IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v34y2002i5p767-790.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From State to Market?: Water Mercantilización in Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Karen Bakker

    (Jesus College and School of Geography, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3DW, England)

Abstract

Many governments have recently initiated a process of water sector mercantilización —the introduction of markets or market-simulating decisionmaking techniques, and the participation of private companies and private capital in water management. This paper presents a case study of the mercantilización of water resources in Spain. State-led development of water resources was a key element of Spain's modernisation drive in the mid-20th century, intended to redress not only the high degree of temporal and spatial variation in water availability, but also to underpin the agricultural colonisation of the country's arid interior. Water-resources development, pricing, and allocation remained, with few exceptions, the preserve of the state. In 1999 the government reformed the national Water Law, introducing both water markets and water banks; this in addition to earlier reforms enabling the participation of private companies and private capital in water-resources development. The case study, situating the evolution of water policy within an analysis of key macro political – economic trends (in particular, Spain's transition to democracy and EU-mandated economic convergence) and the country's contested hydropolitics, is employed as a means of elaborating a more general political ecological – economic understanding of the mercantilización of water.

Suggested Citation

  • Karen Bakker, 2002. "From State to Market?: Water Mercantilización in Spain," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(5), pages 767-790, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:34:y:2002:i:5:p:767-790
    DOI: 10.1068/a3425
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a3425
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a3425?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cowan, Simon, 1993. "Regulation of Several Market Failures: The Water Industry in England and Wales," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 9(4), pages 14-23, Winter.
    2. E Swyngedouw, 1997. "Power, Nature, and the City. The Conquest of Water and the Political Ecology of Urbanization in Guayaquil, Ecuador: 1880–1990," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(2), pages 311-332, February.
    3. Gisele Silva & Nicola Tynan & Yesim Yilmaz, 1998. "Private Participation in the Water and Sewerage Sector : Recent Trends," World Bank Publications - Reports 11540, The World Bank Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeanie Bukowski, 2017. "A “new water culture†on the Iberian Peninsula? Evaluating epistemic community impact on water resources management policy," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 239-264, March.
    2. Michael Dougherty & Tricia Olsen, 2014. "Taking Terrain Literally: Grounding Local Adaptation to Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 119(3), pages 423-434, February.
    3. Schwartz, Klaas & Tutusaus, Mireia & Savelli, Elisa, 2017. "Water for the urban poor: Balancing financial and social objectives through service differentiation in the Kenyan water sector," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 22-31.
    4. Roberto Martínez-Espiñeira & Maria A. García-Valiñas & Francisco González-Gómez, 2009. "Does Private Management of Water Supply Services Really Increase Prices? An Empirical Analysis in Spain," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(4), pages 923-945, April.
    5. Lucero Radonic & Adriana Zuniga-Teran, 2023. "When Governing Urban Waters Differently: Five Tenets for Socio-Environmental Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Interventions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-19, January.
    6. Hug March & David Saurí, 2013. "The Unintended Consequences of Ecological Modernization: Debt-Induced Reconfiguration of the Water Cycle in Barcelona," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(9), pages 2064-2083, September.
    7. González-Gómez, Francisco & García-Rubio, Miguel A. & González-Martínez, Jesús, 2014. "Beyond the public–private controversy in urban water management in Spain," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-9.
    8. Jorge Bielsa & Ignacio Cazcarro, 2014. "Implementing Integrated Water Resources Management in the Ebro River Basin: From Theory to Facts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-24, December.
    9. Jorge Guardiola & Francisco González-Gómez & Miguel A. García-Rubio, 2008. "Is the time dimension really important in research into contracting out?," FEG Working Paper Series 08/02, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reto Foellmi & Urs Meister, 2012. "Enhancing the Efficiency of Water Supply—Product Market Competition Versus Trade," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 299-324, September.
    2. Daanish Mustafa & Philip Reeder, 2009. "‘People Is All That Is Left to Privatize’: Water Supply Privatization, Globalization and Social Justice in Belize City, Belize," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 789-808, September.
    3. Natasha Cornea & René Véron & Anna Zimmer, 2017. "Clean city politics: An urban political ecology of solid waste in West Bengal, India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(4), pages 728-744, April.
    4. Kirkpatrick, Colin & Parker, David, 2004. "Regulation and the Privatisation of Water Services in Developing Countries: Assessing the Impact of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)," Centre on Regulation and Competition (CRC) Working papers 30600, University of Manchester, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM).
    5. Reto Foellmi & Urs Meister, 2005. "Product-Market Competition in the Water Industry: Voluntary Non-discriminatory Pricing," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 115-135, June.
    6. Mark Whitehead, 2003. "(Re)Analysing the Sustainable City: Nature, Urbanisation and the Regulation of Socio-environmental Relations in the UK," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(7), pages 1183-1206, June.
    7. Nik Heynen, 2006. "Green Urban Political Ecologies: Toward a Better Understanding of Inner-City Environmental Change," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(3), pages 499-516, March.
    8. Frederico Neto, 1998. "Water privatization and regulation in England and France: a tale of two models," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 22(2), pages 107-117, May.
    9. Goodwin, Geoff, 2019. "The problem and promise of coproduction: Politics, history, and autonomy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 501-513.
    10. José Esteban Castro, 2008. "Neoliberal water and sanitation policies as a failed development strategy," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 8(1), pages 63-83, January.
    11. Marcel Boyer & Michel Patry & Pierre J. Tremblay, 1999. "La gestion déléguée de l'eau : Les enjeux," CIRANO Project Reports 1999rp-11, CIRANO.
    12. Johnstone, Nick & Wood, Libby & Hearne, Robert R., 1999. "The Regulation of Private Sector Participation in Urban Water Supply and Sanitation: Realising Social and Environmental Objectives in Developing Countries," Discussion Papers 24142, International Institute for Environment and Development, Environmental Economics Programme.
    13. Dieter Helm & Najma Rajah, 1994. "Water regulation: the periodic review," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 74-94, May.
    14. Gareth A S Edwards & Harriet Bulkeley, 2017. "Urban political ecologies of housing and climate change: The ‘Coolest Block’ Contest in Philadelphia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(5), pages 1126-1141, April.
    15. Richard Rugemalila & Leah Gibbs, 2015. "Urban Water Governance Failure and Local Strategies for Overcoming Water Shortages in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(2), pages 412-427, April.
    16. Al-Hmoud, Rashid & Edwards, Jeffrey A., 2004. "Private sector participation in the water and sanitation sector: alternative options and measurement issues," MPRA Paper 36437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Mustafa, Daanish & Qazi, Muhammed Usman, 2007. "Transition from Karez to Tubewell Irrigation: Development, Modernization, and Social Capital in Balochistan, Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1796-1813, October.
    18. Mary Dengler, 2008. "Finding the Political ‘Sweet Spot’: Sectional Interests, Consensus Power, and the Everglades Restudy (1992–2000)," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(4), pages 766-784, April.
    19. Rodríguez-de-Francisco, J.C. & Budds, J., 2015. "Payments for environmental services and control over conservation of natural resources: The role of public and private sectors in the conservation of the Nima watershed, Colombia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 295-302.
    20. L Carlos Freire-Gibb & Luis Tapia Carrillo, 2019. "Inclusive institutions and local economic evolution: Perspectives from Guayaquil and Quito," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 34(5), pages 471-488, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:34:y:2002:i:5:p:767-790. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.