U.S.-Israel Planning Visit: The Political Economy of Israel's Water Sector Across Scales

获得清洁的水将成为21世纪最大的自然资源挑战。这项研究提出的问题是：“谁有权在何时和为什么对水资源作出决定？”国家、私营部门、地方政府和社区的作用是什么？在以色列，国家主导着水务部门。这是否应该为其他国家树立榜样或警示，让他们遵循更为普遍的非集中化和日益私有化的水资源管理路线？这种方法对公平获取、定价和维持资源可持续性有何影响？这笔规划访问补助金将由理查德·马库斯博士(耶鲁大学环境研究和政治学)用于访问摩西·施瓦茨博士，并与摩西·施瓦茨博士(本古里安大学、雅各布·布劳斯坦沙漠研究所、人类与沙漠系)合作，采访水利行业领导人，并与以色列学术界同事进一步审查研究问题。这些发现将被用来指导马库斯博士的多国合作努力的研究设计，以探索水资源治理中的公平和可持续性之间的关系。社会科学家刚刚开始超越简单地寻找更多水的政策，以分解管理特定水管理案例的复杂制度关系，提高效率，并考虑需求。这次规划访问提供的更大的项目将开始在这些努力的基础上进行建设，以提取关于机构类型、其组成部分和级别的跨国调查结果。为了更好地为美国、以色列和无数其他国家的水资源政策提供信息，我们必须更好地了解什么样的机构、代表什么利益，才能最好地管理资源，以确保资源的可持续性和足够公平的获取，以避免冲突。

Access to clean water is poised to become the greatest natural resource challenge of the 21st century. This study asks, "Who has the right to make decisions about water resources when and why?" What is the role of the state, the private sector, local government, and communities? In Israel the state dominates the water sector. Should this serve as an example or warning for other countries following the more common decentralized, and growing privatized, water management route? What is the impact of such an approach on equitable access, pricing, and maintaining resource sustainability? This planning visit grant will be used by Dr. Richard Marcus (Yale University, Environmental Studies and Political Science) to visit and collaborate with Dr. Moshe Schwartz (Ben Gurion University, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Department of Man and the Desert), interview water sector leaders, and further vet the research question with Israeli academic colleagues. The findings will be used to inform the research design of Dr. Marcus' multi-country collaborative effort to explore the relationship between equity and sustainability in water resource governance. Social scientists are just beginning to look beyond the policy of simply seeking out more water to disaggregate the complex institutional relationships governing specific water management cases, improve efficiency, and consider demand. The larger project this planning visit informs will begin the process of building on these efforts to extract cross-national findings about the role of institution types, their constituents, and their levels. In order to better inform water policy in the U.S., Israel, and myriad other countries, we must better understand what sorts of institutions, representing what interests, best govern the resource to ensure resource sustainability and equitable enough access as to avert conflict.