The purposes of this study were to examine 1) understandings of science expressed in formal salmon recovery policy discourse; 2) rhetorical practices employed to justify or undermine claims about salmon policy 3); and patterns of understandings of science and associated rhetorical practices between social categories of actors. This research contributes to scholarship in public understanding of science, discourse studies, and natural resource policy. A constructivist discourse analysis was conducted using qualitative methods to analyze transcripts from over one hundred congressional hearing witnesses representing a wide diversity of stakeholder groups. Multiple coders organized discourses into analytic categories, achieving a final proportional agreement of 80% or greater for each category, at the finest scale of analysis. Stakeholders employed a collection of prototypical understandings of the nature of science, boundaries of science, and roles of science in decision-making. The process of science was described as impartial and ideal, a way to reduce uncertainty through consensus and peer-review, and subject to changing paradigms. Scientific knowledge was sometimes represented as "truth" and other times as tentative, and scientists were portrayed as independent and objective as well as captured and interest-driven. Witnesses described science as separate from and superior to politics and management. Testimony included descriptions of science?s role in developing decision alternatives, selecting among alternatives, and evaluating and legitimating alternatives. Stakeholders used these understandings of science to construct justifications to support their claims about salmon policy and undermine opposing claims. Science-based justifications included externalizing devices, construction of consensus, category entitlement, and extreme case formulations. Other justifications invoked local control, treaty rights, and local knowledge, or relied on interest management. This study has extended the theory and method of empirical discourse analysis, and produced a taxonomy of understandings that should be transferable to studies of similar policy settings. Additionally, conclusions from this study about differences between social groups in the presence, distribution, and frequency of expression of the discourses might be developed into propositions for further testing. Finally, the study has implications for communication about the role of science in collaborative natural resource decision-making processes. / Ph. D.

As the case with most countries across Latin America, unprecedented migration to urban areas has strained city infrastructure systems. More particularly, the region faces a pressing crisis of water security, where rapid urbanization has outpaced water sector development. This thesis addresses the water infrastructure reform in El Alto and La Paz, Bolivia, focusing on strategies to better promote water access for the peri-urban poor. The research investigates the level of progressivity of water service expansion and pricing regimes: in other words, does the present model of water distribution positively improve the lives of the poorest groups? By investigating these social dimensions of water management, this study brings perspectives on the broader dialogue on Bolivia’s economic development, along with issues of participatory governance. Resumen: Como es el caso en muchos países latinoamericanos, la migración a áreas urbanas a niveles sin precedentes ha superado la capacidad de infraestructura. Concretamente, la región se enfrenta a una urgente crisis en la seguridad de agua potable dado que la rápida urbanización ha sobrepasado el desarrollo de este sector. Esta tesis aborda la reforma de la infraestructura de agua potable en El Alto y La Paz, Bolivia, enfocando en las estrategias para mejorar el acceso a agua por parte de los residentes periurbanos pobres. La investigación averigua el nivel de progresividad de los regímenes de precios y expansión de servicios de agua potable. En otras palabras, ¿contribuye el actual modelo de distribución de agua al mejoramiento de la vida de los grupos más desfavorecidos? Al investigar estas dimensiones sociales en el manejo de agua potable, este estudio ofrece perspectivas en cuanto al diálogo amplio del desarrollo económico de Bolivia, así como asuntos de gobernanza participativa.