In most network industries, new dynamics are leading to an unprecedented opening up to competition and private sector participation. With the development of a single European market, the in-stages liberalisation process of public utilities has spread to almost all sectors. However, the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector is considered somehow different and it has been excluded until recently from the restructuring processes achieved in other sectors. Water and Liberalisation: European Water Scenarios presents a better understanding of the specific demands of the WSS sector. Covering the operators' strategies, the regulatory dynamics as well as their interactions on the evolution of the sector, it addresses the likelihood, the nature, and the forms the WSS sector may take in Europe in the foreseeable future. Adopting a neutral political stance, the book analyses the implications of alternative scenarios in economic, ecological, social, legal, and institutional terms. Key sections include: In depth introduction to the current situation in the WSS sector; The European water supply and sanitation markets; The institutional framework of the water supply and sanitation sector in the EU: a comparative analysis; Analysis of the EU explicit and implicit policies and approaches in the sector; Analysis of the strategies of the water operators in Europe scenarios on the evolution of the water sector in Europe; Economic, environmental, & social implications of the scenarios; Major implications per scenario.

Political Waters examines how recent reforms of decentralization, privatization, and commercialization are initiated and implemented with regard to water management in Khartoum. In so doing, it uses the prism of water to gain insights into Sudanese (water) politics, power strategies, and state-society relationships. Drawing on detailed, actor-oriented, and ethnographic analyses based on political ecology and on organization sociology, the main findings develop important aspects of rule and emphasize the relevance of studying local micropolitical contexts in order to understand macropolitical dynamics. This work obtained the DAVO (German Middle East Studies Association) Dissertation Award 2012. Dissertation. (Series: Forum Political Geography / Forum Politische Geographie - Vol. 7)

One billion people in the world lack safe drinking water and almost 2 billion lack adequate sanitation services. As a result millions suffer and die every year from water and sanitation related diseases. Poor management and inefficient investment are often responsible for this situation, and countless past attempts at reform have accomplished little. Recently some developing countries have tried to reverse years of mismanagement of their water and sewerage systems by auctioning contracts to private operators. Why do countries that have tolerated mismanagement for decades develop a thirst for efficiency? What are the results of their efforts to change? What determines success or failure? This book fills a gap in the literature by systematically answering these important questions. It does so by analyzing reforms in six developing country capitals -- Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire; and Conakry, Guinea - and the United States in the 19th century. It not only assesses economic factors, but also explores the roles of laws, politics and norms. It provides an economic theory of water that encompasses institutional, political and economic aspects of reform.

The privatization of water is a keenly contested issue in an economically-liberalizing India. Since the 1990s, large social groups across India's diverse and disparate peoples have been re-negotiating their cultural relationships with each other as to whether they support or oppose pro-privatization water policy reforms. These claims and counter claims are seen as an impending war over water resources, one that includes many different players with many different agendas located across a wide variety of sites whose actions and interactions shape policy production in India. This book is the first to assess the dynamics of water policy processes in India. Using the case study of Delhi’s water situation, this book analyses emergent dynamics of policy process in India in general and, more specifically, in the post-economic reform era. Taking as its starting point a critique of linear version of policy making, the author explains both how and why particular types of knowledge, practices and values get established in policy as well as the complex interplay of knowledge, power and agency in water policy processes. Water Policy Processes in India covers a critical gap in the literature by analyzing how governments in practice make policies that greatly affect the welfare of their people; the process through which policies are developed and implemented; investigating the aims and motives behind policies; and identifying the potential areas of intervention in order to improve the policy process in both its development and implementation stages.