Transboundary environmental publics and hydropower governance in the Mekong River Basin: A contested politics of place, scale and temporality

Abstract

This study proposes a conceptualisation of transboundary environmental publics (TEPs) to interrogate the distinctive pathways through which contestations over public participation and ‘stakeholder engagement’ in transboundary environmental governance have emerged. While much attention has been paid to how the discourse and practices of public participation have been co‐opted by powerful actors to serve vested interests, fewer studies have questioned how the contingent and fragmented nature of ‘publics’ entangled with a politics of representation have contributed towards the failings of public participation. This paper examines how state and nonstate TEPs have emerged as multi‐dimensional, material and discursive entities within hybrid hydropower governance arrangements in the Mekong River Basin. Public participation in relation to hydropower dams on the Mekong River's mainstream is intertwined with the contingent formation of TEPs through the Mekong River Commission's Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA). Contestations over public participation may be understood by examining the specific ways in which 1) ‘publics’ were assembled, 2) notions of ‘place’ were interpreted, 3) scalar constructions were influenced by centre‐periphery power dynamics and 4) temporality was defined. To understand how this convening of ‘publics’ fundamentally influences the potential for meaningful public participation, this paper contrasts the TEPs formed through the PNPCA and the Save the Mekong Coalition (STMC), a transnational activism network. The STMC TEP provided reimaginations of scalar constructions and broadened definitions of publics, places, and temporality in participation, reflecting how the topographical and discursive practices that underlie the creation of TEPs have important implications for their legitimacy and effectiveness in influencing decision making.

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“…Based on the three themes identified in the norm diffusion and urban climate governance literature: (1) local government's interaction with the state, (2) local government's interaction with global networks, (3) local government's interaction with civil society and universities, challenges are identified for putting norm domestication into action for effective local decarbonization. The empirical results show that the adoption of climate actions in a local municipality in Arizona is highly related to two important temporal politics, “a lively and relational understanding of space that is considered in tandem with time (Massey, 2005 cited in Yong, 2021, p. 9)” that affected the role of the city of Phoenix in leading climate actions.…”

Beyond state politics in Asia's transboundary rivers: Revisiting two decades of critical hydropolitics

“…In the Brahmaputra, with some exceptions (Davis et al., 2021; Gamble, 2019; Yeophantong, 2017), there remains an emphasis on intra‐state conflict and cooperation between riparian states, and India's position as a hydro‐hegemon (Barua et al., 2018; Hanasz, 2017). Scholars have outlined the roles of diverse non‐state actors, including international organisations and river basin organisations such as the Mekong River Commission, NGOs, academics, activists, community members and the private sector across multiple scales in shaping and contesting Mekong water politics (Hirsch, 2016; Yong, 2020, 2022). In the Salween, many scholars show how political authority over water is contested by multiple state and non‐state actors at multiple scales, rather than being located with (in) a sovereign state (Suhardiman & Middleton, 2020; In Middleton & Lamb, 2019; Götz & Middleton, 2020; more broadly, Hengsuwan, 2013).…”

“…2 Rather, scale is understood as produced and constructed; it ‘must be actively defined, delimited, and populated with goals and concerns’ (Lamb, 2014, p. 387). Understood critically, scale is a process rather than a static or fixed ‘level’ for analysis, and therefore scaling and re‐scaling can be approached as active processes that can be used strategically by a range of actors to enact politics (Bakker, 1999; Clarke‐Sather, 2012; Grey & Sadoff, 2003; Lamb, 2014; Middleton et al., 2019; Molle, 2007; Ptak, 2017; Sneddon, 2003; Wang et al., 2022; Yong, 2022).…”

Hybrid governance, environmental justice, and hydropower development in the Mekong transboundary commons

“…Even within national governments, less‐influential environmental ministries are marginalized as dam developers liaise directly with energy ministries who drive hydropower development agendas and projects (Wells‐Dang et al, 2016). Even where project information is disclosed, it may be perceived as biased in favor of state interests, an act of information dissemination as opposed to meaningful consultation, and lacking accountability around compensation for transboundary environmental harm (Suhardiman & Geheb, 2021; Yong, 2021).…”