Governing water: contentious transnational politics and global institution building

摘要

Those of us concerned with international transboundary water relations would do well to read both of these books. Each contributes to the discussion by exploring the fundamental areas where the problems and challenges lie-in the fundamentally political question of who gets what, when, where, and how. The books are similar also in that they both hail from the US, are deeply informed, inherently interdisciplinalry, and focus on transboundary water governance. The political contexts within which each explores tensions over water conflict, however, could not be more different. John Scholz and Bruce Stiftel's edited volume Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict focuses on the relatively well-regulated US state of Florida. Ken Conca's Governing Water explores transboundary water governance in the much more chaotic international context. The way that 'power' plays out in each setting ultimately informs the marked difference in tone, conclusions drawn, and paths charted for progress.