success of a policy model: Irrigation management transfer in Mexico

Abstract

The Mexican policy of Irrigation Management Transfer has been widely propagated as a success and has become a model for other countries seeking to improve the performance of their irrigation systems while also cutting public expenditures. This article analyses the process of policy-making that has generated the policy model and follows the practices, means, and events through which it has achieved increasing transnational circulation, popularity, and support. The main argument of this article is that the success of a policy model is only a success within the cultural and ideological understandings of a policy network and given the means, practices, and events that generate and disseminate it. This particular case further suggests that success in policy-making, rather than being based on straightforward evidence of improved management performance, is often part of a cultural performance.

Where Water Meets Agriculture: The Ambivalent Role of Water Users Associations

“…Frequently cited instances of largely successful WUAs include those created in Mexico in response to the economic crisis of the late 1980s, when responsibility for local irrigation management and infrastructure was transferred to water users (Rap and Wester 2013 ). In Turkey, WUAs were set up as part of a national decentralisation policy in response to the inability of the State Hydraulic Works (DSI) to continue funding the operation and maintenance of irrigation infrastructure (Uysal and Atis 2010 ).…”

NGOs and the Democratization of Ecuadorian Water Governance: Insights from the Multi-Stakeholder Platform el Foro de los Recursos Hídricos

“…This was the result of the growing international and national recognition that irrigation management, even of the large state built and state-managed irrigation systems, could best be done by water user associations (Tiaguaro-Rea 2012; Rap 2006). International funders financed these interventions in the irrigation sector through NGOs and other non-state actors (often private companies) that took over some of the tasks that had for decades been the state domain (Cremers et al 2005).…”

Dilemas de los ‘funcionarios punta de lanza’ en la gestión ambiental en Río San Juan, Nicaragua

“…El análisis de los dilemas surge de una crítica a estudios del manejo de recursos naturales basados en la economía neo-institucional, argumentando que ellos no logran captar y apreciar el considerable margen de actuación que tienen los diferentes actores sociales (Long, 2001;Rap, 2004). En un reciente estudio sobre los canaleros Mexicanos, Rap (2004) identifica la variación que existe entre las normas formales de la institución de riego y las prácticas de distribución de agua, y presenta la relativa autonomía que los canaleros, por ser el nivel intermediario entre usuarios y funcionarios de oficina, obtienen en la toma de decisiones y en la aplicación (y modificación) práctica de las reglas formales.…”

“…Al igual que los canaleros mexicanos en el análisis de Rap (2004), a pesar de estar en los niveles bajos en la jerarquía, los 'funcionarios punta de lanza' no ejecutan simplemente decisiones tomadas en niveles superiores, sino que también las adaptan a las situaciones, demandas y obstáculos que encuentran en su realidad cotidiana del campo.…”