Efforts to commercialize water supply and sanitation in Dhaka, Bangladesh, have been pushed vigorously by internal and external proponents of neo-liberalism. The thesis takes a critical look at these developments and analyzes the role of multinational finance institutions in this process. In particular, it looks into the role of these finance institutions in funding reform projects to corporatize Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA), examining the impacts on end users, especially marginalized sections of society. The thesis describes how, in the process of corporatization, Dhaka WASA is and will continue to be more assertive in its commercial orientation than it was previously. The paper also studies a highly touted ‘successful’ co-operative model for revenue management called Program for Performance Improvement (PPI), seen by some as an alternative to privatization. I argue that the model in fact emerged as a consequence of the commercialization efforts of neoliberal reforms and that the revenue management model has created an isolated business unit with a reclusive management that undermines the egalitarian objectives of the water utility as a public service entity. / Thesis (Master, Environmental Studies) -- Queen's University, 2009-01-06 12:06:45.901

While the outright privatization of water services has declined globally, it has been replaced with public-private partnerships (P3s) in the government procurement and delivery of water services, and increasingly at the local level. This research finds that such initiatives are on the rise in Canada, and considering the overall record of failure that has amounted from varied types of water privatization thus far, it seeks to analyze this expanding waterscape from a critical perspective. More specifically, by historically situating the privatization of Canadian municipal water in a political-economic context that identifies its relation to contemporary (neoliberal) capitalism, this research examines how the focused state commitment to water P3s is indicative of the processes of neoliberalization. I argue that regulatory and budgetary changes since the economic crisis of 2008 have formed an institutionalized policy apparatus that essentially forces needy municipalities into long-term contracts with private firms, therefore establishing sustained sites for capital accumulation. This thesis concludes with a discussion concerning the implications that such a “partnership” will have for municipal autonomy, organized labour, and the environment, particularly in light of the intensifying state focus on international free trade. / Graduate / 0626 / 0629

Thesis (PhD(Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 301-310).

abstract: This research investigates the dialectical relationships between water and social power. I analyze how the coupled processes of development, water privatization, and climate change have been shaping water struggles in Chile. I focus on how these hydro-struggles are reconfiguring everyday practices of water management at the community scale and the ways in which these dynamics may contribute to more democratic and sustainable modes of water governance at both regional and national scales. Using a historical-geographical and multi-sited ethnographical lens, I investigate how different geographical projects (forestry, irrigated agriculture, and hydropower) were deployed in the Biobio and Santiago regions of Chile during the last 200 hundred years. I analyze how since the 1970s, these hydro-modernization projects have been gradually privatized, which in turn has led to environmental degradation and water dispossession affecting peasants and other rural populations. I frame these transformations using the political-ecological notion of hydrosocial assemblages produced by the different stages of the hydro-modernity—Liberal, Keynesian, Socialist, Neoliberal. I detail how these stages have repeatedly reshaped Chilean hydrosocial processes. I unpack the stages through the analysis of forestry, irrigation and hydropower developments in the central and southern regions of Chile, emphasizing how they have produced both uneven socio-spatial development and growing hydrosocial metabolic rifts, particularly during neoliberal hydro-modernity (1981-2015). Hydrosocial metabolic rifts occur when people have been separated or dispossessed from direct access and control of their traditional water resources. I conclude by arguing that there is a need to overcome the current unsustainable market-led approach to water governance. I propose the notion of a 'commons hydro-modernity', which is based on growing environmental and water social movements that are promoting a socio-spatial project to reassemble Chilean hydrosocial metabolic relations in a more democratic and sustainable way. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Environmental Social Science 2016

Water scarcity and water contamination are persistent problems facing large numbers of people in India. In order to combat scarcity, the Indian Federal government designated 2016 to be the Year of Water Conservation. In order to prepare for the success of this initiative, different management strategies and awareness campaigns began in 2015. Critics have generally responded favourably to these shifts in water management because conservation is considered a benevolent and even environmentally-friendly, or “green” process that can successfully combat water scarcity. However, these initiatives often change the ways in which people access water based upon new governing mentalities. The governing mentality most strongly underpinning these initiatives is based on a neoliberal rationality, which is generally admonished by academics and activists due to the production of uneven socio-economic landscapes under neoliberal economics. Similarly, in an effort to combat water contamination, governing authorities have initiated programs and policies to ensure that safe water is provided for citizens. However, this too has often been influenced by neoliberal governing mentalities. In order to analyze these shifts, this dissertation takes a closer look at the narratives of water conservation, water scarcity, and water contamination using a political ecology framework in three states in North Western India: Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Haryana. The following manuscript style thesis consists of five independent papers, plus an introduction and conclusion, linked thematically through the discussion and analyses of the shifting nature of the hydro-social cycle under the pressure of various neoliberal reforms and processes initiated by federal and state governing authorities in North Western India. Having independent papers lends itself to a more nuanced discussion of the ways in which neoliberal water management strategies are lived-out in various communities. Neoliberalism is not an overarching hegemonic project or phenomenon, and as such the discourses of neoliberalism have had different consequences for different communities and populations. As such, this thesis highlights the ways in which the shifting hydro-social cycle has changed gender-related activities of water collection, the ways in which contamination is a form of slow violence, the ways in which defacto public-private partnerships operate in water scarce urban centres, and the ways in which discourses of conservation can be misleading and even manufactured. / Graduate / 2019-05-23

Since its inception in 1989, the private water sector of England and Wales has been enlisted as a centrepiece in debates concerning the merits of privatisation. Advocates point to increased environmental performance and increased investment. Critics note a significant retraction of the early free market aspirations and increasingly prescriptive regulation. However, market mechanisms and liberalisation are once again being emphasised in policy, reigniting the debate surrounding the commoditisation of water. This thesis engages directly and critically with Karen Bakker's 'Uncooperative Commodity' approach to the 'reregulation' of the industry, arguing its tenants must be adapted to accommodate these recent developments. While Bakker's earlier accounts of the reregulation of the water industry placed a great emphasis on the geography and biophysical properties of water, later work by both her and her contemporaries have developed more refined and socialised models of how water and society interact to produce temporary regularities in the material world. This thesis argues that an appropriate means of developing Bakker's original thesis would be a greater focus on socio-historical context when exploring the materiality of water, and hence the degree to which water may be transformed into a private commodity. Bob Jessop's Strategic Relational Approach (Jessop 2008) is deployed as a means of describing and relating: (1) the degree to which research can identify underlying mechanisms which govern the outcomes of attempts to commoditise water under capitalist modes of production, (2) the role of the state and politics in flanking or supporting the commoditisation of water and (3) the role of existing discursive-institutional structures in introducing path-dependencies and uneven power geometries which in turn effect the outcomes of collective action towards the commoditisation of water. The thesis documents historical developments in English and Welsh resource planning, regulation, and policy from 1945 to 2012 in order to explain the current structure of the industry, its response to water scarcity, and the origins of the current reform programme. It then focuses on the conflicts and tensions between actors in the industry generated by the current reform programme and their role in affecting the degree of success of the programme itself.