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

获得清洁水将成为21世纪最大的自然资源挑战。这项研究提出了一个问题：“谁有权在何时以及为什么对水资源做出决定？”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。这是否应该成为其他国家效仿更普遍的分散和日益私有化的水资源管理路线的一个例子或警告？这种方法对公平获取、定价和维持资源可持续性有何影响？理查德·马库斯博士（耶鲁大学，环境研究和政治学）将利用该计划访问基金与摩西·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）进行访问和合作，采访水资源部门的领导人，并与以色列学术同事进一步审查研究问题。研究结果将用于马库斯博士的多国合作研究设计，以探索水资源治理中公平与可持续性之间的关系。社会科学家们刚刚开始将目光投向简单地寻求更多水资源的政策之外，以分解管理具体水资源管理案例的复杂制度关系，提高效率，并考虑需求。这次规划访问所通知的更大的项目将开始在这些努力的基础上，提取关于机构类型、其组成部分及其水平的作用的跨国发现。为了更好地为美国、以色列和无数其他国家的水政策提供信息，我们必须更好地了解什么样的机构、代表什么样的利益、最好地管理资源，以确保资源的可持续性和公平获取，从而避免冲突。

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.