Institutions as key drivers of collective action in WUAs [Water User Associations] of Uzbekistan

This paper presents a multifactor approach for performance assessment of Water Users Associations (WUAs) in Uzbekistan in order to identify the drivers for improved and effi cient performance of WUAs. The study was carried out in the Fergana Valley where the WUAs were created along the South Fergana Main Canal during the last 10 years. The farmers and the employees of 20 WUAs were questioned about the WUAs’ activities and the quantitative and qualitative data were obtained. This became a base for the calculation of 36 indicators divided into 6 groups: Water supply, technical conditions, economic conditions, social and cultural conditions, organizational conditions and information conditions. All the indicators assessed with a differentiated point system adjusted for subjectivity of several of them give the total maximal result for the associations of 250 point. The WUAs of the Fergana Valley showed the score between 145 and 219 points, what refl ects a highly diverse level of the WUAs performance in the region. The analysis of the indicators revealed that the key points of the WUA’s success are the organizational and institutional conditions including the participatory factors and awareness of both the farmers and employees about the work of WUA. The research showed that the low performance of the WUAs is always explained by the low technical and economic conditions along with weak organization and information dissemination conditions. It is clear that it is complicated to improve technical and economic conditions immediately because they are cost-based and cost-induced. However, it is possible to improve the organizational conditions and to strengthen the institutional basis via formal and information institutions which will gradually lead to improvement of economic and technical conditions of WUAs. Farmers should be involved into the WUA Governance and into the process of making common decisions and solving common problems together via proper institutions. Their awareness can also be improved by leading additional trainings for increasing farmers’ agronomic and irrigation knowledge, teaching them water saving technologies and acquainting them with the use of water measuring equipment so it can bring reliable water supply, transparent budgeting and adequate as well as equitable water allocation to the water users.

Collective Referential Intentionality in the Semantics of Dialogue

The concept of a dialogue is considered in general terms from the standpoint of its referential presuppositions. The semantics of dialogue implies that dialogue participants must generally have a collective intentionality of agreed-upon references that is minimally sufficient for them to be able to disagree about other things, and ideally for outstanding disagreements to become clearer at successive stages of the dialogue. These points are detailed and illustrated in a fictional dialogue, in which precisely these kinds of referential confusions impede progress in shared understanding. It is only through a continuous exchange of question and answer in this dialogue case study that the meanings of key terms and anaphorical references are disambiguated, and a relevantly complete collective intentionality of shared meaning between dialogue participants is achieved. The importance of a minimally shared referential semantics for the terms entering into reasoning and argument in dialogue contexts broadly construed cannot be over-estimated. Where to draw the line between referential agreement and disagreement within any chosen dialogue, as participants work toward better mutual understanding in clearing up referential incongruities, is sometimes among the dialogue’s main points of dispute.

Investigating policy processes: The Governance Analytical Frame-work (GAF)

Societies develop ways of making decisions regarding collective problems, thereby creating norms, rules, and institutions; this is what governance is about. In policy research, governance has become an important focus of attention; but debates show a lack of clarity at the conceptual level and a confusion between the use of the concept for prescriptive and analytical purposes. The present article is based on the hypothesis that using a clarified, non-normative governance perspective in policy research can contribute to an improved understanding of political processes, including formal and unrecognised ones, those embedded in larger and smaller social systems, as well as both vertical and horizontal political arrangements. The paper is the result of a collaborative engagement with the concept of governance within several networks, leading to the development of the Governance Analytical Framework (GAF). The GAF is a practical methodology for investigating governance processes, based on five analytical tools: problems, actors, social norms, processes, and nodal points. Besides describing the conceptual sources and analytical purpose of these five tools, the paper presents examples of how the GAF can be operationalised.

Alpine Common Property Institutions under Change: Conditions for Successful and Unsuccessful Collective Action by Alpine Farmers in the Canton of Grisons, Switzerland

The protection and sustainable management of alpine summer pastures has been stated as a goal in Swiss national law since 1996, and direct payments from the state for summer pasturing have been tied to sustainability criteria since 2000. This reflects the increasing value of the alpine cultural landscape as a public good. However, provision of this public good remains in the hands of local farmers and their local common pool resource (CPR) institutions for managing alpine pastures. These institutions are increasingly struggling to maintain their institutional arrangements, particularly regarding the work needed to maintain the pastures. This paper examines two cases of local CPR institutions for managing alpine pastures in the Swiss Canton of Grisons that manifest different institutional developments in light of changing conditions. The differences in how these institutions reacted to change and the impacts this has had on the provision of the CPR are explained by focusing on relative prices, bargaining power, and ideology as drivers of institutional change that are often neglected within common property research. Key words: summer pasture management, institutional change, bargaining power, ideology