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Abstract
This paper analyzes conflict and collaboration and their relation to normative structures based on a case study of the history and external interventions of the Pillaro North Canal Irrigation System in the Ecuadorian Highlands. It does so by using Ostrom’s framework for analyzing the sustainability of socio-ecological systems together with an analysis of the normative structures that define the governance systems through which the interactions in irrigation systems are mediated. I argue that the external interventions by the state and NGOs imposed a new governance system that undermined the existing normative structures and related organizations, leading to internal conflicts. The case study suggests that a reformulation of irrigation policies and state intervention methodologies in user managed supra-community irrigation systems in the Andes could lead to higher levels of cooperation.
Highlights
Collective action has for long been identified as an important pillar for sustainable irrigation system management (Ostrom 1990)
The analysis of the case study of the Píllaro North Canal Irrigation System through the SES framework, brings to the fore three important issues that are at play when analyzing collective action in the large Andean state built irrigation systems that cross and unite several communities along different agro-ecological zones -and that have had external state and/or non-governmental organizations’ (NGO) support in contexts that have been identified as enabling for the development of collective action
It pulls renewed attention to the study of the contents, origins, conflicts and local/cultural embedding of normative structures and the related governance systems that shape the internal functioning of supra-community irrigation systems and more broadly of SES
Summary
Collective action has for long been identified as an important pillar for sustainable irrigation system management (Ostrom 1990). The interactions (I) that enable the users to achieve the desired outcomes through the RS and RU are mediated by a specific governance system (GS) that defines, through a shared normative framework, the rules, rights, sanctions and authorities responsible for their implementation This whole is embedded in a broader socio-economic and political setting (S) and in a related broader ecosystem (ECO) which in most cases is a watershed or broader river basin. In Andean irrigation systems the normative frameworks are dynamic and incorporate elements from different forms of normative structures which result from processes of ‘hybridization’ and conflicts over authority and legitimacy in the governance system and its broader embedding (Boelens 2009; Hoogesteger 2013b; Boelens and Seemann 2014) These changes have direct bearings on the levels and forms of collective action for irrigation system management and operation as is explored for the case of the Píllaro North Canal Irrigation System analyzed below
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