Improving connectivity in water governance: the implementation of water cooperation mechanisms in disparate political and social contexts

Abstract

Water governance inevitably entails a complex bureaucratic matrix in which various functional agencies and territorially based administrative units operate at various institutional levels. These governmental actors have asymmetric rights and responsibilities, unbalanced powers, and divergent socio-economic interests, which may lead to water conflicts and governance failures. Likewise, non-governmental organizations, enterprises and community members do not necessarily concur with one another or with governmental actors on how water should be defined, used and/or transformed. The problems of disconnection and fragmentation can result in loosely institutionalized water governance systems, which may not be sufficiently equipped to render effective solutions to escalating tension and intensifying conflicts over water (Dellapenna et al., 2013; Gevers, 2018; Gupta et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2017). In response, various water cooperation mechanisms have been proposed at both international and national levels, focused on improving sustainability, efficiency, effectiveness and equality of water governance. Existing water governance literature has given much attention to the early stages of water cooperation mechanisms, such as the formulation of goals and discourses, deliberation over formal rules, and the establishment and reform of integrated water institutions (Gleick, 2003; Global Water Partnership, 2000; Schoeman et al., 2014). However, few studies have investigated how these mechanisms are implemented at the operational level and how various actors animate cooperation in practice (PahlWostl, 2020). Inadequate examination of the full policy cycle could obscure two important but understudied issues. On the one hand, various political, socio-economic and cultural factors may influence the process of implementation. It would be oversimplistic to analyse a water cooperation mechanism without closely examining its contextual configurations. In this sense, the implementation of water cooperation mechanisms is subject to complex interactions between those mechanisms and the contexts in which they operate, resulting in diverse outcomes that may not be fully consistent with policy goals (Schlager, 2016; Wang & Chen, 2021). On the other hand, the actors engaged by