Hydroparadigms: Exploring Global Water Governance Discourses

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Environmental Policy, grade: 1,0, University of Luzern, language: English, abstract: This paper discusses the question what kind of Hydroparadigms exist and which dominate the development discourses in Global Water Governance (GWG) in the UN. Theoretically, I draw on non-critical elements of discourse theory as well as a social constructivist framework and concep-tualize Hydroparadigms as the underlying logics and ¿policy philosophies¿ as to how to solve or mitigate the global water crisis. I argue that the actors in GWG are driven by such paradigms, which are central not only to problem perceptions and policy proposals, but also for eventual re-gime formation. Then, based on a literature review, I deduct a typology system, proposing a three-dimensional map of Hydroparadigms ideal types, each with their specific problem definition, values, norms, policy implications and varying concepts of sustainability. The subsequent dis-course analysis is guided by a pragmatic approach, seeing the method as a special text-analysis that is not so theory-laden. Offering a broad overview of UN actors¿ discourses, I conclude that there are four existing and distinct Hydroparadigms ¿ statist, community-based, economic, and integrated approaches ¿ and that the latter are clearly dominant.