Political projects

The concept "governance" has a recent use (not always homogeneous or coincidental) to refer to the change in the management pattern of society in the management of public, it is done from a continuous variant of positions with respect to the deepening of democracy around the relations between State, society and market (^{Caldera, 2015}).

The concept has been used to describe the fact that several social policies and public services have begun to be carried out through formulas that not only include the responsibility of the Government, but also with the action and participation of diverse economic and social agents (^{Aguilar, 2006}).

However, the spectrum of positions, belief systems and conceptions of the world are variant and, most of the time, in conflict for the economic interests at stake.

The interest on political projects is the attention in subjective and social processes associated and identified as the "programmatic beliefs" that operate in the space between the world visions and the specific ideas about public policies that have the actors involved in a public issue (in this case, water management); they are the "public policy nuclei" that provide a set of diagnoses and prescriptions for actions from the actors involved in water management. This way of explaining the actors beliefs and desires is the description of the theories that group and articulate them in a set of understandings of the world, that is, it configures political projects that will be the flag to defend the design of policies and the search for their results (^{Dagnino, Olvera, & Panfichi, 2006}: 39).

We can understand these positions as 'political projects' in dispute around the constitution of the public (where obviously there is the mechanisms design for allocation and distribution of scarce goods, such as water). The political projects are understood by ^{Dagnino, Olvera and Panfichi (2006}: 43) as the "set of preferences, interests, world conceptions and representations of what life should be in society, which guide the political action of different subjects". The type of link that is established between political society and civil society is directly related to the coincidence of the existing political projects, which can be - given the Latin American experience - or of an authoritarian, neoliberal or democratic-participatory type.

In this paper, we characterize two political projects related to the water governance approach. These are projects that dispute "the democratic construction" of the present and future of our countries, as well as the paradigms of understanding the possibilities of State-society relations, and of these with the environment through water resources.

The first aspect is linked to the "neoliberal" project, which sees the reform of the State as a transformation "from above", with a society only taken into account in its client dimension, consumer of scarce goods or competitor around uses in search of water management efficiency. On the other side of the spectrum is the "democratic-participatory" political project that seeks to recognize the limits of representative democracy, the potential of the community as a possibility of the sustainability of non-market interdependencies (^{Santos, 2004}) and a balance of relations between it and the environment through a naturalization of access to water for life.

In the last thirty years there has been an intense debate about the best form of "water governance" under this scheme of dispute between political projects (^{Caldera & Torregrosa, 2010}). In this period, the clear confrontation of two defense coalitions based on their conception of the nature of water are identified: on the one hand, the coalition that promotes the vision of water as an economic good (linked to the neoliberal project) and to the market as the best assignment instrument; and on the other hand, the coalition that identifies water as a social or common good, as a human right (expression of the democratic-participatory project).

Although the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) scheme has managed to match a variety of actors on its advantages, the discussion of the instruments and the structure of operation and result are usually part of the tensions for the formulation of public policies. There are coincidences among the majority of stakeholders that management at the basin level is the most appropriate to achieve better environmental development and conservation objectives, but the differences and opinions are determined by the core visions around the nature of water. In this sense, the IWRM, more than being a purely technical discussion, is also essentially political based on the purposes attributed to it. The dispute at this level is about the level of decentralization in the decision-making process and the intervention of local authorities against the centralized administration and the scope of social participation.

On the one hand, the neoliberal political project starts from the vision of water as an economic good, which makes IWRM understood as the best instrument to create water markets, where actors of competitive uses look for the allocation of scarce resource more efficiently. It is understood that property rights over water should preferably be private or the management of related services should be managed under market premises. Basin-wide management allows the care of natural resources in both capital (resource or productive) for the sustained development of the region (^{Bakker, 2005}). Management at the basin level is seen as a space in which conditions of 'good governance' can be created, that is, tripartite cooperation and partnership schemes (State, market and civil society), and participation of society in a limited way to attack the water crisis and produce desired futures. Under this conception, the central government should seek control of the allocations seeking essentially efficiency, as well as the principles and guidelines of policy to be implemented at the basin level to facilitate competitive exchange between uses, where those involved, essentially users with property rights, participate in a complementary manner.

While the democratic-participatory political project starts from a vision of water as a social good or human right. IWRM is mainly promoted as a means in which the public property of the good materializes at the basin, sub-basin or aquifer level, and that under the principles of equity and social justice, the allocation of water is primarily used to cover basic human needs, alleviate the conditions of poverty, conserve the environment, cover community use and is not just another input for the economic development of the basin (^{Arrojo, 2006}). Care for environment at the basin level is based on an intergenerational commitment for future societies. Public authorities must guarantee the management of the basin, or basically of a social nature, mainly at the regional and local government levels that enjoy broad democratic legitimacy and are conducted under democratic principles. Differential influence capacities of users and government are recognized while the governmental apparatus ensures balance. Local government and community should be responsible in water management, involving them in regulation design, supervising opportunistic behaviors from users and establishing sanctions (^{Ostrom, 2000}).

The basis of the dispute is between being a 'citizen of the State', or a 'citizen of the market'. The neoliberal political project (water as an economic good) in this period has achieved certain hegemony, supported by multinational companies abilities to influence that are committed to this political project, and even a majority of governments, both developed and developing, that adhere to the neoliberal development model. The techniques used by the coalition attached to the neoliberal political project that explain its effectiveness during this period include not only the argumentation in favor of liberalizing water markets and assigning property rights, it even comes to use the categories of the human rights to water to justify megaprojects of extraction, storage and conduction of water to operate them through private ones and obtain partial benefit for the community.

In this sense, it is recognized that water institutions are both the result and the vehicle of political processes, which have shaped the institutional change and its results in water management (^{Castro et al., 2006}). The political processes are related to the exercise of power and can be better understood if they refer to a process of confrontation between rival political projects around the very understanding of the water crisis (understood as inequitable access, scarcity and contamination) and the strategies to face it, that is, public policies.

In this sense, the issues related to water governance that are more disputed are: a) Under what principles is the best water governance achieved? (b) How to achieve it? With whom? (c) With what objectives? With what programs and projects?

The political projects are taken as 'ideal types' of what the actors defend at a given moment, from their conception of the nature of water, of the understanding of the origin or causes of the problems, as well as the solutions and their strategies that are considered as the most adequate to overcome the water crisis. The observation of both the political projects defended by each set of actors and the asymmetries of power in the institutional development and the performance of public policies becomes basic to a good understanding of the governance process (Table 1).

Recognition of the dispute from political projects defended in the construction of water institutions must be given in the different orders of interaction between protagonists of the debate, design and adoption of policies. At the end, it is about implementing actions to deal with the main problems related to scarcity, distribution, quality, use and guarantee of access to water.

The attributes, broken down in the table, allow to emit a series of analytical reflections of high interest in the confrontation of management models about an entity of public interest: water. It should be clarified that it is not about promoting the issuance of value judgments with a bias between a good versus a bad model. In this sense, the importance of water as a relevant input in economic and social development is not rejected. Rather, it encourages a reflection on the type of decisions made in society to define the implications and distribution of costs and benefits of ethical, environmental and institutional type between management models. In a concrete way, what is questioned is the implication of a market fundamentalism as a criterion to determine the aims of society. That is, it is alerted about the implications of water management (veiled or explicit) in which the criteria of equity and social justice (for example, the human right to water) are subordinated by the predominance of the function of water. As an input for the accumulation of capital. In other words, the implications in the definition of the rules to transfer the costs of extraction (use and discharges) of water to society and the environment, but with a concentration of economic benefits on an individual basis.

It is being placed as a central point of the debate that the construction of a water management model is deployed based on certain principles that promote the following components:

The superior result both to materialize the human right to water, and environmental sustainability, we link to the participatory democratic political project for the reasons that Sen himself ^{(Sen, 2001)} valued in the same democracy to achieve positive results for human development and social welfare: First, political freedom is a fundamental component of human freedom in general, and the exercise of political and civil rights, they are crucial for the citizens themselves to demand their social rights; Second, participatory democracy acquires value because it helps citizens not only to express their needs and perspectives in that sense and achieve the attention of government apparatus, but to collaborate in the materialization or to make visible the inequities or to identify precautionary negative results in terms of the public interest.

The following is the theoretical basis regarding the implications of the structure of a market system as part of the neoliberal project, a necessary component to clarify the nature of the disagreement between political projects in the water sector.

Market environmentalism as a reference for the neoliberal project: ideological and theoretical foundations

The beginning of the neoliberal wave in the eighties brought with it a hardening process for implanting the belief system based on the touchstone that identifies the market as the ideal option because of the incapacity shown by the different governments of the developing countries (whether due to disability or corruption). The recurrent economic crises, with high levels of indebtedness and inflation, evidenced the inefficiency of governments to participate as suppliers of goods and services in response to the demands of international agencies. It was justified under the participation of the private sector in strategic sectors prior to the state priority. This is how the water sector, one of the most interesting for neoliberalism, had the incursion of the private sector through a) the concession of services municipal drinking water and sanitation; b) the development of hydraulic infrastructure with public money for water supply; c) the development of markets for water management (^{Barreda, 2006}; ^{Arrojo, 2006}; ^{Balanyá, Brennan, Hoedeman, Kishimoto, & Terhorst, 2005}; ^{Castro, 2012}).

During the nineties and the beginning of the millennium, there is a generalized dissatisfaction with the modalities of traditional water allocations and the costs incurred by the State, hence, it is seen as necessary to intensify the use of markets as an efficient mechanism in face of state management, since it promises a more efficient use - in economic terms - of "water resource" (^{Donoso, Jouravlev, Peña, & Zegarra, 2004}: 5).

The discourse and the neoliberal institutional pressure allowed the incorporation of the market instrument in different countries, especially Chile and Spain. Cases considered emblematic by the World Bank (WB) (^{Aguilera, 2008}); even displacing other instruments of demand policy, such as pricing or the modernization of infrastructure, thus placing the market as the favorite instrument of neoliberal governments.

In this sense, market was conceived as the institutional "scope" where the responsibilities of the users are defined and their conflicts are solved, hoping that said mechanism would establish a better allocation, improving the efficiency of the use and rationalizing the consumption of this resource. Concerning its value, it was considered that this should be associated to its opportunity cost and to its physical presence within the river basin (^{Donoso et al., 2004}; ^{Colby, 1988}; ^{Lee & Jouravlev, 1998}). Under these conditions, then, it could even take values ​​for different uses, depending on the change in quality and quantity, time of year and extreme hydrological situations, whether favorable or unfavorable (^{Fortis & Alhers, 1999}).

The application of market instruments requires the approach of various theoretical conditions necessary to achieve optimal resource efficiency. The following are indicated to assess the structure of the discussion in terms of categories, which are the ones that actors appeal against the incorporation of market in water management.

The critical junctures of the sexennium 2012-2018

Since December 2012, and in the subsequent 20 months, there was a process of approval of 11 reforms under the political agreement cited "Pact for Mexico", among which the energetic, fiscal, labor, financial and educational reforms stand out.

The year 2015 witnessed a strong confrontation between civil society and the impulse of the neoliberal political project that presented the proposed reform to the LAN, through a new LGA. One of the focal points of this disagreement with the legislative branch was the presentation of an initiative that sought to mimic the process of commodification of water-oriented to various megaprojects through the figure of a supposed human right to water. The reactive response to such attempts can be considered as part of one of the diverse demands for social and environmental water management pushed "from below".

The background of these demands "from below" are diverse. One of them refers to the long process started in 2006, where the Coalition of Mexican Organizations for the Human Right to Water (COMDA), It required constitutionally including access to quality and quantity of water as a human right. This demand had an important international catalyst: in 2010 the plenary of the UN Assembly recognized the human right to water (Resolution 64/292).

From these international considerations, the Mexican government undertook to include such demands in the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States; which was finalized on February 8, 2012 with the amendment to Article 4, to read as follows:

All person have the right to access, dispose and sanitary of water for personal and domestic consumption in a sufficient, healthy, acceptable and affordable way. State will guarantee this right and law will define bases, supports and modalities for access and equitable and sustainable use of hydric resources, establishing the Federation, federal entities and the municipalities participation, as well as the participation of citizens for the achievement of said purposes

Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, 2015

Subsequently, the transitory articles of this reform implied that in the lapse of a year a new LGA should be promulgated in substitution of the current LAN. However, political pressure due to the sensitivity of the issue stopped the process (leftist parties, such as the PRD, Citizen Movement and PT, even participants of the National Regeneration Movement left the plenary session that would vote, as well as an accompaniment of various social movements that at that time were resisting megaprojects by the aqueduct Independencia in Sonora or the Monterrey IV in Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, academic institutions such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico itself, in the voice of its president). Three are the main components of the LGA that strongly attracted the attention of these actors, detonating in a pressure to stop the approval of the initiative; these are the following:

Alternate to the process of the federal government, and from two previous years, civil society organizations, together with researchers and citizens, were given the task of analyzing, discussing and developing an alternative proposal collectively (and labeled as a citizen) of LGA (^{Agua para Todos (Water for All), 2015}) (Table 2). The proposal was sheltered by decades of experiences in research and action and with a clarity of developing a sustainable management and in defense of the watersheds and their waters. These actors, grouped in the so-called Water for All Coalition, presented the citizens' proposal to the Chamber of Deputies and Senators, argued that the government's proposal presents the following problems:

The citizen proposal says to lay the foundations to materialize the constitutional article 4 (^{Gaceta Parlamentaria, 2015}). The document of the proposal emphasizes ensuring equitable and sustainable access to water through mechanisms, agencies and instruments for city planning, management and oversight, based on the principle of social, cultural and environmental rights.

This dispute brought an impasse of more than three years in which the two initiatives were frozen in the legislature. However, on June 6, 2018, the President of the Republic published 10 Water Reserve Decrees that essentially lift the existing ban in 295 country watersheds (^{DOF, 2018}).

This measure seems to be the alternative route that the Federal Government found to ensure water for the productive uses demanded by the reforms of the Pact for Mexico, that demand large amounts of water volumes. As background, we can locate two, a reserve decree and a 2014 closure ban in the Lerma Chapala Basin and during 2017 the publication in several moments in the Official Gazette of the Federation of the agreements by which they are made known the results of the technical study of the superficial national waters in the hydrological basins involved in the 10 decrees of which we refer for 2018.

The ten decrees can be summarized in the following measures:

Immediately the criticisms by several social and academic fronts were made notice through several means of communication that at the 2018 middle of the presidential electoral process generated the attention by public opinion.

The main criticisms are synthesized in the observations made by academics and specialists integrated in the Water for All movement, who immediately made their observations on the decrees known. These observations are transcribed partially (^{Agua para Todos (Water for All), 2018}):

1. The Reserve Decrees (^{DOF, 2018}) remove the closures (last vestige of the previous model of water management, in the hands of the State instead of the market) to extend the logic of the concession system imposed in Mexico through the National Waters Law (1992) as a precondition to enter the NAFTA - above and in ignorance of the multitude of forms of water tenure and belonging to water-territory existing in the country (Not even the US manages its waters through a single system of concessions.)

Although the bans have been systematically violated by Conagua throughout its 29 years of existence, transnational corporations require concessions with legal security, which formally requires eliminating closures.

2. Although they are being promoted as a measure of protection to the environment, they include reserves for urban use, and in some, for the generation of electric power (in San Pedro Mezquital reserve 2000 million m3 / year for CFE for this use --this is where it has been looking to build the Las Cruces Dam that would affect the Nayeri community-- and just a little over 300 for environmental use.)

3. The decrees are based on the Law of National Waters, which, according to the 3rd transitory of the reform to the 4th Constitutional Article, would have to be replaced in February 2013, with a law focused on the human right to water, which "would lay the foundations" for the participation of citizens together with the three levels of government for the achievement of "equitable and sustainable access and use" of water.

4. The decrees extinguish the water rights of the agrarian nuclei that were not renewed in time. All the decrees contain this language: "The concessions or assignments granted prior to the entry into force of this Decree will be recognized provided that the title is valid (...)”. At this moment, there are 50 thousand "expired" concessions in the country - mainly from ejidos, communities and towns, hat they did not imagine that their rights to water would have to be renewed.

5. The decrees do not mention the human right to water, which since the reform to the 4th article on February 8, 2012, will have to be at the center of any water policy. They allocate volumes for "urban public use" as if this use were equivalent to the human right to water. However, the "urban public use" includes any use to which a state or municipal agency would like to concession or contract its waters.

6. They allocate the large allocations for "urban public use" to the state governments, valid for 50 years- each decree specifies the states that must request these volumes, laying the foundations for privatization via transfers and the concession of water and sanitation services (^{Agua para Todos (Water for All), 2018}).

With the participation of the international environmental organization such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Conagua, aims to promote a legitimacy to the content of the decrees; mainly by emphasizing the reservation's argument for environmental use, which is stated as a demand made by them and by several Mexican environmental organizations: “Water reserves are an instrument designed to protect the ecological flow of watersheds and ensure the benefits that ecosystems offer us all. Water reserves do not represent in any way the privatization of the resource, nor the extinction of any right to the use of water in force. On the contrary, they clearly establish volumes of water that must remain intact for biodiversity, which will benefit everyone, starting with the rural and indigenous communities” (^{WWF, 2018}).

Conagua is also in need of issuing a statement and defending its position: “The ten Water Reserve Decrees published on June 6 in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) in no way grant benefits for any individual, on the contrary, they will preserve the environment and guarantee water for human consumption of 18 million inhabitants who are not yet born, in a 50-year projection (...). In conclusion, the decreed water reserves seek that water available in the basins be saved for future generations and for care of the environment, the environmental fate and urban public use are clearly expressed in them, so any contrary interpretation only seeks to disorient and misinform population” (Water reserve decrees do not privatize it, clarifies Conagua after media canard, June 18, 2018; ^{DOF, 2018}).

Indeed, the reserve for environmental use is a debt with the basins that did not exist before and that same actors that have promoted a democratic-participative political project have sued. However, in the decrees the reservation is not calculated in percentage (according to the recommendations of the WWF), but in fixed cubic meters. The availability of water is variable and may end up being 'short' with the necessary environmental balance.

Reserve for public-urban use projecting the growth of cities is also positive, since lifting the closures will cause the operating organizations (public and private) to acquire new uses; however, storing and transporting it will involve works with public-private investments that could later compromise distribution service through concession companies.

The lifting of closures means that Conagua can give new rights and concessions to first one that requests them. Reservations described above are not about the total availability of the basin, so it is not reserved in these decrees (respecting the cubic meters concessioned and in order), that is to say valid) can be granted for productive uses, obviously companies. In this case, it is foreseeable that the first to request these rights are the companies that use the resource intensively.

In short, we are not thinking about a comprehensive public policy. Above all, the role of basin councils (participatory mechanisms) has not been made clear as a mechanism of control and supervision to avoid the opportunistic behavior described above (^{Ostrom, 2000}).