Scrutinizing water politics: lessons from Bolivia, Chile, France, and Spain (in English and Spanish)
In this issue we feature five articles focused on experiences from Bolivia, Chile, France, and Spain, presenting research results, some originated in doctoral dissertations. Article 1 was authored by Christelle Pezon, from the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (CNAM), at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Action-oriented Sciences (LIRSA), Paris, France. The paper presents a synthetic historical overview of the changing institutional arrangements for the provision of water and sanitation services in France. The focus is on the expected far-reaching impacts of the 2015 NOTRe Law, which prompted a historical reform by transferring the responsibility over water services from 36,600 municipalities to 2,000 urban and rural communities. The author argues that the reform presents unprecedented challenges for rural areas and small towns but may also end the long-standing dichotomic choice between public and private management of water services facing local governments since the 19th century and induce the development of more complex arrangements dependent on political negotiations between local authorities, service providers, and users. Article 2 was written by Cristian Flores Fernandez from the Integrative Institute of Research on Transformations of Human-Environmental Systems (IRI THESys), and Department of Geography, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. The paper addresses the Chilean model of privatized urban water and sanitation services, and presents a critical assessment aimed at exposing the "myths" associated with this experience. The author provides a historical overview of the Chilean model of privatization and uses the 2019 sanitary crisis that affected over 140 thousand people in the city of Osorno as an empirical example of the failures and risks associated with the privatization of essential water and sanitation services. The Chilean case is also the object of Article 3, by Melissa Bayer, from the Institute of Geography, University of Münster, Germany. The author examines the situation ...