Transgressing Scales: Transboundary Water Governance across the Canada - U.S. Borderland

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Transgressing Scales: Water Governance Across the Canada-U.S. BorderlandEmma S. Norman a; Karen Bakker a

a Department of Geography, University of British Columbia,

Online Publication Date: 01 January 2009

To cite this Article Norman, Emma S. and Bakker, Karen(2009)'Transgressing Scales: Water Governance Across the Canada-U.S.Borderland',Annals of the Association of American Geographers,99:1,99 — 117

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Transgressing Scales: Water Governance Across theCanada–U.S. Borderland

Emma S. Norman and Karen Bakker

Department of Geography, University of British Columbia

This article examines the rescaling of transboundary water governance along the Canada–U.S. border. Wedraw on recent research in geography on rescaling and borderlands to query two assumptions prevalent in thewater governance literature: that a shift in scale downward to the subnational or “local” scale implies greaterempowerment for local actors, and that rescaling implies that higher orders of government become less importantin water management. The case study presents an analysis of qualitative and quantitative data drawn from acomprehensive database of transboundary water governance instruments compiled by the authors, interviewswith water managers on both sides of the border, and participant observation in transboundary water governanceactivities. Our analysis indicates that although a significant increase in local water governance activities hasoccurred since the 1980s, this has not resulted in a significant increase in decision-making power at the localscale, nor has it been accompanied by a “hollowing out” of the nation-state. This suggests the need to questionsome of the assumptions widespread in the water management literature, such as the putative primacy of thelocal scale, and highlights the utility of bringing current geographical debates over scale and borderlands to bearon questions of environmental governance. Key Words: borderlands, Canada–U.S., scale, transboundary, watergovernance.

En este artıculo se examina el cambio de nivel de la gestion transfronteriza del agua en la frontera entre Canada yEstados Unidos. Nos basamos en investigaciones geograficas recientes sobre el cambio de nivel y tierras fronterizaspara analizar dos suposiciones dominantes en la literatura sobre gestion del agua: que un cambio descendente alnivel subnacional o “local” implica mas poder para las partes locales, y que el cambio de nivel implica que lascategorıas mas altas de gestion pierden importancia en la administracion del agua. El caso de estudio presenta unanalisis de datos cualitativos y cuantitativos obtenidos de una base de datos global de instrumentos de gestiontransfronteriza del agua compilados por los autores, entrevistas con los administradores de agua de ambos lados dela frontera, y la observacion participativa de las actividades de gestion transfronteriza del agua. Nuestro analisisindica que, aunque desde la decada de los ochenta ha ocurrido un aumento significativo en las actividades degestion de agua en el ambito local, esto no ha dado como resultado un aumento significativo en el poder detoma de decisiones en este nivel ni ha ido acompanado por “vaciamiento” del paıs o del estado. Esto sugierela necesidad de cuestionarse algunas de las suposiciones dominantes en la literatura de gestion del agua, comola supuesta primacıa de la escala local, y recalca la utilidad de organizar debates geograficos actuales sobre elnivel de gestion y las tierras fronterizas para poder contestar las preguntas sobre administracion ambiental.Palabras clave: tierras fronterizas, Canada-Estados Unidos, escala, transfronteriza, gestion del agua.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(1) 2009, pp. 99–117 C© 2009 by Association of American GeographersInitial submission, July 2007; revised submissions, December 2007 and April 2008; final acceptance, May 2008

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100 Norman and Bakker

Recent debates on changing patterns of gover-nance have largely centered on the putativeshift from “government” to “governance” in

which nongovernmental actors play a more signif-icant role than in the past (Rhodes 1996; Herod,O’Tuathail, and Roberts 1998; Pierre 2000; Pierreand Peters 2000; Swyngedouw 2000a, 2000b; Gibbins2001; Swyngedouw et al. 2002; Jessop 2003, 2004;Strange 1996). Much of the literature suggests thata simultaneous shift toward the supranational scale,such as the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) and European Union (EU), has accom-panied devolution, in a process sometimes termedglocalization (Swyngedouw 1997, 2004). This poses achallenge to conventional theories of governance, suchas the regime approach, that naturalize the scale of thenation-state as the primary locus of political power. Inturn, this echoes Agnew’s (1994, 1999) “territorial trap”critique through questioning the tendency within theinternational relations (IR) literature to focus on thenation-state as the geographical scale of sole or primaryimportance.

This critique (notwithstanding debates over the lim-itations of scale as a means of inquiry into governanceissues; Brenner 1998, 2001; Marston 2000; Marston,Jones, and Woodward 2005; Jonas 2006) has openedup an important avenue for geographical research onrescaling of governance. Within this body of literature,research on the rescaling of environmental governancehas attracted increasing attention (Harrison 1996;Paterson 1999; Hirsch 2001; Paehlke 2001; Parson2001; Kramsch 2002; Jonas and Gibbs 2003; Kramschand Mamadouh 2003; Munton 2003; Verchick andHulen 2003; Evans 2004; Maddock 2004; Wismerand Mitchell 2005). This growing body of literatureexplores the production of scales and scalar boundariesof environmental governance, as well as the degree ofrescaling with respect to the management of specificresources or environmental issues. Much of the re-search focuses on subnational scales of environmentalgovernance, thus deepening our understanding of whatBrown and Purcell (2005, 607) call the “local trap”—an analogue to Agnew’s territorial trap—in which“organization, policies, and actions at the local scale are[thought to be] inherently more likely to have desiredsocial and ecological effects than activities organizedat other scales.” Other contributions to the literature,however, appear to fall prey to the local trap, in assert-ing the importance or necessity of involving actors atlocal scales. For example, the assumption that operating

at the local—and particularly watershed—scale will in-crease empowerment, accountability, or cost-efficiencyis implicit in much of the water management literature(see, for example, Gibbins 2001; Corry et al. 2004).

This article speaks to the questions raised in thisliterature through an analysis of the rescaling oftransboundary water governance between Canada andthe United States. Our analysis focuses on the inter-national border dividing the two countries, colloqui-ally known as the “longest undefended border in theworld” but also a border subject to increasing scrutiny,surveillance, and contestation. The Canada–U.S. bor-der is an intriguing case because of over a century ofengagement between the two countries with respect totransboundary water management, providing an oppor-tunity to analyze long-term trends in water governance.Furthermore, the relatively culturally integrated popu-lation and lack of language barriers (with the exceptionof the U.S.–Quebec border) significantly reduces ex-ternal variables that might otherwise have complicatedthe analysis (Norman and Melious 2004).

The primary purpose of our analysis is to analyzethe degree of rescaling and role of subnational scalesin transboundary water governance (understood asdecision-making processes through which stakeholdersprovide input, decisions are made, and decision mak-ers are held accountable). In conducting the analysis,we have attempted to avoid both the territorial trap(through querying the nature of the involvement ofnonstate actors and local scales in governance) andthe local trap (through analyzing the degree to whichrescaling has led to greater empowerment on the partof local actors). This analysis leads us to argue that al-though rescaling of water governance to the local levelis indeed occurring, this process is not necessarily em-powering for local actors. This conclusion is at oddswith an assumption prevalent in much of the watergovernance literature that rescaling to the local levelwill be empowering and, moreover, that this will in turnlead to better water management outcomes.

The article begins by reviewing recent debates onrescaling and borderlands, which offer useful conceptswith which to expand conventional analyses of trans-boundary water governance. Notably, recent debatesin the borderlands literature have challenged the terri-torial trap in their focus on issues of the porosity andfluidity of borders. In our analysis, we query several as-sumptions underpinning water-related studies. Specif-ically, we query two assumptions: that a shift in scaledownward to the local implies greater empowerment for


Transgressing Scales: Water Governance Across the Canada–U.S. Borderland 101

local actors and that rescaling implies that nation-statesbecome less important in water management.1

In the second part of the article, we present a quanti-tative analysis examining whether rescaling of trans-boundary water governance has occurred along theCanada–U.S. border and to what degree. Our analy-sis indicates that rescaling of transboundary water gov-ernance has occurred over time, with a significantlygreater number of subnational (state, provincial, andsubstate/provincial) governance instruments being cre-ated for Canada–U.S. transboundary water manage-ment from the 1980s onward.2 These results, however,tell us little about the relative strength and effective-ness of local transboundary governance, nor do theyindicate whether the rise of the local has undermined,or rather complements ongoing bilateral activity at thefederal level.

The third part of the article seeks to flesh out theselatter issues by presenting qualitative evidence on theeffects of rescaling on the empowerment of local actors,gathered through interviews and participant observa-tion. The two indicators selected to represent “empow-erment” in our analysis are institutional capacity (whereinstitutions are defined in the sociological sense as rules,norms, and customs, and institutional capacity refersto the ability of actors to create, interpret, and enactinstitutional change) and the degree of involvementof local actors in water management decision-makingprocesses.3 We argue that downscaling of governanceto the local level has not necessarily resulted in greaterempowerment. Moreover, we present evidence that sug-gests that the rescaling of water governance to the lo-cal scale has not led to a reduction in power for thenation-state. Finally, we document how glocalization isoccurring differently on either side of the Canada–U.S.border and argue that the differential pace of rescalingof governance across the border is an important factorin limiting the potential of locally led transboundarywater governance.

Methods

This research project is part of an ongoing projectinitiated in the fall of 2004 by the authors. The datawere derived from a series of semistructured interviewsand participant observation in several transboundarymeetings and conferences, as well as a transbound-ary workshop at the University of British Columbia inVancouver, Canada.

Overall, thirty-four interviews were conducted withwater management professionals and local stakeholdersfrom both the United States and Canada. The inter-views were conducted in two transboundary regions,the relatively water-abundant Pacific Coastal (BritishColumbia–Washington) region and the relativelywater-scarce Western Montane (Alberta–Montana)region.4 A questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions was administered in interviews lastingapproximately ninety minutes. The research methodswere approved by the Behavioral Research Ethics Boardat the University of British Columbia. Intervieweeidentity cannot be disclosed because of confidentialityrequirements.

A facilitated workshop, with twenty-six actors in-volved in transboundary governance of water, was asecondary source of data. The workshop participantswere drawn from a variety of fields, representing bothgovernmental and nongovernmental actors. The sym-posium provided an opportunity for those involvedin binational governance of water at a local and re-gional level to engage in dialogue and critically explorerecent changes in Canada–U.S. transboundary watergovernance.

The analysis also draws on a comprehensive databasecompiled by the authors.5 This database details onehundred years of governance instruments used to man-age transboundary water along the Canada–U.S. bor-der starting with the 1909 Boundary Water Treaties.6

The data set represents a range of mechanisms designedto address binational water issues, restricted to waterquantity (such as water allocation) and water qualityissues.7 It consists of formal and informal transbound-ary water governance instruments operating betweenCanada and the United States, or constituent states andprovinces, municipalities, and First Nations or tribes.We organized the data by geographical region (Pacific,Western Montane, Central Prairie, Great Lakes, andAtlantic); types of governance mechanism (treaty, ex-change of notes, memoranda of understanding, mem-oranda of agreement, agreements, orders) and institu-tion (organization); and temporally.8 A total of 166government instruments were identified, and analysesof temporal trends and content are presented. The in-formation was collected from September 2004 throughMay 2007 and was peer-reviewed by more than thirtyexperts in the field ranging from high-level govern-mental officials to local nongovernmental organization(NGO) stakeholders in both Canada and the UnitedStates.



Rescaling Water Governancein the Borderlands

Territory is not; it becomes, for territory itself is passive,and it is human belief and actions that give territory mean-ing.

—Knight (1982, 517)

Rescaling Transboundary Water Governance:The Territorial Trap

Many recent water management initiatives inCanada and the United States entail the involvementof local actors—usually subprovincial or substate,and often community-based—in water management.This trend parallels the devolution of environmentalgovernance9 to the subnational level (Feitelson andHaddad 1998; Gibbins 2001; Feitelson 2003; Maddock2004; Marine and Environmental Law Institute 2006).In Canada and the United States, devolution hasled to an increased role of citizen participation inenvironmental governance, particularly for waterresources (Allee 1993; Herzog 1999; Liverman et al.1999; Mumme 1999; Wolf 1999; Day, Gunton, andFrame 2003; Day 2004; De Loe, DiGiantomasso, andKreutzwiser 2002).

In many instances, this poses a challenge to con-ventional theories of governance, such as the regimeapproach, that naturalize the scale of the nation-state as the primary or sole locus of political power(Agnew 1999). This is particularly true for scholarsworking within the IR tradition and those operatingwithin an international regime framework (Bulkeley2005; Furlong 2006). Within these frameworks, thescales at which environmental governance takes placeare often treated as hierarchical and distinct, “as self-enclosed political territories within a nested hierarchyof geographical arenas contained within each other likeso many Russian dolls” (Brenner, Jones, and MacLeod2003, 1). When deploying a regime approach, the stateremains relatively unproblematized and indeed oftenbecomes both naturalized and abstracted as a boundeddemarcation of political power (Brenner, Jones, andMacLeod 2003; Brenner 2004)

A reliance on the regime approach has meant thatthe process of rescaling has, until recently, received rel-atively little attention in the IR literature on trans-boundary water governance. Largely state-centric inorientation, the literature has focused on formal in-struments such as treaties and agreements (Toset 2000;

Kliot, Shmueli, and Shamir 2001; Giordano, Giordano,and Wolf 2002; Wolf, Yoffe, and Giordano 2003; Dinar2004; Epsey and Towfique 2004). Although much re-cent debate on fresh water resources has focused on theneed to improve governance, as distinct from manage-ment (see, for example, United Nations World WaterAssessment Programme 2003), the question of appro-priate scales of management other than the nation-stateis rarely a central focus. Rather, bilateral or multilateraltransboundary water governance instruments dominatethe conceptual frame (Sadoff and Grey 2002; Taylor2004; Conca 2006).

This suggests that the conventional IR approach totransboundary water governance is ill equipped to ana-lyze the emergence of scales other than the nation-state.The politics of scale literature offers useful insights intoexploring alternative scales, such as the rise of the local(Howitt 1998, 2002; Smith 1992, 1993, 1995; Jonas1994, 2006; Swyngedouw 1997; Brenner 2001; Jessop2003, 2004). First, this literature insists that there is“nothing inherent about scale.” Rather, scale is pro-duced, contingent, and transient—as work on “regions”in geography has, for example, demonstrated (Brownand Purcell 2005, 608; Smith 1984, 1998; MacLeod2001; Jones and MacLeod 2004). This perspectiveopens up analytical space to explore the productionof, and interconnection between, new scales of watergovernance, such as the local and the watershed scale(Betsill and Bulkeley 2004; Bulkeley 2005).

Second, the focus on the relationship among space,scale, and the political economy of capitalism has pro-vided important insights into the evolving role of thenation-state (Harvey 1989; Pred and Watts 1992; Smith1995; Cox 1997; Swyngedouw 1997; Escobar 2001). Inparticular, the concepts of glocalization (cf. Swynge-douw) and the hollowing out of the state (cf. Jessop)suggest that the phenomenon of rescaling is multiscalarand intimately connected to the emergence of non-state actors such as NGOs, while implying significantchanges in the role and extent of nation-state activityand influence.

These insights suggest that an analytical strategy toavoid the territorial trap would entail an analysis ofthe evolving role of the nation-state in governance,and of the “power geometries” among stakeholders. Thefollowing section of the article expands on these issuesin the empirical analysis. Prior to that, however, weturn to a consideration of the conceptual foil of theterritorial trap in the water management literature: thelocal trap.



The Rise of Local Water Governance:The Local Trap

A large proportion of watersheds are transected byinternational boundaries: Wolf et al. (1999) estimatethat international boundaries transect 261 river basins,representing 45.3 percent of the land surface of theearth.10 The difficulties that arise in managing water, aflow resource that distributes negative environmentalexternalities (as well as captured benefits) differentiallyamong upstream and downstream users, across nationalboundaries have been well documented, as have theshortcomings of conventional multilateral and bilat-eral governance frameworks (see, for example, Conca2006). In response, one strand of the transboundarywater governance literature asserts the need for a“watershed approach” (Gleick 1993; Newson 1997;Pentland 2006), effectively substituting hydrologicalboundaries for political borders. Indeed, the watershedapproach will likely come to be increasingly central totransboundary water governance in North America.11

This trend is apparent along the Canada–U.S. borderas the International Joint Commission (IJC), whichhas historically addressed disputes in a formal nation-to-nation setting, moves toward adopting a watershedapproach via watershed commissions (IJC 1997, 2000,2005).12

Discussions in the water governance literature oftenindicate the benefits of addressing environmentalissues on a watershed basis (Lundqvist, Lohm, andFalkenmark 1985; Gleick 1993; Kliot, Shmueli,and Shamir 2001). A common, and often implicit,presumption in the literature is that human, envi-ronmental, and social decisions can be integratedthrough water basin–based governance instruments,rather than through political jurisdictions. In manyinstances, these assumptions are legitimated throughappeals to the integrated water resources management(IWRM) literature. IWRM proponents often assert thenecessity of multiagency integrated managementof land and water resources on a watershed basis,thereby implying governance across jurisdictional andpolitical boundaries and prioritizing the involvementof multiple local actors in water management (Biswas2004; Shrubsole 2004; Mitchell 2005).13

The assertion of the importance, even primacy, ofthe local scale in IWRM coincides with an importantstrand of the broader environmental management lit-erature, which Corry et al. (2004) describe as a new lo-calism, in which the involvement of local actors tends

to legitimize policy and environmental programs (Raco2000; Raco and Flint 2001). The new localism advo-cates local involvement as necessary and positive and asa means to supplant higher order levels of governmentand to reinforce the emergence of “social trust” in whichboth public and private needs are met and local demo-cratic institutions are enabled. From this perspective,local governments are portrayed as being in touch withcommunity needs, more empowering, more effectivein cooperative practices, and more cost-efficient than“higher” scales of governance (Gibbins 2001; Corry etal. 2004; O’Riordan 2004).

Three questionable assumptions are often embodiedin this literature. First, calls for watershed-based gover-nance often contain an implicit assumption about thepositive benefits of downscaling governance to the locallevel. This is problematic insofar as it implies that theinclusion of stakeholders on an equitable basis acrossthe watershed is possible (and, indeed, assumed to beprobable). With respect to water resources, it is oftensuggested that the river basin is the most appropriatescale for water governance (Lundqvist, Lohm, andFalkenmark 1985; Gleick 1993; Kliot, Shmueli, andShamir 2001). As Fischhendler and Feitelson (2005)note, the river basin scale is often endorsed as the mostappropriate scale as it “allows land, water and humandevelopment issues to be integrated, thereby potentiallyinternalizing all externalities, regardless of politicalboundaries” (792–93). This is in line with more generalarguments by scholars such as Gibbins (2001), whomaintain that it is imperative to bring local commu-nities and their governments into the fold of evolvingfederal systems, as local stakeholders are playing anincreasingly important role in federal governmentstructures in the United States and Canada. Indeed, theassumption that the local is somehow a better scale forenvironmental management prevails throughout muchof the water governance literature. This assumption,though, may overlook limited local institutional capac-ity or merely serve to endorse the purpose of rescalingtactics of higher orders of government—which may“downshift” responsibility without the associatedallocation of resources necessary to undertake newlydelegated responsibilities (Cochrane 1986).

Some scholars, however, have challenged the uncrit-ical acceptance of the rhetoric of the local in environ-mental policy (Evans 2004; Sabatier et al. 2005). Brownand Purcell (2005), for example, articulate the dangersof a local trap. This analytical counterpart to Agnew’sterritorial trap assumes that organization, policies, and



action at the local scale are inherently more likely tohave desired social and ecological effects than activ-ities organized at other scales.14 As Cochrane (1986,51) claims, “governments seem to use community as ifit were an aerosol can, to be sprayed on any social pro-gramme, giving it a more progressive and sympatheticcachet.”

Second, the water management literature rarelyproblematizes the process of rescaling of governancethat must occur if watersheds become the locus of watermanagement. Yet these rescaling processes may havesignificant implications for the ability of actors, at lo-cal, national, and supranational scales, to engage ef-fectively in water governance. These issues are furthercomplicated by governance mismatches, or asymme-tries, in the case of transboundary watersheds. Water isa flow resource and a multiuse resource and thus almostinevitably transgresses geopolitical and jurisdictionalboundaries. IWRM presents a complex challenge fortransboundary water management regimes, which havegenerally been state-centric, operating through formalinstruments such as treaties, with little scope for localinvolvement of nongovernmental actors.

Third, calls for the watershed approach frequentlyimply that nation-states necessarily lose a degree ofpower and influence when transboundary waters aremanaged on the basis of watersheds, and that devolu-tion of responsibility and authority to local and supra-national scales also implies an increasing porosity orfluidity of borders to local actors (Coates 2004). Inother words, embedded within the water managementliterature (and environmental management literaturemore generally) are the implicit suppositions that trans-boundary watersheds emerge inevitably from processesof decentralization and that this rescaling necessarilyincreases the power of local scales at the expense ofthe nation-state. This raises the risk of treating the in-volvement of local actors in water management in arelatively uncritical fashion, particularly with respectto assumptions of equitable and meaningful participa-tion, significant influence over decision making, and ac-countability or empowerment (Van Rooy 1997, 2004;Taylor 2004).

These critiques are to some degree anticipated, andcertainly enriched, by recent debates in borderlandsstudies. Indeed, the mutual constitutiveness of bordersand of processes of rescaling governance is the subjectof increasing attention in borderlands studies. Withinthe past decade, border scholars have begun challengingthe idea of a fixed and territorially bounded world andstarted unpacking issues of power, space, and territory

(Newman and Paasi 1998). For example, Paasi (1996)argues that regions and territories evolve from processesof social construction in which the nation-state is ac-tively involved. Approaching the process of border cre-ation from a historical perspective, Paasi documentshow the creation of a border is simultaneously materialand symbolic. Geopolitical borders reinforce nationalidentity by physically keeping citizens in (and outsidersout). Nation-building narratives help citizens internal-ize and reify national identities. Other scholars havemade similar arguments, calling for geopolitical bordersto be situated within wider historical frameworks andto be recognized as socially constructed spaces of power(see, for example, Anderson 1991; Sparke 2000, 2002;Kramsch 2002; Newman 2003; Fall 2005). This is par-ticularly important in transboundary discussions, whichoften neglect to problematize the inherent asymmetri-cal power relations in the boundary-making process,which has particularly significant consequences for in-digenous communities who predate the construction ofmany state borders.

The notion that scales of governance and bor-derlands are simultaneously socially constructed andmaterial has important implications for our understand-ings of the rescaling. First, it implies the importance oftreating scales of governance as interconnected, sociallyconstructed, and evolving, rather than distinct, natu-ralized, and immutable spaces. Second, it implies theacknowledgment of the simultaneous social construc-tion and materiality of scale and examines how watermanagement scales are socially constructed, yet havematerial impacts that shape, and in turn are shaped bygovernance practices. In other words, insights from theborderlands approach imply that we need to approachthe social construction of scale as a material as wellas political process, with both material and discursiveeffects (Brown and Purcell 2005). This is particularlyrelevant to resource sectors that have experiencedsignificant rescaling of environmental governance inrecent years (see, for example, Mansfield 2001, 2005).

This, in turn, justifies an interrogation of the implica-tions of rescaling for local communities and hydrosocialcycles. It also implies skepticism with respect to assump-tions often embedded in prioritization of the watershedscale in water governance debates. Implementing water-shed governance does not, for example, automaticallyimply equitable representation of all stakeholders, ormore power for local stakeholders vis-a-vis higher or-ders of government. Rather, this perspective reminds usof the simultaneous fixity and porosity of borders, anddocuments how local actors simultaneously undermine,



yet are constrained by the container of the nation-state.Indeed, ironically, local actors are often less able to tran-scend the border than their nation-state counterparts.In short, this approach implies the need to query certainassumptions prevalent in the transboundary water gov-ernance literature as it pertains to local and watershed-based management, such as the notion that bordershave become more porous over time, or the assumptionthat scaling downward to the local implies that the bor-der is more fluid and less fixed (Rhodes 1996; Coates2004). These questions are the focus of the followingsections.

Rescaling Canada–U.S. TransboundaryWater Governance

In the preceding section, we explored assumptionsprevalent in the two main literatures dealing with trans-boundary water governance: IR and IWRM. We arguedthat these literatures fall prey to a territorial trap anda local trap, respectively, and we presented insightsfrom recent work in geography on rescaling and theborderlands that offer alternative conceptions of scalarprocesses and outcomes of transboundary water gover-nance. To flesh out these critiques, we now turn to aspecific case study of Canada–U.S. transboundary watergovernance.

In this section, we analyze whether and how rescalinghas occurred. The analysis draws on our comprehen-sive database of binational, water-related governancemechanisms between Canada and the United Statesmanaged at multiple scales: local, provincial and state,national, and international. Table 1 explores the re-lationship between scales of governance and type ofgovernance instrument. Overall, we found that of the166 water-related governance instruments, 57 percentwere federal and 43 percent were subnational (state orprovincial, multilevel, or local). When disaggregated

Figure 1. Number of federal and subnational governance instru-ments created per decade (1900–2007). Total includes all 166 gover-nance mechanisms, including organizations; federal and subnationalexclude organizations. Source: Authors’ Canada–U.S. transbound-ary water governance instruments database.

into formal and nonformal (treaty/ nontreaty), it is clearthat the federal instruments rely more heavily on for-mal agreements (77 percent), whereas subnational ormultiple-scaled groups rely more on organizations (57percent) and informal agreements (16 percent). This isunsurprising, given the limited capacity for local orga-nizations to create “binding” or “formal” agreements inan international setting. In lieu of binding agreements,the subnational, particularly at the multiscale and locallevel, rely heavily on organizations.15 Through the cre-ation of groups dealing with a singular issue (i.e., Flood-ing of the Nooksack River Task Force in the Pacificregion) or basinwide issues (i.e., Gulf of Maine Councilin the Atlantic region), these organizations are able tocreate networks for information sharing and problemsolving with relatively little infrastructure.16

Overall, we found that the number of instrumentsdesigned to manage transboundary water has substan-tially increased over time, as has the rate of growthof new instruments over the past three decades (Fig-ure 1). The rate of growth of instruments was rela-tively slow in the first half of the century. From the1940s through the 1970s, the growth in instruments

Table 1. Relationship between scale of governance and type of governance instrument (2005 data)

Federal State–provincial Multilevel Local Total subnational

Number % Number % Number % Number % Number %

Binding 73 76.84 15 42.86 0 0.00 0 0.00 15 20.55Nonbinding 3 3.16 12 34.29 2 6.45 1 0.17 15 20.55Organization 19 20.00 8 22.86 29 39.55 5 0.83 42 57.33

Notes: Binding refers to formal mechanism such as treaty, agreement, order, and exchange of notes. Nonbinding refers to memorandum of understanding,memorandum of cooperation, and memorandum of agreement. Organization refers to multistakeholder and local (subnational) transboundary groups.Source: Authors’ Canada–U.S. transboundary water governance instruments database.



Figure 2. Number of International Joint Commission applicationsand references over time. Source: Canadian Section of the Interna-tional Joint Commission.

stayed steady, averaging about fifteen new instrumentsper decade, but through the 1980s, the number of newinstruments doubled to twenty-six and then increasedagain to thirty-seven during the 1990s. From 2001 topresent, twenty-five instruments have been established.This rate is congruent with the 1991–2001 rate, with anaverage of 3.6 instruments per year. Moreover, whereasthe period up until the 1940s was dominated by treaties,agreements, and exchanges of notes, the majority of in-struments created since the 1980s were conceived andimplemented at the subnational level, as described later.

Analyzing the data temporally also reveals some veryinteresting trends regarding the changing roles of fed-eral and subnational actors in water governance. Figure2 shows a trend of declining federal involvement and in-creasing local involvement, in terms of number of orga-nizations and instruments. Even when evaluating solelygovernance instruments, excluding organizations, thetrend clearly indicates a rise in local participation overthe past two decades.17 Our analysis reveals that the fed-eral role peaked in the 1940s, during what Pentland and

Hurley (2007) refer to as the cooperative developmentperiod. In fact, the trends found in our analysis coincideclosely with the transboundary water periods identifiedby Pentland and Hurley (2007; Table 2). As the federalrole declines, the local governance instruments start toemerge during the comprehensive management era inthe late 1960s and 1970s. Not until the 1990s, however,in the middle of the sustainable development era, andthe beginning of what we refer to as the participatoryera, did the role of the local reach its zenith. Whenanalyzing this trend before and after NAFTA (1992), atrend of greater local involvement emerges a decade af-ter NAFTA was signed. This is significant given the roleof NAFTA’s environmental side agreement, which es-tablished the Commission for Environmental Coopera-tion (CEC), a trinational transboundary environmentalagency with funding mechanisms.18 Several of the re-cently established organizations received funds from theCEC, including multilevel groups in the Pacific and theAtlantic regions.19

These trends in water governance parallel trends re-ported by the IJC. In a recent Canadian Department ofForeign Affairs presentation, representatives from theIJC reported that the instruments used to enable theIJC, such as references and applications, have steadilydeclined over the past several decades (Figure 2). Inan effort to adapt to these changing patterns, the IJChas developed a new mechanism, the watershed ap-proach, which is intended to allow for greater multi-level and specifically local participation (see IJC 1997,2000, 2005).

Tables 3 and 4 outline the regional variation inthe proportion of federal and subnational instruments.The highest number of local instruments is found inthe Pacific region; however, the Atlantic and Western

Table 2. Eras of Canada–U.S. transboundary water management (1945–2007)

Transboundary water era Time period Role Example

Cooperative development 1945–1965 � Projects of mutual benefit� Federal government encouraged hydroelectric

development

Columbia River dam; St.Lawrence Seaway

Comprehensive management 1965–1985 � Issue-based� Comprehensive river basin planning and more

“environmentally conscious” framework� Water expertise built up at federal level

Great Lakes Water QualityAgreement

Sustainable development 1985–2000 � Linking economy and environment� Issues more integrative, anticipatory, and

preventive

Great Lakes Annex

Participatory 2000–current � Increased local participation Watershed boards

Source: Adapted from Pentland and Hurley (2007).



Table 3. Regional variation of governance instruments in Canada–U.S. transboundary area

Basic region Country-wide Pacific Western Montane Central Prairie Great Lakes Atlantic

FederalOrganization 2 3 1 7 5 1Treaty 2 3 0 4 7 0Agreement 1 3 0 0 7 3MOU/MOA 1 0 0 0 2 0Exchange of notes 4 5 2 2 9 5IJC order 0 8 1 4 3 0

State–ProvincialOrganization 0 5 2 0 0 1Agreement 0 5 2 0 5 3MOU/MOA 0 4 2 2 1 3

MultilevelOrganization 0 8 2 7 6 5MOU/MOA 0 0 0 0 1 1

NonGovernmentOrganization 0 2 1 0 0 2MOU/MOA 0 0 0 0 1 0Subtotal 10 46 13 26 47 24

Source: Authors’ Canada–U.S. transboundary water governance instruments database.Notes: MOU/MOA = memorandum of understanding/memorandum of agreement; IJC = International Joint Commission.

Montane have the highest percentages of local instru-ments as a proportion of the total. The Great Lakes–St.Lawrence region has the lowest proportion of local in-struments, which may result from the scale of the lakeswhere fewer bodies of water means fewer instruments;a large number of actors, which complicates any localagreement; or the level of IJC involvement keepingactivities focused at the federal scale. Despite the pro-portionally small amount of local-level participation,the Great Lakes region was one of the first to includemultilevel stakeholders in transboundary water gover-nance with the establishment of the Great Lakes Fish-ery Commission in 1955. In terms of provincial–staterelationships, the Pacific region led the way with thefounding of the Environmental Cooperation Council in

Table 4. Percentage of local governance instruments perCanada–U.S. transboundary region

Region Federal Local Percent local/federal

Countrywide 10 0 0Pacific region 22 24 52Western Montane 4 9 69Central Prairie 17 9 35Great Lakes–St. Lawrence 33 14 30Atlantic 9 15 63

Source: Authors’ Canada–U.S. transboundary water governance instrumentsdatabase.

1992. This binational organizational body was emulatedin Montana–Alberta and British Columbia–Montanamore than a decade later.

Another important aspect of our analysis examinedthe spatial clustering of governance instruments aroundwatersheds, rather than regions. Through this analysis,we find that a few basins make up a large proportion ofthe governance instruments. We found that 61 percentof the transboundary governance instruments were cre-ated for eight (out of thirty) watersheds (Great Lakes,twenty-three; St. Lawrence River, seventeen; ColumbiaRiver, fifteen; Niagara River, ten; Red River, nine;Rainy Lake, eight; Georgia Strait-Puget Sound, eight;St. Croix River, seven).20 In fact, the top five water-sheds make up almost 50 percent of the governanceinstruments.

A significant amount of this activity occurred duringthe cooperative development period in preparation forshared hydroelectric development. In the Great Lakesregion, though, where there is the greatest number ofgovernance instruments, the efforts have been both sus-tained and dynamic. The transboundary instrumentsdate back from the beginning of binational cooperationwith the Boundary Water Treaty and the InternationalLake Superior Control Board (1925), to the Great LakesWater Quality Agreement (1972), to, most recently,the preparation for the Upper Great Lakes Study Board(2007). The second most active geographic region, the



Pacific, looks notably different than the Great Lakes–St.Lawrence River region. In the Pacific, the developmentof water governance instruments has emerged largelyduring the 1990s in the sustainable development andparticipatory era. Leading the way in binational coop-eration at the provincial–state level, the Pacific devel-oped a significant amount of its instruments to workwith many multistakeholders at various scales. A no-table exception is the Columbia River, where many ofthe binational governance instruments were developedin 1940s to support its role in generating hydroelec-tric power and managing flood control. Like the GreatLakes, however, the governance instruments are dy-namic, with efforts to become more participatory inrecent times (e.g., the Columbia Basin Trust [est. 1995]and the Columbia River Transboundary Gas Group [est.1998]).

Porous Borders?

In the preceding section, we documented the recon-figuration of governance instruments for transboundarywater. The trend of a declining federal role and an in-creasing local role was clearly exhibited (Figure 1). Wealso found significant regional variances in governanceinstruments across the border, where a relatively smallnumber of watersheds comprised the majority of gov-ernance instruments. We now query whether this re-configuration has led to more porous borders and moreempowerment (increased institutional capacity and in-volvement in water management decision-making pro-cesses) for local actors.

Although the majority of respondents identified anincreased participation of local actors21 in water gov-ernance over the past fifteen years, they consistentlyarticulated the opinion that this increase failed to trans-late into greater local institutional capacity. Nor has itenhanced their ability to travel across the Canada–U.S.border (particularly after 11 September 2001). This re-sult was also found in our binational water governanceworkshop, where the participants concurred that thelocal scale is increasingly involved in binational gover-nance. Several of the respondents, however, noted thatthis decrease in scale should not be glorified; rather inmany cases it is the result of a “downloading of respon-sibility by senior government.” The Columbia Riverin Washington and British Columbia was identified asan example where a shift from federal responsibilitiesto mixed arrangements between state, province, NGOs,and tribal governments has occurred with mixed results.One group reflected:

Yes, local involvement and importance has increased,but the greater good has to be considered. We cannotlet “single-issue” groups make decisions. However, localstakeholders must be involved or else things just don’thappen.

Similarly, a second focus group noted that, “localgovernments are more susceptible to local political pres-sures, such as land development, if there is no state orprovincial standard to be met.” These findings are notlimited to the Canada–U.S. border. In a recent studyincluding eighty-three river basin organizations world-wide, it was found that although decentralization to the“lowest appropriate level” is an internationally acceptedprinciple of river basin management, the “actual appli-cation often encounters obstacles due to the varyinginterests of different stakeholder groups” (World Bank2007; see also Cassar 2003).

Our empirical work explores the root causes for thelack of increased capacity for transboundary water gov-ernance at the local scale. Our analysis indicates thatmismatched or asymmetrical governance structures,limited institutional capacity, and lack of intrajurisdic-tional integration all play an important role in limitingthe extent and effectiveness of transboundary coop-eration. Table 5 provides a list of barriers and driversof transboundary cooperation identified through inter-views and focus groups. Respondents also argued thatasymmetrical governance structures at the local scalewere aggravated by the different pace and timing ofrescaling in Canada and the United States. Specifically,

Table 5. Transboundary cooperation: Barriers and drivers

Drivers Barriers

Specific issues Mismatched governance structuresLeadership Different governance culturesInformal contacts Different mandatesEstablished networks Lack of institutional capacityCrisis Lack of financial resourcesPersonal relationships Asymmetrical participationPublic availability of data Data, lack of and difficulty accessingProximity Lack of intrajurisdictional

integrationLegal obligations Gaps in knowledge of the “other”

countryOpportunity-driven Spatial distanceTransparency Federal jurisdiction tempers

regional actionPracticality MistrustRespect and fairness Lack of leadership

Source: Transboundary Governance Workshop (April 2006) and water man-ager interviews (2005–2007).



in the United States, interview respondents indicatedthat despite statewide programming aimed to includelocal stakeholders in water governance activities, suchas the 1987 Water Act Amendments, “water gover-nance has decidedly not shifted to local communities.”Some respondents stated that, “there was actually lesspower for the local communities today than fifteenyears ago.” Although the 1987 Amendments aimed tobring more power to local communities through stateempowerment, some water managers felt that the “localcommunities had their hands tied by the amendments”and that, “the idea that local communities have morepower is [simply] illusionary.”22

Several of the U.S. respondents further indicatedthat state employees tend to have little involvementin the transboundary process—“it was either localor federal.” Many of the state employees felt thattheir hands were tied in terms of involvement intransboundary water issues, as reflected by one re-spondent: “They [the feds] limit our opportunity—we could get involved, but then they [the feds]could just take over.” For the local groups and en-vironmental NGOs in the study region, we foundthat limited financial resources and overextendedstaff tempered binational cooperation. One of thedifficulties was the constituent base, which was oftenreticent to have their donor dollars stretch across inter-national jurisdictions.23 These barriers tend to limit thescale and scope of the groups’ projects and limit theirinvolvement in transboundary governance in general.

In Canada, in contrast, jurisdictional fragmentationhas led to confusion over appropriate roles and appro-priate scales of responsibility for water governance. Ourinterviews echo the observations from Parson (2001,131) that this fragmentation is exacerbated by a processof rescaling in which “environmental authority is beingceded at once downward to the provinces and upwardto international institutions” (see also Paehlke 2001).In particular, the private sector and local governmentshave experienced an increase in responsibilities as aresult of this devolution. Several of the intervieweesdescribed how this devolution of provincial authorityhas led to greater local participation in water gover-nance as well as greater federal responsibilities. In thewords of one provincial respondent, “The local is be-coming more responsible for water governance issues asa flow-over from provincial downsizing.”

This reconfiguration has impacted volunteer or-ganizations and Canadian NGOs, whose increasedparticipation in environmental governance is well doc-

umented (Gibson 1999; Dorcey and McDaniels 2001;Howlett 2001; Savan, Gore, and Morgan 2004), andgrowing influence in environmental policymaking andmonitoring is recognized (Savan, Morgan, and Gore2003). Several provincial employees concurred that“more and more people are becoming involved in watergovernance issues” and that “there has been an increasein cooperation at the local neighbor—neighbor level.”This participation has its limits, though, as one inter-viewee reflected: “Canada has a strong government-to-government mentality, which provides a barrier for citi-zen participation in transborder issues.” Thus, althoughNGOs are more present, and have increasingly more in-fluence, the devolution of power has not yet translatedto direct governing authority for nongovernmentalactors.

These observations are important for several reasons.First, they decouple the “hollowing out of the state”from “glocalization” by showing that an increase in localand nonstate participation does not necessarily lead toa reduction in federal power (despite declining federalinvolvement). Second, they speak to the “local trap”by showing that an increase in local involvement doesnot equate to increased power of the local. Specificexamples from our case studies, both in our interviewsand focus groups, help flesh out these trends.

Our case studies reveal that the border remains a sig-nificant barrier to comanaging shared water resources,despite the programming and energy expended towardtransboundary governance at a local level. Several re-spondents attributed this lack of fluidity, or ability tomove easily across the border, to limited institutionalcapacity. Issues such as inability to make phone calls in-ternationally, travel across borders, purchase data, andgenerally work with counterparts contributed to thisphenomenon. For example, one respondent noted thatdespite working on an international river basin for sev-eral years, until very recently, he or she was unable tocall out of the country—the office was able to receiveinternational calls but not make them. This type of lim-ited capacity also occurred with data acquisition. Oneinterviewee highlighted the nuisance in getting depart-mental funds to purchase data from Canada pertinentto work on an international river basin. As “the datawas not public domain” and the department “was notquick to spend the money” to acquire the information,the respondent reported that he or she was forced to“bypass the organization and purchase the data usingpersonal funds.” Another respondent reflected on howintractable binational governance could seem:



When I ask if I can get data, they [the Canadians] say“you can buy it or we don’t have it.” Then, I find outlater they really do have it, but just didn’t share it orthey didn’t know that it existed. It is frustrating. . . . InAlberta, they have great Web sites, very flashy and looksnice, but the raw data is not there—it doesn’t seem to beeasily available. . . . We do things differently on our side.We have more public information—USGS has a publicwebsite where you can get any information—it is freepublic information for anyone at anytime to access.24

Similar issues with data were reported by the coastalPacific respondents. As one interviewee noted:

There is a lot more capacity in the United States [forwater governance]. Even from the data perspective, they[the U.S.] have more data to work with.25

General lack of knowledge of one another was alsoconsistently reported as a barrier to transboundary coop-eration. Many of the water managers interviewed werelargely unfamiliar with the political structure and keyenvironmental legislation of the other country. Theywere, however, interested in knowing this information.Not only were the interviewees unfamiliar with the po-litical structures of Canada or the United States, theywere largely unconnected to their counterpart acrossthe border, despite the shared watersheds and water-related concerns. One binational creek in the Pacificregion, for example, which is experiencing a significantdecline in salmon population due to habitat loss andlack of water flow, has little coordination among agen-cies and groups managing the watershed. Despite thephysical proximity of the border towns (approximatelythree miles), the staff (city, state, and NGO) that workon the management of the creek operate with little tono communication with their counterparts across theborder. One extension officer from a Washington stateagricultural office reported a desire to work with heror his counterpart but was unsure who that person wasor which office to contact. In fact, the extension agentturned to our project as a way to connect with his orher counterpart. In this case, the border is both mate-rially and socially constructed—although the physicalspace connecting the creek is minor, the border createsa very real socially binding arena that provides barriersto coordination.

Coordination between counterparts is even morestrained when great geographic distance separates thewater issues. Several of the interviewees identified dis-tance as a significant factor limiting binational co-operation. The St. Mary–Milk River in Alberta andMontana was identified as an example where great

distance between the issue and population base lim-ited civic engagement. In this case, the sparse popula-tion at the border, particularly in Montana, has keptthe issue largely in the hands of state and federal of-ficials, effectively reifying the political border. Moregenerally, the role of distance decay can partially ex-plain the clustering effects around specific watersheds(e.g., Great Lakes, Columbia, St. Mary–Milk) that re-ceive the bulk of attention, whereas other transbound-ary water issues (e.g., Skagit River, Yukon) receivemuch less. The bodies of water that are more visibleat the national level tend to have more governanceinstruments built around them.26

Inconvenient meeting venues were also identified asa limiting factor for civic engagement and a barrier tofluid borders. This is exemplified by one local stake-holders group in the Pacific region where the meet-ing venue perpetuated significant asymmetry in partic-ipation. Although the group’s mandate is binational(British Columbia and Washington), the meetings arealmost always held in British Columbia, leading to sig-nificantly more participants from Canada than fromthe United States. The official roster has an equal num-ber of participants listed; but only one member fromthe United States attended over the past six meetings(with an average participation rate of twelve people).To help mitigate this asymmetry, the group leadersrecently agreed to meet at the border. Although thechange in venue provided a neutral setting, minimizedthe amount of travel for the U.S. participants, and elim-inated the need to cross through customs, the asymme-try continued: Only one U.S. participant attended.

The difficulty in convening a binational forum servesas an example of the simultaneous fixity and porosityof borders. In this case, the local actors undermine theborder by treating a binational watershed that spansa political border as a singular “borderless” bioregion.Due to physical constraints of the contained nation-state, however, the local actors are impacted by thebordered region, and unable to transcend the border fortheir meetings.

Mismatched political structures and governancemechanisms in Canada and the United States werealso repeatedly identified as a barrier to transbound-ary cooperation. In a focus group survey of barriersto transboundary water governance, asymmetry consis-tently rose to the forefront of the issues. One respondentlamented,

There is no symmetry to how decisions are made across theborder. The fact that the U.S. and Canadian governments



have inverse state-federal power distributions significantlyimpacts how decisions are made.

Because Canada has a strong provincial system and aweak federal system, and because the United Stateshas a strong federal system and a weak (relative toprovinces) state system, negotiations between counter-parts are often tenuous.27 Furthermore, different fund-ing cycles and legal structures accentuate the difficultyin coordinating projects across the border. One respon-dent reflected,

Because there are potentially four relevant jurisdictions(two federal, state, and provincial) and four different fis-cal schedules to coordinate, it can be a nightmare to figureout. . . . [we try to] come up with ideas, implement pres-sure, and spend it all by the end [of the fiscal year] to ensurethat there will be funding again next year.28

This asymmetry of governance mechanisms furthercomplicates the possibilities of transborder, basinwidemanagement of water, particularly at the local level.It has been argued that the subnational organizationsare more flexible than the more formal federal institu-tions, but in a transboundary setting, we find that theasymmetries in governance structures serve to immobi-lize, or at least temper, the ability for regional groupsto work effectively across national boundaries. Con-versely, the IJC was specifically developed to mitigatethese asymmetries by creating a level playing field be-tween nations. As the trend toward more localized scalepersists, however, the IJC is receiving fewer referencesand applications for study.

The majority of our respondents argued that cross-border cooperation was considered intermittent, issuedriven, and unequal across the border. The interviewsreinforced our earlier findings that transboundary gover-nance instruments are narrowly concentrated among afew major basins, rather than spread equitably across theborder. As one provincial employee noted, the “higherprofile watersheds and larger bodies of water tend to bethe focus of transboundary committees (i.e., ColumbiaRiver, Georgia Strait–Puget Sound).” Several lowerprofile water systems, although rife with environmen-tal concerns, are eclipsed by these more public issues.We also found that the attention to transboundary wa-tersheds was largely sporadic. This is true particularlyfor the lower profile watersheds, for which issues arisemostly in times of crisis. As one senior Washingtonstate employee reflected,

It would be nice to have ongoing [transboundary] insti-tutional cooperation. It [cooperation] has always been

episodic. . . . We don’t even have good interstate agen-cies. How are we supposed to have good internationalagencies if we can’t even coordinate between states?

These points highlight our finding that despitethe increase in the number of local—and decline infederal—instruments to govern transboundary water,the nation-state remains a key instrument in negotiat-ing transnational water issues. In other words, rescalingis not leading to a hollowing out of the state, nor a newlocalism. Rather, the rescaling of governance instru-ments might better be described as a game of musicalchairs, where the players might be changing, but thebalance of power has remained relatively constant.

Conclusions: Querying the Power ofLocals in Transboundary WaterGovernance

The analysis presented in this article speaks to recentdebates over the rescaling of environmental governanceand to recent research on borderlands as an interstitialgeopolitical space. We emphasize the simultaneous fix-ity and porosity of borders and document how localactors simultaneously undermine yet are constrained bythe container of the nation-state. This has allowed usto document the pitfalls to which transboundary watergovernance is subject (both the local trap and the ter-ritorial trap) and to question the desirability of strate-gies, currently being explored by policymakers, of givinggreater weight to local transboundary water governanceat a watershed scale between Canada and the UnitedStates.

Specifically, our analysis has suggested that althoughrescaling of transboundary water governance hasoccurred (i.e., local actors are increasingly presentin transboundary governance), greater empowerment(specifically defined as institutional capacity) forlocal actors has not resulted. Indeed, ironically, wefound that local actors are less able to transcend theborder than their nation-state counterparts. Althoughlocal actors are genuinely attempting to engage intransboundary governance, they encounter limitedsuccess due to inadequate resources and restrictedcapacity. Thus, despite the documented increase inparticipation of subnational actors in transboundarywater governance, significant barriers have limited thecapacity for these actors to effectively participate indecision making on the management of water resourcesacross an international border.29



Moreover, considering the substantial financial andhuman resources available for downscaling in theCanada–U.S. case, the issues already identified sug-gest that success is by no means straightforward, bring-ing into question the current policy preference fordownscaling—particularly on the part of internationaldonors and NGOs in the South. These findings serve tounderscore the perils of the “local trap,” insofar as the as-sertion of the increased power or influence of local scalesdoes not hold in this case, despite significant rescalingof water governance on both sides of the border.

Additionally, our analysis refutes the assumption—prevalent in the environmental managementliterature—that the rescaling of transboundarywater management implies that the border is moreporous and less fixed (Gibbins 2001; Corry et al. 2004;O’Riordan 2004). Rather, this analysis documentedthe relative fixity of the Canada–U.S. border andexplored how the asymmetrical governance structureand disparate governance rescaling trends in Canadaand the United States limited managers’ abilities togovern water across political borders. The process ofrescaling documented earlier has entailed a degree of“glocalization” (cf. Swyngedouw 1997, 2004), but thishas been decoupled from the “hollowing out of thenation-state” (cf. Brenner 2001; Jessop 2003, 2004):The nation-state retains key powers and authority togovern, and the federal scale offers the best hope of a“level playing field” between asymmetrical actors.

This, in turn, suggests that we must reexamine thedesirability and feasibility of local transboundary gov-ernance at the watershed scale as the primary meansof governing shared waters. Our interviews with wa-ter managers engaged in transboundary water gover-nance indicate that significant and systemic barriersexist to effective transboundary water governance at alocal scale, including asymmetrical participation, mis-matched governance cultures and structures, spatialdistance, and limited capacity. These findings are atodds with much of the water management literature,but correspond with Fischhendler and Feitelson’s ar-gument (2005) that in contemporary transboundarywater governance between Canada and the UnitedStates, through the Boundary Waters Treaty and theIJC, reducing the scope of transboundary managementto include solely border waters is successful becauseit minimizes external players and lowers the politicalcosts.

Finally, our analysis suggests two more general hy-potheses for consideration in studies of the rescal-ing of environmental governance. First, the process

of rescaling is not necessarily positive or empower-ing for its supposed beneficiaries. Rescaling may be-come a “downloading” of responsibilities without com-mensurate power and resources. In some cases, this isaccidental; in others, intentional. Second, all scalesare socially constructed—even apparently “natural”scales such as the watershed. The extent to whichthese scales are meaningful bases for social action restson the shifting power geometries of actors at mul-tiple overlapping scales. Analyzing the activities ofsolely local actors, or privileging any one scale, inenvironmental governance risks misinterpreting the de-gree to which local actors are indeed empowered byprocesses of rescaling.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewersand section editor for their thoughtful and constructivecomments. Thanks also to the water officials and stake-holders who reviewed the database at various stages.Thank you to Alicia Tong, who helped construct anearlier version of the database, and Alice Cohen, whoprovided useful comments on a later version of thearticle. Last, we would like to acknowledge the gen-erous support from the Walter and Gordon DuncanFoundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Re-search Council, the Weyerhaeuser Foundation, and theCanadian Consulate in Seattle, Washington.

Notes1. We define “local” governance as decision-making pro-

cesses enacted primarily or solely at the subnationalscale.

2. We define “instrument” as a device to govern water,such as a treaty, exchange of notes, memorandum ofagreement, memorandum of understanding, agreement,order, and organization.

3. Empowerment thus does not refer to the outcomes ofgovernance, in terms of the quality of decisions, or theirimpact on water regimes. Rather, empowerment referssolely to the degree to which actors are able to par-ticipate in, and influence, governance (i.e., decision-making) processes.

4. These designations were adopted from the re-gional divisions employed by EnvironmentCanada (http://www.ec.gc.ca/commentreg e.html)and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(http://www.epa.gov/ epahome/locate2.htm).

5. Full details of the database are available at the Universityof British Columbia’s Program on Water GovernanceWeb site (http://www.watergovernance.ca/Institute2/transboundary/index.htm).



6. Key stakeholders were consulted (including the De-partment of Foreign Affairs and International Trade,Environmental Protection Agency, International JointCommission, and U.S. State Department) to reviewthe database. Partial databases exist, but none are ac-cessible to the public or even widely available inter-nally. Aaron Wolf’s “Transboundary Freshwater DisputeDatabase” is a notable exception and is a key sourcefor information on transboundary river basins andfreshwater conflicts at a global level. The database ishoused at Oregon State University and is available athttp://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu.

7. Both water quality and quantity issues are included in thedata set because of the widening scope of water-relatedissues within transboundary governance. The shift fromsingle-issue to more holistic approaches at a watershedscale is part of the trends discussed later in the article.See Table 2 for details on the changing trends of trans-boundary water issues.

8. This data set only includes binational agreements be-tween Canada and the United States. Other interna-tional water agreements, where Canada and the UnitedStates are signatories, are not included in this analysis.

9. Environmental governance is often used as blanket termfor complex interrelationships between land-use plan-ning, resource use, and environmental conservation(Jonas and Bridge 2003), thereby conflating governanceand management. In this article, governance refers todecision-making processes whereby stakeholders provideinput, decisions are made, and decision-makers are heldaccountable, whereas water management refers to theoperational principles and approaches through whichwater resources are managed.

10. Excluding Antarctica.11. This trend is part of worldwide phenomena. For example,

in Europe, the Water Framework Directive mandates awatershed approach to all rivers within the EU, over 50percent of which are transboundary (European Commis-sion 2000). In India (van Koppen and Shah 2007) andcontinental Africa (Lautz and Giordano 2005) the useof a watershed approach and integrated water resourcemanagement (IWRM) are also increasingly common inwater-related projects—partially driven by requirementsto receive international funding.

12. The IJC was established with the creation of the 1909Boundary Waters Treaty, which marks the earliestCanada–U.S. binational approach toward transbound-ary water governance.

13. For an up-to-date overview of water-related issues, seeGleick (2007).

14. This concept, although originally applied to politicalecology, is transferable to the work within environmen-tal governance, as both have limited engagement withpolitics of scale literature.

15. We use the Oxford International Law Dictionary to definethese instruments. For example, treaty is defined as “Aninternational agreement in writing between two states(a bilateral treaty) or a number of states (a multilateraltreaty).” Similarly, Vienna Convention of the Law ofTreaties, 1969, Article 2, defines a treaty as “an inter-national agreement concluded between States in writ-ten form and governed by international law, whetherembodied in a single instrument or in two or more

related instruments and whatever its particular desig-nation.” Such agreements can also be known as con-ventions, pacts, protocols, final acts, arrangements, andgeneral acts. Treaties are binding in international lawand constitute the equivalent of the municipal-law con-tract, conveyance, or legislation. A memorandum of un-derstanding is defined as an “informal record or mem-orandum of international understandings arrived at innegotiations. It is frequently a preliminary step in con-cluding a treaty.” An NGO is “a private internationalorganization that acts as a mechanism for cooperationamong private national groups in both municipal andinternational affairs, particularly in economic, social,cultural, humanitarian, and technical fields.”

16. The interviews revealed that these organizations andnetworks tend to mobilize in times of crisis but aresustained even in noncrisis times through intermittentmeetings.

17. The trend is even more pronounced when organizationsare included in the graph. To stave off the possibilityof “presentism,” in which more contemporary organiza-tions are reported than those from the past, we excludedorganizations in this particular analysis. Even withoutorganizations, the overall trend remains the same (de-clining federal and increasing subnational involvement).Organizations are included in Table 2.

18. The funding opportunities through the North Americanfund for Environmental Cooperation closed as ofApril 2007. A review of past grant recipients can beviewed on their Web site (http://www.cec.org/grants/index.cfm?varlan=english).

19. Further study would be needed, however, to make a di-rect link between NAFTA and CEC and greater pres-ence of transboundary cooperation. Anecdotally andthrough interviews, the CEC was not linked to greatermobilization for transboundary water groups (at anyscale). The availability of funds for these groups pro-vides increased capacity for short-term projects but didnot make significant changes in the capacity of bina-tional relationships.

20. The top eight watershed basins are listed with actualnumber of instruments (e.g., twenty-three instrumentsin the Great Lakes).

21. For the purposes of the discussion, local actors were de-fined as community-based and First Nations groups, localgovernments, and elected local officials.

22. Several workshop participants, however, noted thatNGOs are playing a greater role in shaping agendas butthat these NGOs are not necessarily transboundary.

23. These findings are consistent with an earlier study byNorman and Melious (2004), but a notable exception isthe Gulf of Maine Council, where although 80 percentof the donor dollars come from the United States, theproject funds are equitably distributed between Canadaand the United States.

24. The respondent noted, though, that after 11 September2001 some of the sites are no longer public domain—particularly information regarding reservoirs. It was re-ported that even state employees have difficulty access-ing the sites because they are maintained at a federallevel.

25. Data is considered a “public good” in the United Statesbecause it was created using public funds. In Canada,



less comprehensive policies tend to limit access, bothinternally and externally. Several of the Canadian re-spondents, however, noted the presence of informal net-works of data exchange where, after working in one’sfield for several years, you “just know who to call for spe-cific information” and are able to “bypass the system.”

26. There is, of course, a temporal element to this—the bod-ies with longer colonial settlement histories such as theNiagara and St. Lawrence tend to have more instrumentsbuilt around them than the “newer” issues such as theFlathead Basin.

27. Many of the respondents noted that the IJC servesas counterbalance to this mismatched governance—creating “an even playing field” for binationalcooperation.

28. Biswas (2004) speaks to the difficulties of cooperativegovernment and integrated water resource managementin a recent article in Water International. He argues thatthe difficulties of coordination lie in the very foundationof a confusing and amorphous definition: If parties areunable to agree on a common definition how are theyable to succeed in practice?

29. This is not to say, however, that the role of the localdoes not contribute to environmental governance at all.Our study reveals several positive attributes of local par-ticipation in transboundary environmental governance(particularly in terms of raising public support of an is-sue). (See Figure 2 for a list of reported barriers anddrivers of transboundary cooperation.) Our focus in thisarticle, however, is not to explore the drivers of cooper-ation; rather, we aim to temper the assumptions that thelocal actors are more effective than other actors due totheir “on the ground” standing.

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Correspondence: Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2, Canada, e-mail: [email protected] (Norman); [email protected] (Bakker).


Transgressing Scales: Transboundary Water Governance across the Canada - U.S. Borderland

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