(Page 9 of 22) - Deconcentration versus Devolution of Water Management in Mexico: Inferences from the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) Basin authored by Donnell, Howard.

form of which is the concentration of power in the hands of the executive branch.
Devolution, as defined above, is the polar opposite of centralization. Deconcentration
represents a variety of intermediate values on the continuum, in which the power to act is
delegated to other governmental officials but may be modified or revoked according to
the discretion of the authority or authorities delegating the power.

Whiteford and Melville (2002, 20) note that the two major forms of

decentralization under consideration here—deconcentration and devolution—have
important consequences for local empowerment in that the former “does not necessarily
enhance democratic institution building and decision making,” while the latter may do so.
They argue that “water management in Mexico seems to have incorporated both
deconcentration and devolution, and clearly there are many degrees of decentralization”
(Whiteford and Melville 2002, 20). However, they offer no empirical support for this
assertion.

Another recent contribution to the literature extends a concept introduced by

Cohen and Peterson (1999). Mumme and Brown (2002) extend the new approach to
designing decentralizing reforms that Cohen and Peterson (1999) call the Administrative
Design Framework to the scholarly evaluation of decentralizing reforms. After making
the distinctions between deconcentration, delegation and devolution corresponding to the
definitions exposited above, Mumme and Brown (2002, 233) observe that “[a]nalysis of
decentralization … usually proceeds by examining the form or forms and types of
decentralization that are found in an issue area within a particular country and then
examining the specific behavior associated with those practices, with the objective of
critiquing, refining, or just exploring the implications of extant practices in light of
government aims, purposes, policy commitments, and social needs and demands.”
Following Cohen and Peterson (1999), they refer to this approach as the type/function
approach, criticizing it as focusing too much on formal structures and neglecting the role
of human agency in implementing decentralizing reforms. They prefer a focus on “the
specific task-related roles that various actors—state and societal—share in accomplishing
particular aims and purposes” (Mumme and Brown 2002, 234; cf. Cohen and Peterson
1999, 35-41). Mumme and Brown (2002) call a role/task approach, i.e., what Cohen and
Peterson (1999) call their Administrative Design Framework. In accordance with these
recent arguments, the present study evaluates not merely the design of institutional forms,
but also their implementation by specific actors in a specific regional context, to which
the discussion now turns.

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While water quality degredation is an issue in basins throughout Mexico, and

water scarcity prevails in the northern and central parts of the country, the region in
which these water management challenges are of the greatest political salience is in the
U.S.-Mexico border region. There, developments in water management on either side of
the border are a matter of particular interest to both public and private actors on both
sides, due to the shared nature of scarce water resources between the two nations. This
relationship of transboundary hydrological interdependence involves not only