Abstract
Water privatization has been with us at least since the 1980s, when the debt crisis in the Global South and the rise of Reagan/Thatcherism in the United States and United Kingdom created openings for radical shifts away from state-owned enterprises in public goods sectors. Corporations and international financial institutions led the charge, extolling the virtues of business efficiency while obscuring the shift in power that accompanied increased private control over public assets and precious resources. A great web of actors—economists, corporate leaders, investors, and ministers—worked together to promote the alluring ideology of market-led development, at times uncontested. But in the water sector, the rumblings of discontent were earliest and strongest, and have remained the most strident to the current day. There’s just something about water.
That “something” is the starting point for Joanna Robinson’s analysis in Contested Water: The Struggle Against Water Privatization in the United States and Canada. The book outlines two water privatization resistance movements in places one might not expect to find social upheaval: Stockton, California and Vancouver, British Colombia. Robinson documents how these struggles emerged from a similar motivation to protect water as a public good, but diverged in activists’ tactics and strategies, as well as in outcomes. In Stockton, a city council vote to privatize preempted an anti-privatization ballot initiative, but was subsequently nullified in court. In Vancouver, citizens convinced representatives to abandon privatization before any such costly battles unfolded. Robinson seeks to explain these different trajectories utilizing comparative case studies based on interviews with anti-privatization activists, media reports, and activist materials. Her theoretical concerns emerge from the social-movements literature and include rethinking the role of ideology, frames, opportunities, and networks in influencing processes and outcomes of resistance in a field (water) that is simultaneously global and local.
The characteristics that Robinson deems important for influencing outcomes in Stockton are, in brief, a political context where a popular conservative mayor, a largely conservative city council, and a long-standing conflict between conservatives and liberals created blockages to citizen voice; shallow and fragmented movement networks, with few resources, little experience, and a lukewarm attitude toward coalition-building; and politically inexperienced leaders who made tactical errors, were reluctant to engage with “radical” forms of resistance, and failed to seize global frames to create new openings for solidarity and political opportunities. In particular, Robinson faults the anti-privatization coalition for framing the problem as one of democracy and political corruption, rather than as a common threat from global corporate power, a framing that ostensibly would have allowed activists and politicians to build solidarity and a shared understanding of the issues at stake. This also meant that they were constrained by the already-existing opportunity structures, which were limited.
In Vancouver, on the other hand, the political context included a more receptive city council, a more accessible political-institutional structure, and a more globally aware population; its preexisting movement networks were broader, better resourced, and more densely interconnected; and its leaders were more politically astute and enthusiastic about strengthening coalitions, as well as utilizing a range of strategies, both traditional and creative, to influence politicians and public opinion. Robinson credits the ability of activists to harness global discourses about corporate power to shape local framing strategies and create new opportunities for political leverage. The author illustrates the power of a well-conceived social-movement unionism campaign, as utilized by BCPSEU, as well as the importance of a “bridge” (in this case CAL) between different actors and frames to create movement solidarity. Indeed, it is intriguing to consider what might happen if more unions in the United States consistently operated under BCPSEU’s compelling model.
Robinson concludes with an optimistic evaluation of local resistance to corporate-led globalization, which she argues can be counter-hegemonic without activists necessarily participating in global movements. Local activists have identifiable targets (municipal authorities) and channels for participatory democracy that can provide unique, real alternatives to homogenizing global discourses, especially where creative and well-networked movements are able to reframe the issues and create openings for alternative visions.
Overall, the book’s analysis is persuasive, in particular regarding the effectiveness of the above-mentioned tactics and strategies. Yet the argument perhaps goes too far in criticizing Stockton’s activists while overselling the generalizability of the Vancouver case. Robinson seems to believe that if only activists in Stockton had followed the path of Vancouver, they could have been more successful. But was this really possible?
Robinson herself presents plenty of evidence that Stockton is different. But how different? Would Vancouver have had a materially different outcome if, say, the basic worldviews of local authorities were largely in line with corporate globalization? It is not surprising that NAFTA caused concern in Vancouver, where water resources have been under transnational threat for decades (from California, mostly). The reverse is not true. Though Stockton residents are concerned about water, it is not usually because other countries are trying to buy, borrow, or steal it. In this more market-friendly context, anti-globalization discourses may not be inspiring, as in Vancouver. Why should Stockton activists be faulted for seeking a frame that “makes sense to people here” (p. 89)?
Similarly, given the success of ballot measures in California, it is easy to see why organizers chose this as a promising route. The ballot measure that did pass, in fact, presented problems for renegotiating the private contract and led to eventual capitulation by the government. Why is that not a victory? If organizers had hired professional signature gatherers, they very well could have stopped the privatization process in its tracks.
There were other contextual factors that might diminish the appeal of more global or militant strategies as well. Was there, for example, a critical mass of well-networked activists that could have acted as a “bridge”? How many Stockton youth were ready to join the struggle? Even assuming more radical tactics were available, would they “resonate” in Stockton? Inept strategies can badly backfire when carried out in a hostile environment.
Robinson also faults Stockton’s organizers for failing to create common ground with politicians, but this strategy could have potentially weakened the movement. Given long-standing antagonisms between liberals and conservatives, trying to create common ground where it had been elusive may have been a waste of time and resources (think Obama and the Tea Party). A more thorough comparison of pro-privatization groups in each city would have helped to clarify the promise and pitfalls of such a strategy.
There are a few minor quibbles one might have with the text, such as periodic overgeneralizations, exaggerations, and repetition. But overall, the book is engaging, particularly when Robinson presents first-hand accounts of the struggle. These are indeed interesting case studies that fill a gap in our knowledge about anti-water-privatization struggles in the “developed” world. The author does a particularly excellent job of carefully cataloguing and evaluating the factors that shape social movement outcomes and offers helpful elaborations to advance social movement theory. The text is recommended for classroom use, in particular for courses on social movements, globalization, and environmental sociology. It will also appeal to those interested more generally in water as a public good, offering insights regarding what inspires people to its defense and how it might be most effectively protected.