Legal Institutional Change in Irrigation Systems of Soviet Central Asia

Abstract

"This paper discusses recent changes in the irrigation water management regimes of the republics of Soviet Central Asia. As centralized Soviet control over the water management regimes weakens, existing legal institutions must adjust to different channels of communication and decision-making. The theoretical framework to explain these changes is provided by two complementary approaches: current scholarship on the development of property rights in water (Rose, 1990); and the institutional choice model (Ostrom, 1990). Data collected in the Amu-Dar'ia and Syr-Dar'ia river basins of Soviet Central Asia forms the empirical basis for the research project. First, we conclude that Rose's model provides a useful theoretical explanation of the development of collective property rights in CPR institutions. Second, we find the level of decentralization of resource control achieved in the Asian republics is determined as much by local resistance to privatization as by the external political regime."