Scalar politics

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework to analyse water politics and governance. The framework has been constructed from a social constructivist perspective. This theory places attention on the role of normative aspects like ideology, values, interests and culture in politics. This means that a theory of international relations such as neorealism, neoliberalism or structuralism would be appropriate but limiting for the analysis of water politics, in terms of the range of actors, processes and issues focused on. The framework's niche lies in that it focuses attention on non-state actors. This carries the potential to widen the understanding of the role and involvement of such actors in water politics and governance. The framework has five components: description of the geographic area or issue; the actors involved in water politics and governance; the (hydropolitical) history of the issue; the actors' power to enable change; and the type of interaction between the actors. In order to illustrate the components, examples from South and Southern Africa, and specifically the Kunene, Limpopo, Okavango and Orange River basins are used.

Based on alternative theoretical positions (such as social constructivism) to so-called " dominant " theoretical positions in International Relations, like neoliberal institutionalism and neorealism Provides an in-depth analysis of the ability of communal interest groups to influence state and international institutions at various political scales Presents a framework for analysis that can be applied to research similar issues and trends in water politics and governance

Accounts of hydro-hegemony and counter hydro-hegemony provide state-based conceptions of power in international river basins. However, authority should be seen as transnationalized as small states develop coping strategies to augment their authority over decision-making processes. The article engages Rosenau’s spheres of authority concept to argue that hydro-hegemony is exercised by actors embedded in spheres of authority that reshape actor configurations as they emerge. These spheres consist of complex networks challenging customary notions of the local-global dichotomy and hydro-hegemony. Hydro-hegemony is therefore not fixed. The article examines these processes by analysing the dispute over the Xayaburi Dam in the Mekong Basin.

Discourse analysis is employed to explore the discursive terrain of an environmental dispute concerning proposals for an opencast coalmine in West Yorkshire, England. Three dominant discourses are entangled in a framing contest over the nature of ‘nature’ as the consequential construction will have profound implications for the planning process and the people involved. The case study is particularly attentive to the notion of local identity, and how local actors employ strategic representations of nature to defend and transcend their sense of place. This is demonstrated by local opposition whereby the essentialism of nature and scale has been effectively challenged throughout the dispute. The study also elucidates the complex relationship between local and trans-local mobilisation, and how a form of grassroots realpolitik has enabled two protest groups to unite and advance an amalgamated discourse of opposition in order to achieve the common objective of keeping the coal underground.

Globalisation has seen a new scalar politics emerge (Brenner, 2004, Robertson et al., 2006), reconstituting relations between nations and international organisations and provoking the emergence of a range of global fields. Bourdieu (2003), for example, speaks of a global economic field which has resulted from politics played by certain individuals, groups, businesses and organisations and a related performative construction of globalisation read only as neo-liberal market capitalism on a global scale in the post Cold war era. Bourdieu’s observation rejects a reification of globalisation, reinforcing the work of Dale (1999) and Robertson et al. (2006). All argue the necessity to understand the mechanisms of globalisation and how it works and has effects. In this chapter we also argue the need to document and understand how globalisation works through discourses, organisations and individuals and its consequent effects within nations. Tikly (2004) has made the point that globalisation effects work their way through and into different nations in different ways and illustrates his point in terms of the differences between nations of the global north and those of the global south. The impact of globalisation therefore requires empirical investigation in a way that is sensitive to both national differences and global commonalities. We suggest, drawing on Bourdieu (2003), that one way that such differences may be understood is through the amount of ‘national capital’ possessed by a given nation, which will be a significant factor in the nature and extent of such mediation. This view of national capital is akin to factors such as democratic governance, national levels of education and so on. Such factors help to secure a given nation’s positioning within geo-politics and help mediate pressures from above the nation. It is the growing importance of this hybrid mix of global and national factors that we refer to as a rescaling of educational politics, into which national policies and their effects are increasingly drawn and reconstituted in a global field of comparison.