State and Water Governance in Historical Perspective

Undergraduate / Graduate

Who owns shared ecological resources, and how are their extraction, governance, and distribution regulated? What role do states play in "equitable" allocation of scarce ecological resources? We focus particularly on water, examining how competing claims over this essential resource have been negotiated from the ancient past to the present. Water management is never merely technical: it is inherently social and political. It requires cooperation, yet it can also generate conflict-even warfare. Archaeological and historical scholarship often attributes large waterworks to ancient states, and hydraulic projects have been central to modern national states building globally. But can states balance the inherent tensions between a need to manage complex water systems that run across communities and the rights of those communities for communal and ecological well-being? Centralization and efficiency can undermine citizen rights and freedoms. We will question the roots of state accountability and representativeness in ecological distribution. We will review how ecological planning shapes identity, belonging, and the socio-economic resilience of distinct communities, and also reshapes communities' natural environment. Bringing historical and contemporary case studies into conversation, we will grapple with the difficult sociopolitical trade-offs of water governance. We will ask what alternative imaginaries of collective infrastructure and ecological governance are possible or desired.