In the 1990s and mid-2000s, turbulent
political and social protests surrounded the issue of private sector
involvement in providing urban water services in both the developed and
developing world. Water on Tap, published in 2011, explores examples of such
conflicts in six national settings (France, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, South Africa
and New Zealand), focusing on a central question: how were rights and
regulation mobilized to address the demands of redistribution and recognition?
Two modes of governance emerged: managed liberalization and participatory
democracy, often in hybrid forms that complicated simple oppositions between
public and private, commodity and human right. The case studies examine the
effects of transnational and domestic regulatory frameworks shaping the
provision of urban water services, bilateral investment treaties and the
contributions of non-state actors such as transnational corporations, civil
society organisations and social movement activists. The conceptual framework
developed can be applied to a wide range of transnational governance contexts.
