Regulatory regime and the national water resources policy: control and water management in Brazil (2000-2010)

Author(s)

André Luis Scantimburgo

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Marília. 2016-10-17.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências. Marília
• Defense date: 2016-08-25
• Advisor: Francisco Luiz Corsi

Abstract

Regulatory agencies are consequences for State Reform held in the 1990s, and according to its authors they have to establish rules and oversee services and economic activities that would no longer be exercised exclusively by the state. In this context was formulated the National Water Agency (ANA), attached the Ministry of the Environment, established by Law 9984 of July 2000. The creation of a regulatory agency for the water sector, responsible for concessions and for coordinating charging for water use at federal level, complemented the law 9.433 / 97 which established the National water Resources Policy (PNRH). Thus, the general objective is to analyze the performance of ANA front of diverse interests that arise around the control of water resources, and understand your their role in relation to the conflicts emanating from the multiple uses of water, and then question their real independence in relation to pressures and interests to which it is susceptible. Water is increasingly an indispensable resource for the processes of accumulation and reproduction of capital, be in industrial, agriculture, services, mining or power generation. Therefore, the intention here was to demonstrate that the regulatory regime of the water sector, imposes a hegemonic way of management that treats water largely as an economic resource. Withal, the water policies they are managed in instrumental form, and not commits to protect the public interest in access to this vital resource, or present viable solutions for degradation of environment and environmental conflicts. It is in this sense that we understand that the ANA, and all the new legal framework for the sector that was established from the PNRH although assume a discourse of modernization, environmental concern and democratic management, was not able to change the water control historically established in the country, and ignored the various forms of appropriation of nature that do not fall within the hegemonic capitalist profiles. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/14016-6 - BRAZILIAN REGULATORY REGIME AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: A NATIONAL WATER AGENCY AS EXECUTING AND REGULATORY POLICY NATIONAL WATER RESOURCES
• Grantee: André Luis Scantimburgo
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate