Water governance and the interplay of scales

Governance is a polysemous word that is used in opposition to government to indicate a less centralized form of power. The success of this term probably comes from its ambiguity. Indeed, it is a concept sometimes used to question the central executive power (monarchy, company management,...) in a context where it is perceived as hegemonic, sometimes used to claim more government, in a market context perceived as chaotic, but in which the dominant ideology is opposed to a centralized intervention. It is thus both a concept for demanding more and less government.

This course approaches governance from a critical and reflexive angle, with a historical depth that integrates the evolutionary trajectories of public action between globalization, Europeanization on the one hand, and decentralization and territorialization on the other, in contexts of growing uncertainty, global changes and transitions. In particular, it explores the following questions:

• Governance? Dominant concept, critical approach, institutional, socio-political context, emergence, evolution in a context of global changes?
• Construction of water policies and governance; Role of concepts and discourses; How can governance modes be influenced or changed? Better consideration of collective values promoted by IWRM? Importance of long time, historical depth and prospective ?
• What room for maneuver do the actors have at the local, national and international levels? What management strategies for a water territory? Illustration of the diversity of modes of governance
• Water governance: between integration and fragmentation?
• Water as an 'inter-connecting fluid' of actors and ecosystems: what governance of these interactions and their social translation?

• To critically explore the dominant concept of governance, understanding the institutional and socio-political context of its emergence and evolution in a context of global changes and transitions.
• To analyze and understand how water policies are developed and their role in water governance, particularly examining the role of concepts and discourses, and how governance modes can be influenced or changed to better reflect the collective values promoted by IWRM.
• Understand the room for maneuver of actors at the national and international levels and the management strategies of a water territory through examples that illustrate the diversity of governance modes and the relationships between the distribution of power and the costs/benefits associated with a given hydrological regime.

Minimum knowledge of water actors and policies.

Group project and individual questions.

Water governance: trajectory of a concept and perspectives in a world in transition (S. Richard)

This course proposes to deepen the concept of governance discussed in the "Issues, actors, regulation" course by tracing and analyzing the history of its emergence and its numerous meanings in several disciplinary fields. It aims to develop students' critical analysis and reflexivity with regard to this dominant concept and its relevance to public action in adaptation.

Governance and the State (F. Molle)

This course provides a theoretical overview of public policy formation and policy-making processes. It aims to develop a critical analysis of the discursive power around water concepts. It illustrates in a concrete way the importance of discursive power through the analysis of the discourse of a World Bank document.

Institutional change and "governance shift" (F. Molle)

This course distinguishes between state and non-state governance and examines water sector reforms and the different levers by which different actors can bring about change in governance and decision-making; the role ofadvocacy, knowledge production, deliberative approaches, and codes of conduct are examined alongside traditional state actions and instruments.

Diversity of water governance systems and adaptations to global changes. Practical application and illustration based on French and international case studies (S. Richard, S. Ghiotti)

The diversity of the modes of governance according to the scales and the contexts and the importance of taking into account the long time for the public action in the field of water are illustrated starting from situations on various examples, in particular French - to illustrate a system where the State is very present (force of the SAGE/SDAGE), but also decentralized and with a declared will of dialogue between the local actors, while being subjected to the European directives (WFD and other water directives); Chilean (to illustrate the functioning of water markets); Bolivian (where there is a rather community management of water, with a very weak intervention of the State); and/or others.

The WFD and its application (S. Ghiotti, S. Richard)

The adoption by France of the European Framework Directive (WFD 2000/60/EC) and its objective of achieving "good ecological status" by 2015 imposes obligations on States to achieve results. The perception, definition and acceptance of "good ecological status" by the various stakeholders is a social and political construction that varies in time and space. All these dynamics of territorial recomposition at work are carrying significant social, environmental and financial stakes. The implementation of the WFD thus questions the organizational and territorial processes that guide water and territorial management in France. The analysis of the recomposition of water governance in the dynamics of achieving good status and the analysis of the evolution of the relationship between society and its aquatic environments (representations, practices, management ...) will be the two main axes of interventions.

Introduction to a political ecology of watershed development and management (F. Molle)

The course introduces an approach to water development and management that emphasizes the relationships between formal and informal decision-making and power structures, planning and management, and their implications for the spatial and social distribution of costs and benefits. He illustrates this approach with examples from Thailand, Tanzania, USA, Morocco, India and the Middle East.