Relational and Discursive Approaches to Water Governance

Abstract

Relational and interpretive approaches to policy analysis are on the rise (e.g. Bartels and Turnbull, 2020; Lejano, 2021). Such approaches take the politics of knowledge and the process of meaning and claim-making in policy design and implementation as key to understanding how policies impact the world. The latest development in critical policy research is cross-fertilisation with the literature on critical discourse analysis, with its attention to language and textual analysis. Such research has been recently applied to understand various aspects of water policy, management and governance (e.g. Ison et al. 2015; Mukhtarov et al. 2021). We build on these trends and invite contributions that discuss relational and discursive approaches to water governance. The research on the gestation, promotion and circulation of water policy narratives would make a good candidate for inclusion in the panel. We are also interested in the case studies of policy practice, of what happens when water policy models get translated into budgets, roles, rules and practices – the what, the how and the why questions. We invite contributions from various sights and levels of governance. At the global level, one area of interest is the rise of nations and cities that brand themselves as centers of excellence in water engineering, management and governance in order to enter the lucrative business of supplying expertise for adaptation to global climate change. Such actors use sophisticated branding and narrative strategies that require discourse analytical tools to unravel. We are also interested in studies that investigate discourses and practices around de-centralised water governance, disaster risk preparedness and management, building resilience to climate change, financialisation of water, and the rise of public-private partnerships in water governance. Below are some indicative questions that may help authors decide whether their research fits this panel: ▪️ What are the discourses and practices regarding water related disaster risk preparedness and management at the local, national and global levels? How can critical discourse analysis contribute to understanding the currently popular approaches to managing water disasters (floods, droughts, pollution)? ▪️ What are the major elements, processes, and mechanisms through which certain cities and nations brand their water sector internationally? Such strategies may include but are not limited to: presenting external demand for services as ‘natural’, packaging past domestic achievements as globally relevant, asserting universality of expertise, stressing political neutrality. ▪️ What are the processes and outcomes of global circulation of water policy models, especially those that are promoted by the private sector actors such as management and environmental consultants? ▪️ What are the current discourses on valuing water that include discussions on making water sector attractive for private capital through financialisation of the sector and new forms of public-private partnerships?

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