Water planning and Shared government or the link between sustainability and federalism

Abstract

The Spanish water policy, particularly after the Water Framework Directive, is being designed and implemented according with the multilevel governance paradigm as it is the case in other European countries. Particularly in the inter-regional basins, this new model challenges the so-called Autonomous State as it requires new collaborative inter-administrative procedures in order to integrate different regional interests into nation-wide decisions. Water policy is going to demand new practices of shared government, which is not easy to fit into a system like the Spanish one, in which a relatively low development of its dynamics of intergovernmental collaboration has often been highlighted, both due to certain institutional characteristics as for a certain political culture and territorial perception not very consistent with federalism.

The aim of this article is contributing to a a theoretical reflection upon the importance of territorial state model, political culture and territory perception at the time of design and implementing public policies, departing from the analysis of a sectoral policy that deals with natural resources such as continental waters. In this sense, we think that the spatial projection of some public policies could induce stake holders to modify their traditional territorial perceptions, internalizing values like diversity and inter-dependence, making them going deeper in their way to federalism.