IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cijwxx/v35y2019i6p1029-1047.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Governing the water commons in China: from historical oriental despotism to contemporary fragmented hydraulic state

Author

Listed:
  • Yan Zhang

Abstract

This paper explores water commons and its governance in China. Neither oriental despotism nor fragmented hydraulic state accurately describes water governance in China. Instead, a combined approach of Grand Union governance logic and polycentric policy-making analysis is proposed. The paper argues that the concept of the commons in China is dual-dimensional, with a vertical dimension of public authority and a horizontal dimension of sharing-in-common; that power structures have often been flexible, adaptive, polycentric and highly experimental; and that, correctly applied, this approach also strives to serve the common good, ensuring positive impacts for shared prosperity, while mitigating negative impacts.

Suggested Citation

  • Yan Zhang, 2019. "Governing the water commons in China: from historical oriental despotism to contemporary fragmented hydraulic state," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(6), pages 1029-1047, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cijwxx:v:35:y:2019:i:6:p:1029-1047
    DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2018.1508989
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07900627.2018.1508989
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/07900627.2018.1508989?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ibnu Budiman & Mattijs Smits, 2020. "How Do Configuration Shifts in Fragmented Energy Governance Affect Policy Output? A Case Study of Changing Biogas Regimes in Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-23, February.
    2. Elisa Blanco & Guillermo Donoso & Pablo Camus, 2023. "Water Conflicts in Chile: Have We Learned Anything from Colonial Times?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-17, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cijwxx:v:35:y:2019:i:6:p:1029-1047. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cijw20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.