Practical Authority by Rebecca Neaera Abers
New institutions don't come into being by themselves: They have to be organized. On the basis of research from a decade-long, multi-site study of efforts to transform freshwater management in Brazil, Practical Authority asks how new institutional arrangements established by law become operational in practice. The book explores how this happens by putting both agency and structures in motion. It looks at what actors in complex policy environments actually do to get new institutions off the ground. New configurations of authority in a policy area very often have to be produced relationally, on the ground, in practice. New organizations have to acquire problem-solving capabilities and recognition from others, what the authors call "practical authority." The story told here has a multiplicity of protagonists, many of whom are normally invisible in political studies, such as the state officials and university professors who struggled to move water reform forward. The book explores the interaction between their efforts to influence the design and passage of new legislation and the hard labor of creating the new water management organizations the laws called for. It follows three decades of law making at the national and state level and examines the creation of sixteen river basin committees throughout the country. By bringing together state and society actors around territorially specific problems, these committees were expected to promote a new vision of integrated water management. But none of the ones examined here followed the trajectory their organizers expected. Some adapted creatively to challenges, circumventing roadblocks encountered along the way; others never got off the ground. Rather than explain these differences on the basis of the varying conditions actors faced, the authors propose a focus on the process, and practice, of institution building.
Abers and Keck draw on a decade of research in Brazil to conceptualize policy formalization as a social experiment in building capacity and authorityTheir account weaves together extensive national surveys and intensive case studies ... their investigation yields important clues about the nature of democracy building in the Americas. * Katie Meehan, Latin American Research Review *
Practical Authority is simply an outstanding and tremendously important work. It can be expected to quickly become the basis for a great deal more research in environmental policy and natural resource management, and I expect it will also become the foundation for new fieldwork in a variety of areas in political science and political economy. * Alfred P. Montero, Latin American Studies *
Practical Authority is simply an outstanding and tremendously important work. It can be expected to quickly become the basis for a great deal more research in environmental policy and natural resource management, and I expect it will also become the foundation for new fieldwork in a variety of areas in political science and political economy. * Alfred P. Montero, Latin American Studies *
RA: Adjunct Professor, Institute of Political Science, University of BrasíliaMK: Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780199985272 |
| ISBN 10 | 0199985278 |
| Title | Practical Authority |
| Author | Rebecca Neaera Abers |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press Inc |
| Year published | 2013-09-19 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |