Public water policies: the ultimate weapons of social control
- Autores: Charles Ray Porter
- Directores de la Tesis: María Jesús Muñoz Torres (dir. tes.), Robert Gary Pletcher (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Jaume I ( España ) en 2016
- Idioma: inglés
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: José Antonio Gómez-Limón Rodríguez (presid.), Juana Rivera Lirio (secret.), Patrick Lloyd Cox (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Economía y Empresa por la Universidad Jaume I de Castellón
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: TDX
- Resumen
Public water policy based on man-made borders ignores the natural properties of water and overlooks typical human nature as well. All widely accepted public water policies must consider the natural characteristics of water along with the natural fickle oddities of human political will.
Establishing effective management of water resources based on political boundaries requires continuous wil lingand consistent cooperation between upstreamers and downsteamers, a level of human collegial relationship that history proves is all but impossible to achieve.
In today’s world of warming trends and drought coupled with regional population growth either through increased birth rates, longer life spans, refugees fleeing war torn regions, or people immigrating to regions that offer them more hope, the opportunity for powerful upstreamers to exert control over less powerful downstreamers is tempting. Public water policies offer the opportunity for the more powerful to control the less powerful at all levels of human relationships. Sadly for the less powerful in our world, the late Dr. David Weber's 1972 comment still applies all too well, "Water doesn't flow downhill ...it flows towards money." Dr. David Weber, a dear friend and mentor, Director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies & Dedman Professor of History at Southern Methodist University. Money and power are inextricably linked. Are public water policies the ultimate weapons of social control? This inquiry forms the central research question of this study. This study reveals and analyzes the ways in which public water policies were used as weapons of social control in the past and the ways in which they are being used now. An example of one extreme that has existed for many years and is likely to continue for the near future is Israeli control over the water of the Palestinians living in the “occupied territories.
Another extreme is found in an examination of the United States’ use of public water policies as weapons of social controlin a much more subtle and indirect way. Both extremes are equally as impactful on their respective societies. A central theme of the answers to the central research question of this study examinesTexas and Spain whose relationship in colonial times was that of mother and child in the management and promulgation of water rights, property rights, and public water policies.
