IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/114909.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Infrastructure under pressure: water management and state-making in Southern Iraq

Author

Listed:
  • Mason, Michael

Abstract

Water infrastructure is an active element of state-making in southern Iraq, although major failings in water governance have in recent years triggered violent protests. Informed by scholarship on state clientelism and the political ecology of infrastructure, I examine the conflict-affected trajectories affecting public water management in Basra governorate. The degraded water treatment network manifests a post-2003 political system structured by embedded clientelism and politically sanctioned corruption. However, broad categorisations of clientelism can miss context-laden political effects produced by the spatial and technological configurations of infrastructure. I consider the state effects of water infrastructure practices in Basra governorate–how water supply networks and treatment technologies project state (in)capacity by means of volumetric and qualitative control over water flows. The empirical focus is on compact water treatment units (CWTUs), which are the main technology of public water supply in Basra governorate. I undertake an analysis of the deployment and management of CWTUs, as experienced by local actors responsible for, or politically contesting, the workings of water infrastructure in Basra city. Clientelist practices targeting public procurement and maintenance contracts have disrupted and delayed the upgrading of water infrastructure; yet these practices were enabled by neoliberal state-building that promoted the privatisation of public resources. Shortfalls in state capacity to provide clean drinking water in Basra are compounded by the growing hydro-climatic unpredictability of water flows.

Suggested Citation

  • Mason, Michael, 2022. "Infrastructure under pressure: water management and state-making in Southern Iraq," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114909, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:114909
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/114909/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitchell, Timothy, 1991. "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(1), pages 77-96, March.
    2. Mark Zeitoun & Heather Elaydi & Jean‐Philippe Dross & Michael Talhami & Evaristo de Pinho‐Oliveira & Javier Cordoba, 2017. "Urban Warfare Ecology: A Study of Water Supply in Basrah," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(6), pages 904-925, November.
    3. Craig Jeffrey, 2002. "Caste, Class, and Clientelism: A Political Economy of Everyday Corruption in Rural North India," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 78(1), pages 21-41, January.
    4. Marja Hirvi & Lindsay Whitfield, 2015. "Public-Service Provision in Clientelist Political Settlements: Lessons from Ghana's Urban Water Sector," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 33(2), pages 135-158, March.
    5. Joshua Mullenite, 2019. "Infrastructure and Authoritarianism in the Land of Waters: A Genealogy of Flood Control in Guyana," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(2), pages 502-510, March.
    6. Sapana Doshi & Malini Ranganathan, 2017. "Contesting the Unethical City: Land Dispossession and Corruption Narratives in Urban India," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(1), pages 183-199, January.
    7. Robert Coates & Anja Nygren, 2020. "Urban Floods, Clientelism, and the Political Ecology of the State in Latin America," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(5), pages 1301-1317, September.
    8. Rutgerd Boelens & Jaime Hoogesteger & Erik Swyngedouw & Jeroen Vos & Philippus Wester, 2016. "Hydrosocial territories: a political ecology perspective," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(1), pages 1-14, January.
    9. Michael Mason & Mohamad Khawlie, 2016. "Fluid Sovereignty: State–Nature Relations in the Hasbani Basin, Southern Lebanon," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 106(6), pages 1344-1359, November.
    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. Oleksandra Shumilova & Klement Tockner & Alexander Sukhodolov & Valentyn Khilchevskyi & Luc Meester & Sergiy Stepanenko & Ganna Trokhymenko & Juan Antonio Hernández-Agüero & Peter Gleick, 2023. "Impact of the Russia–Ukraine armed conflict on water resources and water infrastructure," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(5), pages 578-586, May.

    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. Nygren, Anja, 2021. "Water and power, water’s power: State-making and socionature shaping volatile rivers and riverine people in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    2. Daniele T. P. Souza & Eugenia A. Kuhn & Arjen E. J. Wals & Pedro R. Jacobi, 2020. "Learning in, with, and through the Territory: Territory-Based Learning as a Catalyst for Urban Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-19, April.
    3. Anupama Roy, 2022. "Institutional ‘Presence’ and the Indian State: The Long Narrative," Studies in Indian Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 185-200, December.
    4. Filippo Menga & Michael K. Goodman, 2022. "The High Priests of Global Development: Capitalism, Religion and the Political Economy of Sacrifice in a Celebrity‐led Water Charity," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(4), pages 705-735, July.
    5. Mosse, David, 2018. "Caste and development: Contemporary perspectives on a structure of discrimination and advantage," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 422-436.
    6. Astrid B Stensrud, 2019. "The social embeddedness of hydraulic engineers in the regulation of water and infrastructure in Peru," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(7), pages 1235-1251, November.
    7. Leonhard Klinck & Kingsley K. Ayisi & Johannes Isselstein, 2022. "Drought-Induced Challenges and Different Responses by Smallholder and Semicommercial Livestock Farmers in Semiarid Limpopo, South Africa—An Indicator-Based Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-14, July.
    8. Hanna Hilbrandt, 2019. "Everyday urbanism and the everyday state: Negotiating habitat in allotment gardens in Berlin," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(2), pages 352-367, February.
    9. Catalina Ortiz, 2024. "Writing the Latin American city: Trajectories of urban scholarship," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(3), pages 399-425, February.
    10. Bin Yang & Jun He, 2021. "Global Land Grabbing: A Critical Review of Case Studies across the World," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-19, March.
    11. Maria Giulia Cantaluppi & Marta De Marchi & Michela Pace & Maria Chiara Tosi, 2023. "Wetland Contracts as Sustainable Governance Tools: A Review of the Output of the Interreg Project CREW “Coordinated Wetland Management in Italy-Croatia Cross Border Region”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-18, April.
    12. Claudio Rafael Mariano Baigún & Priscilla Gail Minotti, 2021. "Conserving the Paraguay-Paraná Fluvial Corridor in the XXI Century: Conflicts, Threats, and Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-28, May.
    13. Ray, Tridip & Roy Chaudhuri, Arka & Sahai, Komal, 2020. "Whose education matters? An analysis of inter caste marriages in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 619-633.
    14. Anindya Bhattacharya & Anirban Kar & Alita Nandi, 2016. "Local institutional structure and clientelistic access to employment: the case of MGNREGS in three states of India," Working papers 269, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    15. Pooja Thomas, 2024. "Redesigning the relationship between heritage and city: Insights from the Gandhi Heritage Portal, Ahmedabad," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(6), pages 1111-1126, May.
    16. Brunella Arru & Roberto Furesi & Pietro Pulina & Antonietta Bardi & Fabio A. Madau, 2025. "Perception of Ecosystem Services Provided by the Primary Sector in Floodplains: A Study of Sardinia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-25, January.
    17. Claudia Gastrow, 2020. "Urban States: The Presidency and Planning in Luanda, Angola," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 366-383, March.
    18. Kijima, Yoko, 2006. "Caste and Tribe Inequality: Evidence from India, 1983-1999," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 369-404, January.
    19. Ayesha Siddiqi, 2023. "The Sisyphean cycle of inequitable state production: State, space, and a drainage project in Pakistan," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(5), pages 866-883, August.
    20. Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, 2018. "The political economy of maternal healthcare in Ghana," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-107-18, GDI, The University of Manchester.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    infrastructure; clientelism; state effects; water management; Iraq;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ehl:lserod:114909. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    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.