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Continuities and Change in IPE at the Start of the Twenty-first Century Read chapter Read first chapter

2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

31. A Political Economy of Water

Author : Larry A. Swatuk

Published in: The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary International Political Economy

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

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Abstract

Water is essential to all aspects of human life. As such, water access, use, and management reflect society back to itself. Swatuk focuses on selected aspects of human water use, in particular water for development, cities, and agriculture. He highlights the discourses at play in determining who gets what kind of water and the centrality of economic and political power in determining social flows of water. Swatuk concludes that there is no “magic bullet” to solving the world’s water woes due to the multiplicity of stakeholders and their differential interests and capacities. As a result, a more socially equitable, economically efficient, and ecologically sustainable outcome will require citizens to be organized and active.

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Footnotes
1
J Anthony Allan argues that the appropriate spatial management unit for water is not the ‘watershed’; rather, it is the ‘problemshed’, given the absence of locally derived ecological delimitations to our water-use profiles.
 
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Metadata
Title
A Political Economy of Water
Author
Larry A. Swatuk
Copyright Year
2019
Book
The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary International Political Economy

Print ISBN: 978-1-137-45442-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-45443-0

Copyright Year: 2019

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45443-0_31