UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ FROM RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TO POLITICAL ACTIVISM: CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION IN NICARAGUA’S RURAL WATER GOVERNANCE A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in POLITICS with an emphasis in LATIN AMERICAN & LATINO STUDIES by Sarah T. Romano December 2012 The dissertation of Sarah T. Romano is approved: ______________________________ Professor Kent Eaton, chair ______________________________ Professor Jonathan Fox ______________________________ Professor Flora Lu ______________________________ Professor Héctor Perla _______________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Sarah T. Romano 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES iv LIST OF TABLES iv ABSTRACT v LIST OF ACRONYMS vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xii CHAPTER 1: Introduction: The Political Ecology of Rural Water Governance 1 CHAPTER 2: From Dictatorship to Democracy: State, Party and Society in Transition 33 CHAPTER 3: Organic Empowerment: Water Provision and the Construction of Legitimacy from the 92 Bottom Up CHAPTER 4: Extralocal Allies: Bridging Community, Class and Party across Scales 142 CHAPTER 5: Transcending Politics with Ideology and Discourse 196 CHAPTER 6: Democratizing Water Governance: Confronting and Creating Change from the Grassroots 230 APPENDICES 250 REFERENCES 276 iii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1.2 Scaling up Autonomous Advocacy Networks 27 FIGURE 2.1 Improved Water Access in Rural Areas (1979-2005) 38 FIGURE 2.2 Domestic Investments in Urban Water & Sanitation and Rural Water Projects 61 FIGURE 2.3 External Investments in Urban Water and Sanitation and Rural Water Projects (1980-1986) 61 FIGURE 3.1 Nicaraguan Political Regions 94 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 2.1 Rural Water Projects by Regime (1960-2004) 37 TABLE 3.1 Rural Water Projects by Beneficiary and Region 95 TABLE 3.2 CPR Design Principles 101 TABLE 3.3 Dimensions of Local Water Management 102 TABLE 4.1 CAPS’ Extralocal Allies 151 TABLE 4.2 CAPS Municipal Networks in Matagalpa and Jinotega 160 iv ABSTRACT Sarah T. Romano From Resource Management to Political Activism: Civil Society Participation in Nicaragua’s Rural Water Governance How to secure sustainable access to water is an increasingly acute problem that is global in scope. From Resource Management to Political Activism: Civil Society Participation in Nicaragua’s Rural Water Governance demonstrates that this problem is also one that intersects in crucial ways with democratic political processes. Based upon thirteen months of field research in Nicaragua, this dissertation examines how community-based resource managers and water service providers transcend their rural localities and roles in order to engage in fundamentally new forms of political engagement, advocacy, and networking. After thirty years of constituting a legally- unrecognized resource management scheme in the country’s rural areas, Potable Water and Sanitation Committees (CAPS) have formed dozens of new transcommunity, multi-sectoral “CAPS networks.” These networks are serving as platforms for the participation of rural social actors in formal politics and their integration into policy processes. Notably, these dynamics are unfolding in an unlikely context: one of extreme political polarization and state attempts at cooptation via new mechanisms of direct democracy at the subnational level. This dissertation is motivated by the puzzle of how CAPS collectively assert themselves across political scales while maintaining autonomy and pluralism—even as the state seeks to v incorporate expressions of civil society into partisan channels of citizen participation from above. I argue that this outcome of autonomy and pluralism is explained by three interrelated and mutually-dependent factors: 1) the CAPS’ empowerment, capacities, and legitimacy as local resource managers; 2) their alliances with domestic and international NGOs and multilateral organizations; and 3) their strategic discourses of water use, access, and distribution. Principal research methods include semi-structured interviews; participant observation; and review and analysis of government and nongovernmental reports and documents, newspaper articles, and national legislation. Guided by an explicitly interdisciplinary orientation, this dissertation generates more robust theoretical arguments about two important trends in Latin America: democratization and decentralization. vi ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS USED ADEMNORTE Asociación para el Desarrollo de los Municipios del Norte (Association for the Development of Northern Municipalities) ADIC Asociación para el Desarrollo Integral Comunitario (Association for Integral Community Development) AMNLAE La Asociación de Mujeres, Luisa Amanda Espinoza (Nicaraguan Women’s Association “Luisa Amanda Espinoza”) AMPRONAC Asociación de Mujeres ante la Problemática Nacional (Association of Women Confronting the National Problem) AMUNIC Asociación de Municipios de Nicaragua (Nicaraguan Municipalities Association) ANA Autoridad Nacional de Agua (National Water Authority) AOS Ayuda Obrera Suiza (Swiss Workers Aid) ATC Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (Rural Workers’ Association) CAPS Comité de Agua Potable y Saneamiento (Potable Water and Sanitation Committee) CDS Comité de Defensa Sandinista (Sandinista Defense Committee) CEAP Centro de Estudios y Análisis Políticos (Center for Political Research and Analysis) CIRA Centro de Investigaciones de Recursos Hídricos (Center for Research in Water Resources) CISAS Centro de Información y Servicios de Asesoría (Center for Information and Consulting Services) CODA Coalición por el Derecho al Agua (Coalition for the Right to Water) vii CONAPAS Consejo Nacional de Agua Potable y Saneamiento (National Council of Potable Water and Sanitation) COSUDE Agencia Suiza para el Desarollo y la Cooperación (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) CPC Consejo del Poder Ciudadano (Citizen Power Council) CPI Common property institution CPR Common property regime CST Central Sandinista de Trabajadores (Sandinista Workers’ Central) DAR Dirección de Acueductos Rurales (Direction of Rural Aqueducts) DNRM Decentralized natural resource management DP Design principle ECODES Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo (Ecology and Development Foundation) ENACAL Empresa Nicaragüense de Acueductos y Alcantarillado (Nicaraguan Water and Sewerage Enterprise) EPA Ejército Popular de Alfabetización (Popular Literacy Army) FISE Fondo de Inversión Social de Emergencia (Emergency Social Investment Fund) FSLN Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front) GAR Gerencia de Acueductos Rurales (Rural Aqueducts Administration) GPAE Grupo de Promoción de la Agricultura Ecológica (Promotion Group of Ecological Agriculture) GPC Gabinete del Poder Ciudadano (Citizen Power Cabinet) viii IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development IDB Inter-American Development Bank IMF International Monetary Fund INAA Instituto Nicaragüense de Acueductos y Alcantarillado Sanitario (Nicaraguan Water and Sanitation Institute) INETER Instituto de Estudios Territoriales (Institute of Territorial Studies) IRBD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development JGRN Junta de Gobierno de Reconstrucción Nacional (Governing Junta of National Reconstruction) JS-19 Juventud Sandinista (Sandinista Youth) MAGFOR Ministerio Agropecuario y Forestal (Ministry of Farming, Livestock, and Forests) MARENA Ministerio del Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources) MAS Ministerio de Acción Social (Ministry of Social Action) MC Movimiento Comunal (Communal Movement) MDC Comité de Desarrollo Municipal (Municipal Development Committee) MIDINRA Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario y Reforma Agraria (Ministry of Agricultural Development and Agrarian Reform) MINAS Ministerio de Energía y Minas (Ministry of Energy and Mines) MINSA Ministerio del Salud (Ministry of Health) MO Organización de masa (Mass organization) NGO Nongovernmental organization ix ODESAR Organización para el Desarrollo Económico y Social para el Área Urbana y Rural (Organization for Economic and Social Development in Urban and Rural Areas) PAHO Pan-American Health Organization PLANSAR Plan de Saneamiento Básico Rural (National Plan of Basic Rural Sanitation) PLC Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (Liberal Constitutionalist Party) PRACS Programa Rural de Acción Comunitaria en Salud (Rural Community Health Program) RNDC Red Nacional en Defensa de los Consumidores (National Consumers Defense Organization) RRAS-CA Red Regional de Agua y Saneamiento para Centroamérica (Regional Water and Sanitation Network of Central America) SERMUNIC Departamento Nacional de Servicios Municipales (National Department of Municipal Services) SIMAS Servicio de Información Mesoamericano sobre Agricultura Sostenible (Latin American Information Service for Sustainable Agriculture) SINAS Sistema Nacional de Información de Agua y Saneamiento Rural de Nicaragua (National Information System of Rural Water and Sanitation) SNV Netherlands Development Organization UMAS Unidades Municipales de Agua y Saneamiento (Municipal Units of Water and Sanitation) UNAG La Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos (National Union of Farmers and Ranchers) UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund UNO Unión de Oposición Nacional (National Opposition Union) x UNOM Unidades Nacionales de Operación y Mantenimiento (National Units of Operation and Maintenance) USAID United States Agency for International