“If there is no support, we won’t advance”: Emerging environmental democratization in water pollution governance in Lake Titicaca, Peru

Abstract

Political ecology has assessed the relationship between democratization and the protection of the environment. This paper engages and broadens this debate by conceptualizing environmental democratization as a collaborative and multidimensional process. In doing so, I identify democratic political practices as the building blocks of environmental democratization and synergy as central to its advancement. Using the case of Lake Titicaca’s water pollution mitigation efforts, I show how, through a collaborative shift, state and civil society environmental actors have realized the implementation of sewage water treatment plants (phase 1) in the Puno region of Peru. Interviews and archival research documenting the PTAR Titicaca project illustrate both actors’ democratic political practices and synergistic efforts in relation to three key dimensions of democracy: deliberative participation, representation, and accountability. The findings point to an expansion of interrelated democratic political practices that have materialized in incomplete and differentiated ways across all three dimensions of democracy, together with the realization of key synergies in the form of support. Thus, through a reformulation of environmental democratization, I argue that despite its muted configuration, environmental democratization has advanced. The findings and analysis from this case study may further understanding of the potential of environmental democratization in a context of collaboration to address urgent and complex environmental problems like water pollution. In characterizing the unfolding of this process, it may aid with envisioning strategies that can fortify environmental democratization to yield enduring environmental governance outcomes and greater democracy, particularly in places lacking significant experience building collaborative state–civil society relations.