Polycentricity in Mexican water governance: Toward a research agenda (seminar at CSID, ASU)

As those who follow my research agenda know, I study water governance using common pool resource theories, championed by Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom. On Monday March 3rd, I will be in Tempe (Arizona) giving a seminar at the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity (CSID) of Arizona State University (ASU). The seminar is entitled “Polycentricity in Mexican water governance: Toward a research agenda“. I will be discussing my work studying non-hierarchical models of water governance and the implications for a research agenda in polycentricity theory. We will be meeting at Wrigley Hall in room 481 at 12:00 noon. The seminar will go on for about an hour. I am not 100% sure we’ll have streaming, but if we do, I’ll let everyone know.

Polycentricity in Mexican water governance: Toward a research agenda
Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega
Assistant Professor, Public Administration Division
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

Water governance in Mexico has experienced substantial shifts in the past decade. Starting in 2004, with several reforms to the Ley de Aguas Nacionales (National Water Law), two new models of water-governing organizations have been implemented: the old-fashioned Consejos de Cuenca (river basin councils), and the allegedly-new-and-improved Organismos de Cuenca (river basin organization). This sudden change in organizational and institutional design is argued to be a response to the need to pursue “integrated water resources management” (IWRM). Contemporary Mexican water policy provides fertile ground to explore questions of complex commons governance, whose lessons can potentially be transferred to other countries. This talk will outline the complexity in governing water as a commons in Mexico, and more importantly, whether we can apply a polycentric governance approach to its study. The talk lays out a research agenda for the study of polycentric water governance in Mexico, and offers a few preliminary insights on which areas of Mexican water policy would be better suited for this kind of application of polycentricity theory.

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