Doctoral Dissertation Research: Dynamics of Water Governance: Civil Society and Expert Knowledge as Agents of Change.

Elisabeth ClemensMaria Akchurin芝加哥大学本论文研究了专家知识和公民社会动员如何塑造水资源管理机构。研究人员将结合比较历史和人种学的方法来分析从20世纪70年代末到现在的水政策变化。这项研究以三个相互关联的问题为指导。首先，为什么以市场为导向的水治理改革在某些情况下导致了持久的制度变革，而在另一些情况下却失败了？其次，以国家内外不同类型的专家为一方，以及以公民社会团体为另一方，是如何影响这些制度轨迹的？最后，水的物质和道德属性如何影响专家和民间社会团体影响水治理机构的方式？该研究考察了阿根廷和智利长期以来的这些动态，重点关注两种情况下的水治理：人口稠密城市地区的饮用水供应系统，以及毗邻工业用水户的人口较少地区的饮用水供应系统。该研究主要依赖于通过实地调查收集的两种主要数据：由二手历史资料补充的档案文献数据和以民族志观察补充的对关键受访者的半结构化访谈。该研究将政治社会学、专业社会学和社会运动学术联系起来，告知专家和民间社会组织如何塑造和参与关于环境、发展以及国家和市场在解决资源管理和分配方面的作用的紧迫辩论。资源管理和分配同时被视为一种经济利益和基本人权。该研究将水的特性纳入对水的治理的知识和合法性是如何产生的理解，并从科学和技术研究中获得见解，以丰富对制度变革的更传统的解释。更广泛的影响水是一种重要的自然资源，在全球范围内关于环境治理和社会经济发展的讨论中，水政治已经变得越来越明显。通过研究自20世纪70年代末以来水政策制度变化的轨迹，研究结果将有助于我们对水治理的理解，通过考察历史基础的实证问题来反思国家和市场如何调解环境与社会之间的关系。调查结果将通过美国的出版物以及阿根廷和智利的水资源专家和民间社会组织进行分享。该项目有可能产生跨学科的对话，为管理水资源所涉及的政治和社会进程的知识体系提供社会学见解。

Elisabeth ClemensMaria Akchurin University of ChicagoThis dissertation research investigates how expert knowledge and civil society mobilization shape the institutions governing water resources. The investigators will combine comparative-historical and ethnographic methods to analyze changes in water policy from the late 1970s to the present. The research is guided by three interconnected questions. First, why did market-oriented reforms in water governance lead to durable institutional change in some settings yet fail in others? Second, how did different kinds of experts within and outside the state, on the one hand, and civil society groups, on the other, influence these institutional trajectories? Finally, how do the material and moral properties of water affect the ways in which experts and civil society groups influence water governance institutions? The study examines these dynamics in Argentina and Chile over time, focusing on water governance in two types of settings: drinking water supply systems in densely populated urban areas, and drinking water supply systems in less densely populated areas adjacent to industrial water users. The research relies on two main types of data collected through field research: archival documentary data supplemented by secondary historical sources and semi-structured interviews with key respondents supplemented by ethnographic observation. The study bridges political sociology, the sociology of expertise, and social movement scholarship to inform how experts and civil society organizations shape and participate in pressing debates about the environment, development, and the roles of states and markets in addressing the management and distribution of a resource that is simultaneously treated as an economic good and a basic human right. The study incorporates the properties of water into an understanding of how knowledge and legitimacy around its governance are produced, and also draws insights from science and technology studies to enrich more conventional accounts of institutional change.Broader ImpactsWater is an essential natural resource and water politics have become increasingly visible in discussions about environmental governance and socioeconomic development on a global scale. By studying trajectories of institutional change in water policies since the late 1970s, research findings will contribute to our understanding of water governance by examining historically grounded empirical questions to reflect on how states and markets mediate the relationship between environment and society. The findings will be shared via publications in the United States as well as with water experts and civil society organizations in Argentina and Chile. The project has the potential to generate interdisciplinary dialogue, contributing sociological insights to the body of knowledge about the political and social processes involved in managing water resources.