Dammed governance: power asymmetry and resistance in the Tibagi River Basin Committee

Abstract

We approach the triad State, water and power in water management of Tibagi River Basin Committee (CBHT), located in the state of Paraná. Our objective is to understand the processes that show the asymmetry of power in the governance of CBHT as an expression of the power relations that seek to control the main political decisions about the use of water. Methodologically, we adopted a qualitative approach with a descriptive perspective and based on documentary data and interviews. At the end, we affirm that the chronic slowness, scarcity of resources and decision-making centralization constitute and perpetuate the asymmetry of power in the new governance arrangements. This scenery, despite the history of resistance from representatives of civil society, is strategic to repress democratic demands for sustainability in water management and privilege its great user interests. Governance “failures” have in the State an agent and a strategic space to favor the appropriation of water as raw material and waste diluent at low cost, in short, used as “cheap” water. In this way, costs of an unequal appropriation of water are socialized for society and for nature in the process of mobilizing water flows from Tibagi hydrographic basin, according to the time and logic of the financial flows of the global circuit of capital and forces dominant policies at the regional scale.

Keywords
Watershed Committee; State; governance; power asymmetry; Paraná