The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States [electronic resource] : A Comparative Analysis of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan

2009·1.9 MB·English

by  Sehring, Jenniver

Jenniver Sehring
The Politics of Water Institutional Reform
in Neopatrimonial States
Politik in Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika
Politikwissenschaftliche Analysen zur
Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländerforschung
Herausgegeben von
Aurel Croissant
Jörg Faust
Hans-Joachim Lauth
Siegmar Schmidt
In der Reihe sind bisher erschienen:
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Jenniver Sehring
The Politics of Water
Institutional Reform in
Neopatrimonial States
A Comparative Analysis
of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Zugl.Dissertation an der Fakultät für Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften der FernUniversität in Hagen,
2007
Promotionsfach:Politikwissenschaft
Betreuer:Prof.Dr.Hans-Joachim Lauth und
Prof.Dr.Ernst Giese
1stEdition 2009
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Acknowledgements
This study would not have been possible without the willingness of the people involved in
water governance in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to cooperate and share their experiences and
thoughts. During the course of my research, I met too many people who I remember with
gratitude to mention them all here, including my interview partners whom I cannot thank by
name due to the anonymization of the interviews. Nevertheless, I would like to express my
gratitude to the following people.
Prof. Dyushen M. Mamatkanov, director of the Institute of Water Problems and Hydro-
power of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences, provided invaluable support with his knowledge,
contacts, and the infrastructure of the institute. Thanks to the team of the institute, it was
always a friendly place to return to and to receive assistance in many respects. In particular, I
would like to thank Olga Erdman, Gulnara Shalpykova, Dr. Vladimir Romanovski, and Dr.
Elmurat Obdunov. Thorsten Harder and his team at the Bishkek office of the NABU were
very helpful in organizational matters. In Tajikistan, I am very grateful to Dr. Anatoliy P.
Kholmatov, technical director of the Executive Committee of the International Fund for Sav-
ing the Aral Sea and former head of department at the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Man-
agement, and Prof. Yarash E. Pulatov, director of the Tajik Research Institute of Hydraulic
Engineering and Land Reclamation, for their support. Winfried Berndt and Aljona Nasmieva
of the DAAD office in Dushanbe as well as Anja Ikbendanz and her collegues of the GAA
helped with first contacts and arrangements. The local case studies would not have been possi-
ble without the cooperation of the WUA support department in Sokuluk/Kyrgyzstan and the
GAA project office in Aini/Tajikistan. Therefore, I am indebted to Damira Abdyldaevna of
the Sokuluk WUA support department and Bakyt Askaraliev of the Agrarian University, Bish-
kek. In Tajikistan, I am grateful to Anja Ikbendanz and Donyor Ibodov of GAA Aini office as
well as Frank Paepke and Sofia Azizova of GAA Khudjand office. Not only did they support
my research logistically and allowed me to look into their work, they also enriched my consid-
erations with their critical reflections on their work. For the practical field work, I was assisted
by several highly motivated field assistants. I hope that they enjoyed and profited from our
joint work as much as I did: Aisada Kerimbaeva, Nazira Sultanova, and Ermek Djumataev in
Kyrgyzstan; Parvin Ergesheva and Antonina Abdurazakova in Tajikistan. My host families
were invaluable in providing me with a temporary home in Central Asia: in Bishkek Ainura
Moldokmatova and her family in my beloved 11th mikroraion, in Sokuluk Tyotya Maria with her
husband, in Farkhor the Samievs, in Dushanbe Nafaszhoh (‘Muallim’) Shosedov with his fami-
ly. My second home in Dushanbe was with Nodira Aminova and her family Azim Aminov as
well as Rano, Nigora, and Khilola Bukharizade (and Belle and Tony). They really became fami-
ly to me. The field research would not have been possible without two research grants by the
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD); I want to thank the DAAD especially for the
flexibility when I had to rearrange research stays.
In Germany, I first and most sincerely would like to thank my two supervisors. Prof.
Hans-Joachim Lauth supervised the thesis despite its exotic topic. Before he gave me the op-
portunity to join his team at the distance-learning university of Hagen, I already learned to
value his distance supervision. His strong methodological and theoretical background and
6 Acknowledgements
inputs gave me much to think about between our meetings, and the elaboration of my research
design highly improved thanks to his comments. Prof. Ernst Giese supervised me although I
am not a geographer and allowed me to benefit from his rich regional and thematic expertise.
His confidence in my work convinced me to trust it myself.
The framework within which my research question evolved and within which the research
was embedded, was an interdisciplinary project at the Center for International Development
and Environmental Research (ZEU) at the University of Giessen. It focused on water short-
age, water conflicts, and water management in Central Asia and was funded by the Volkswagen
Foundation. I hope the results of my research will be a useful contribution to the project. The
years at the ZEU gave me inspiring insights into interdisciplinary research that also made me
aware of the strengths of my own discipline. Finally, I highly benefited from the regular meet-
ings of the section ‘Methods of Empirical Social Research’ of the Gießener Graduiertenzen-
trum Kulturwissenschaften (GGK), which provided a pleasant and constructive environment
for methodological discussions.
For their comments on previous pieces and draft chapters I am grateful to Julia Boger,
Maria Brockhaus, Christine Charon, Tobias Dörfler, Cliff Henkel, Anja Ikbendanz, Emma
Lindberg, Ira Pawlovski, and Gulnara Shalpykova. Nodira Aminova did the Russian proof-
reading. Last but not least, I would like to thank all of my friends and my family who sup-
ported and encouraged me, listened to my sometimes enthusiastic sometimes desperate stories
about my research with continuous interest, and shared this period of my life with me.
List of Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... 5

List of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 7

List of Tables and Figures ................................................................................................................. 11

Glossary .......................................................................................................................................... 13

List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ 15

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 17

2 Water Governance and Water Institutional Reform .............................................. 21

2.1 From Water Management to Water Governance ................................................................. 21
2.1.1 The International Discourse on Water Management ................................................ 21
2.1.2 Water Governance .......................................................................................................... 24

2.2 Water Institutional Reform ...................................................................................................... 27

3 Theoretical Framework: New Institutionalism ..................................................... 31

3.1 Approaches of New Institutionalism in Political Science .................................................... 31

3.2 Institutions ................................................................................................................................. 33
3.2.1 Formal and Informal Institutions ................................................................................. 34
3.2.2 Water Institutions and Institutional Environment ..................................................... 35

3.3 Institutional Change and Continuity ....................................................................................... 37

3.4 Problem Statement .................................................................................................................... 41

4 Analytical framework ............................................................................................. 45

4.1 Neopatrimonialism .................................................................................................................... 45

4.2 Policy Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 47
8 List of Contentss

4.3 Implementation Research ......................................................................................................... 51

4.4 Political Anthropology .............................................................................................................. 53

4.5 Research Questions and Guiding Assumptions .................................................................... 54

5 Comparative Research Design .............................................................................. 57

5.1 Method of Comparison and Case Selection .......................................................................... 58

5.2 Methodology of Empirical Research and Analysis ............................................................... 60

5.3 Historical Institutions of Water Governance in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan ..................... 69

5.4 The Shared Context of Water Governance in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan ........................ 72
5.4.1 Economic Development and Structure ....................................................................... 72
5.4.2 Water Resources and Water Usage ............................................................................... 74
5.4.3 The Post-Soviet Challenge to Water Governance ...................................................... 78

5.5 Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as Neopatrimonial Regimes ....................................................... 81
5.5.1 General Features of Neopatrimonialism in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan ................... 82
5.5.2 Institutions of Decision Making ................................................................................... 90
5.5.3 Institutional Conditions of the Agricultural Sector .................................................... 91
5.5.4 Institutions of Local Governance ................................................................................. 97
5.5.5 Donor Policies as an Interfering Variable ................................................................. 101
5.5.6 Water-Institutional Linkages ....................................................................................... 102

5.6 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 104

6 Water Institutional Reforms in Kyrgyzstan .......................................................... 105

6.1 Administrative Structure and Key Actors of Water Governance ...................................... 105
6.1.1 The Water Administration ............................................................................................ 105
6.1.2 Further Actors Involved ............................................................................................... 108

6.2 Problem Perceptions and Policy Objectives ........................................................................ 110

6.3 Institutional Reforms .............................................................................................................. 114
6.3.1 The National Water Strategy ....................................................................................... 114
6.3.2 General Legal Framework ........................................................................................... 116
6.3.3 Administrative Reorganization .................................................................................... 120
6.3.4 Introduction of Market Mechanisms (Irrigation Service Fees) .............................. 125
6.3.5 Transfer of Irrigation Management ............................................................................ 128
6.3.6 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 136
List of Contents 9

6.4 Effects of Neopatrimonialism on Water Institutional Reform ......................................... 137
6.4.1 The Impact of Institutions of Decision Making on WIR ....................................... 137
6.4.2 The impact of the Institutional Conditions of .................................................................
the Agricultural Sector on WIR ................................................................................... 140
6.4.3 The Impact of Local Governance Institutions on WIR .......................................... 143
6.4.4 The Impact of Water-Institutional Linkages on WIR ............................................. 147

6.5 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 150

7 Water Institutional Reforms in Tajikistan ........................................................... 151

7.1 Administrative Structure and Key Actors in Water Governance ..................................... 151
7.1.1 The Water Administration ........................................................................................... 151
7.1.2 Further Involved Actors .............................................................................................. 154

7.2 Problem Perception and Policy Objectives ......................................................................... 156

7.3 Institutional Reforms .............................................................................................................. 157
7.3.1 Formulation of a Policy Strategy ................................................................................ 157
7.3.2 General Legal Framework ........................................................................................... 159
7.3.3 Introduction of Market Mechanisms (Irrigation Service Fees) .............................. 162
7.3.4 Transfer of Irrigation Management ............................................................................ 164
7.3.5 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 172

7.4 Effects of Neopatrimonialism on WIR ................................................................................ 173
7.4.1 The Impact of the Decision Making Institutions on WIR ...................................... 173
7.4.2 The Impact of the Institutional Conditions of the Agricultural Sector on WIR . 174
7.4.3 The Impact of Local Governance Institutions on WIR .......................................... 177
7.4.4 The Impact of Water-Institutional Linkages on WIR ............................................. 180

7.5 Summary .................................................................................................................................. 183

8 Comparing the Politics of Water Institutional Reform ........................................ 185

8.1 Water Governance and Water Institutional Reforms in Kyrgyzstan and ...............................
Tajikistan .................................................................................................................................. 185

8.2 Effects of Neopatrimonialism on Water Institutional Reform ......................................... 188

8.3 Introducing Economic Mechanisms: from Free Usage to Payment for Service ............ 197
8.4 Restructuring Administration: from Administrative and Hierarchical to ...............................
Hydrographic and Inter-Sectoral Principles ........................................................................ 199