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Abstract:
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"Natural resources conflict can be interpreted as an opportunity to promote policy and institutional arrangements that enlarge public participation in the governance system. However, the extent to which conflict can prompt policy and institutional change, and the effective implementation of 'true' participatory management may depend on institutional and power constraints. This paper addresses the above puzzle through a case study on the Water Commission, a forum gathering a multiplicity of stakeholders of dam-building policy in the Spanish region of Aragon. The Water Commission had two main goals: (1) to solve the conflict that existed between farmer associations and a movement of local and environmental groups over the implementation of some state dam-building projects in Aragon, and (2) to integrate public participation in the elaboration of a water policy blueprint for the region. By using historical and institutional analysis, the paper suggests that the effective implementation of the Water Commission in 2003 was facilitated by the public entrepreneurship of the regional government and a situation characterized by the convergence of three events: the aggravation of the conflict over dam-building policy, the repolitization of water issues, and the release of the European Water Directive Framework. The success of the Water Commission was partial though. The Water Commission's conflict-solving process was relatively successful. Collaboration and mutual accommodation of confronted parties resulted in the design of commonly accepted alternatives to the controversial dam-building projects. This could be explained by the mediation role that an NGO played to build consensus among parties from the bottom up and the existence of an implicit veto power in the hands of the traditionally weaker parties, namely, the local communities and environmental groups. The planning process also fulfilled its mission but failed to do it in a non-conflictive way. This could be explained by the existence of a predetermined top-down procedure that gave the Water Commission a secondary role and the incapacity of the local communities and environmental groups to veto the process from within. The same participatory venue, the Water Commission, hosted two very different experiences of natural resources co-management that ended solving and promoting conflict respectively."
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