This paper explores water justice struggles in the understudied region of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan through a focus on two water justice movements, one civil society campaign, and a related event. While most of the relevant literature in geography and cognate fields has thoroughly dissected inter-State hydropolitical quarrels, discussed water justice from a legal perspective, and analysed water conflicts, less attention has been paid to bottom-up movements, to their visions and actions within a materially and socially challenging environment, and to their engagement with the state. Relying on published material as well as primary research, we show how Iraqi water activists seek to strike a balance between engaging institutions and moving beyond them, across ethno-religious divides and advocacy registers, in their quest to re-signify and re-common waterscapes. We argue that it is not despite all odds, but rather because of all odds, that Iraqi activists showcase such a developed awareness of their role and transformative potential along the rugged path of democratisation.

Understanding water issues as problemsheds addresses the narrowly water-centred framing of watershed and basin-focused water research and policy. In a critical realist approach problemshed also serves to identify the context-specificity of water knowledge, by navigating between the extremes of positivist generalization and interpretivist local specificity and bridging the divide between academic and applied research by identifying the structural similarity in their problem framing. Problemshed is operationalized by situating it in critical realism's structures-mechanisms-events ontology, and by drawing on realist evaluation's context-mechanism-outcome configurations. I use large-scale canal irrigation in India to illustrate how this is done.

The attraction of taking a Cultural Political Economy (CPE) perspective in the analysis of questions related to water use, management and governance is threefold: (i) CPE is an effort to capture the multidimensionality of social dynamics by emphasising the cultural dimension of political economy and then investigating the internal relations of these different dimensions; (ii) CPE addresses both the structure and agency dimensions of social reproduction and transformation; it proposes a particular (strategic-relational) way of studying the two in an interlinked manner; (iii) the object of (most) CPE analysis - the state - is highly relevant to water studies, as the state is a, if not the, central actor in water governance, with state action as regards water resources increasingly set in the context of globalisation and neoliberalisation.

This article analyzes the internal logic of the upeti system in Indonesian irrigation and brings to light how corruption rules are shaped through complex socio-political relationships reflected in the organizational culture of the irrigation agency. Based on 100 interviews with water sector professionals the article highlights: (1) the importance of social relations in shaping institutionalized corruption, (2) how the upeti system justifies corruption practices as the prevailing social norm, and (3) the need for structural change to eradicate corruption. Illustrating how corruption rules are embedded in project management procedures, with projects highly dependent on donor funding, the article highlights the importance of the issue for international agencies and the need to be more politically grounded in promoting their development agenda.

This paper explores the dynamic interface of state-water users relationships in large scale surface irrigation in India and China, to inquire (with Wittfogel looking over our shoulder) to what extent the issues encountered in large scale irrigation management and governance are independent of regime characteristics. Though operating in very different overall political regimes, China and India exhibit strong similarities in the way a central state has attempted to relate with local water users (and enrol them into state led development), in the types of policy instruments deployed to shape that relationship, and in the problems encountered. Both China and India have a long history of state involvement in irrigation management. Both saw massive expansion after the late 1940s, with India adapting and adopting the models developed in the colonial period and China opting for a modified Stalinist model. There has been a historical tendency to extend state water control further down in response to ‘underutilisation’ of the created infrastructure, revenue shortfalls and perceived inefficiencies and yield gaps. In recent decades the policy approaches have, at least rhetorically, emphasised water users self-management and governance, including financial selfmanagement/cost recovery. In both countries the instrument for this since the late 1970s/early 1980s has been the establishment of WUAs (Water Users Associations). Results have been mixed, to say the least, on all counts. Larger institutional and policy characteristics adhering to the problematic of the state-user interface subvert stated reform objectives.

This introductory article sets the scene for this special issue on water, infrastructure and political rule. It makes the case for revisiting the complex relationships between these three dimensions which have fascinated scholars since Wittfogel’s pioneering – if much criticised – work on causal links between large-scale irrigation systems and autocratic leadership. Scholarship on water, on infrastructure, as well as on political rule has made huge advances since Wittfogel’s days, requiring a wholesome reappraisal of their triangular relationship. In this article, we review the relevant advances in scientific knowledge and epistemological approaches on each dimension. We subsequently summarise the different ways in which each of the following papers takes up and interrogates the relationship between water, infrastructure and political rule prior to the final paper which synthesises the principal findings emerging from the special issue.

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is widely accepted and has been implemented though international, national and regional water management guidelines. Nonetheless, concrete implementation of IWRM gives rise to new questions for policy analysis. Scholars interested in water regulation, the design of effective and efficient policy instruments, and structures of participative and multi-level policy processes face challenges regarding research design, concepts and empirical approaches. This special issue integrates research about regional, national and transboundary policy perspectives on water management in seven countries, four continents and two transnational water bodies. From the six articles presented in this special issue, we learn more about how to define integration, to think about borders and scales and to theoretically and empirically study collaborative management in water policy analysis. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

This paper explores the dynamic interface of state-water users' relationships in large-scale surface irrigation in India and China, to inquire to what extent the issues encountered in large-scale irrigation management and governance are independent of regime characteristics. Though operating in very different overall political regimes, China and India exhibit strong similarities in the way a central state has attempted to relate with local water users, in the types of policy instruments deployed to shape that relationship, and in the problems encountered. Both China and India have a long history of state involvement in irrigation management. Both saw massive expansion after the late 1940s. The state then tried to extend its control in response to 'underutilisation' of the created infrastructure, revenue shortfalls and perceived inefficiencies and yield gaps. In recent decades the policy approaches have, at least rhetorically, emphasised water users' self-management and governance, including financial self-management/cost recovery. In both countries the instrument for this has been Water User Associations. Results have been mixed, to say the least, on all counts. Larger institutional and policy characteristics adhering to the problematic of the state-user interface subvert stated reform objectives.

This paper explores the relationship between governance regime and large-scale irrigation system design by investigating three cases: 1) protective irrigation design in post-independent South India; 2) canal irrigation system design in Khorezm Province, Uzbekistan, as implemented in the USSR period, and 3) canal design by the Madras Irrigation and Canal Company, as part of an experiment to do canal irrigation development in colonial India on commercial terms in the 1850s-1860s. The mutual shaping of irrigation infrastructure design characteristics on the one hand and management requirements and conditions on the other has been documented primarily at lower, within-system levels of the irrigation systems, notably at the level of division structures. Taking a 'social construction of technology' perspective, the paper analyses the relationship between technological structures and management and governance arrangements at irrigation system level. The paper finds qualitative differences in the infrastructural configuration of the three irrigation systems expressing and facilitating particular forms of governance and rule, differences that matter for management and use, and their effects and impacts.

This paper contributes to the collection on institutional form versus function by looking at the opposite side of the conceptual equation: clear and formal property rights coupled to low credibility. Since colonial times the formal property rights of the means of agricultural production are clear in South Asian large-scale canal irrigation. However, legal entitlements to water are routinely violated, while canal irrigation exhibits a series of performance problems'. Legally clearly and securely defined entitlements to water co-exist with unequal distribution in the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal irrigation system in south India. Neither the formal institutions nor their insecurity or lack of clarity can explain the existing dynamics and functions of canal irrigation. This lack of analytical purchase derives both from the limitations of property-focused theory and from the inherent characteristics of canal irrigation. Critiques of reductionist approaches have provided a richer conceptual vocabulary, which emphasises the plurality of rights/entitlements as well as that of the causalities at work. Such critiques and the elaboration of alternative frameworks for analysis remain relevant as discourses and practices of marketisation' of water may be gaining relevance for canal irrigation (reform) in India.

Using Rural Water Supply (RWS) policy practices as a case study, this article shows that the disjunction between implementation as formally conceived and informally practised is not a question of ineffective policy cycle dynamics, but rather an inherent feature of Vietnam's Cultural Political Economy. Drawing on critical realist approaches to social and state theory, we argue that formal and informal RWS policy practices, as a set of two interconnected spheres, serve as key, separate but connected, mechanisms for reproducing the distribution of material resources (primarily through the informal sphere) and the hegemony of ideas (primarily through the formal sphere) in Vietnamese society. We conclude that the formal, administrative practices of RWS policy are primarily to be understood in their function of reproducing the idea of the state and state legitimacy. RWS administrative practices function to sustain the core social and political order in Vietnam as institutionalised in the state, rather than being primarily oriented to improving rural water supply. The findings raise questions for donor-supported programs that focus on formal administrative institutions and practices for improving the performance of the water sector.

Drawing particularly on recent debates on, and development of, comparative methods in the field of comparative politics, the paper argues that stepwise small-N/medium-N qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is a particularly suitable methodological approach for water resources studies because it can make use of the rich but fragmented water resources studies literature for accumulation of knowledge and development of theory. It is suggested that taking an explicit critical realist ontological and epistemological stance allows expansion of the scope of stepwise small-N/medium-N QCA beyond what is claimed for it in Ragin's' configurational comparative methods (CCM)' perspective for analysing the complexity of causality as ' multiple conjunctural causation'. In addition to explanation of certain sets of ' outcomes' as in CCM's combinatorial, set-theoretic approach, embedding stepwise small-N/medium-N QCA in a critical realist ontology allows the method to contribute to development of theory on (qualitative differences between) the structures in society that shape water resources use, management and governance.

A “policy as process” perspective is adopted to analyze the early period of water users associations (WUAs) in Uzbekistan (2000–2006). The article is based on extensive fieldwork (in 2005–2006) and analysis of policy and other relevant documents. It is shown that WUAs have a role and logic beyond water management and are used by the state as instruments with which to monitor and regulate “state-ordered” agricultural production. Through a state-centric policy process with room for local experimentation, the WUA was fit into the socio-political landscape of continued state control and the increased role of individualized risks and benefits.

The cases in this issue cover a range of water and health challenges in various socio-political and geographical contexts. Past attempts to bring more analytical rigor to the field of comparative water and health research or to integrate various methods systematically have not yet been very successful. Drawing from the collection of papers in this special issue, an approach for future systematic stepwise small-and-medium-N comparative water and health research is developed.

Using South Indian large-scale surface irrigation as a case, this paper combines emerging interdisciplinary conceptualisation in resource geography of the hydrological cycle as a hydrosocial cycle with Archer’s theorisation of society’s structure-agency dynamics as a morphogenetic cycle. Characteristic of large scale canal irrigation are a pronounced spatiality of social process, and a strongly cyclical nature of social interaction around water through seasonality and rotational supply, framed by irrigation infrastructure that is both grid and subject of water resources management practices. This allows an investigation of how human agency as the animator of structural elaboration reproduces and transforms a hybrid and multi-scale water control system, thus establishing a ‘hydromorphogenetic’ cycle of unequal irrigation water distribution. The detailed account of irrigation practice provides caution against simplified interpretations of dam+canals based irrigation as abodes of green revolution capitalist farming, and of the objectives of neoliberal irrigation reform policy. It is, lastly, suggested that the hydrosocial relations focus produces new insights and questions for irrigation studies, but that complexity and emergence rather than hybridity are the key analytical challenges.

This article analyses policy trends in Indonesian irrigation, particularly during the last five decades, from the perspective of dominant narratives, as authored, suggested and pushed by international donors. It argues that international donors' adherence to 'deferred maintenance' as the core element of irrigation policy problem framing does not match with farmers' and the irrigation agency staff perceptions and practices. The logic of obscuration and the discursive manoeuvers that maintain it are analysed. The article concludes that there is space for more profound conceptual contestation and for alternative actions pathways even within the 'dominant paradigm' to address management problems more effectively.

Around half of the Mekong Delta’s rural population lacks year-round access to clean water. In combination with inadequate hygiene and poor sanitation this creates a high risk of diseases. Microcredit schemes are a popular element in addressing such problems on the global policy level. The present paper analyses the contradictory results of such a microcredit programme for rural water supply and sanitation in the context of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, through a qualitative study primarily based on semi-structured interviews in rural communes of Can Tho City. We come to the conclusion that the programme has a positive effect regarding the safer disposal of human excreta as well as surface water quality, but a marginal impact on poverty reduction as it only reaches better-off households already having access to clean water. The paper shows how the outcome of rural water supply and sanitation policies are strongly infl uenced by the local ecological, technological, and social settings, in particular by stakeholders’ interests. The authors challenge the assumption that water supply and sanitation should be integrated into the same policy in all circumstances.