Issues related to the governance of social interests and environmental resources established in rural territories have been highlighted in recent sociological literature. Surrounded by the issues of new ruralities, the debate about the makeup of distinct social interests within environmental management and territorial management bodies keeps demanding reflection from social sciences. In order to contribute new subsidies to such debate, this article presents a new sociological research about the territorial and political-institutional conflicts in the management of regional bodies for water policy in the state of São Paulo (Brazil). Through a case study made with qualitative techniques for social research, the work discusses how distinct agricultural interests relate to modern tools for environmental pubic regulation - notably the Basin Committees. The study's general hypothesis is that formal democracy represented by those environmental public regulation bodies cannot stand the fundaments of local structures of political and economic domination.
rurality; society and water resources; social representations; local power