Water Institutional Reforms in Tajikistan - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 165

The second part assessed the impact of the neopatrimonial environment on the politics of
water institutional reforms. It was shown that stakeholders do not participate in decision mak
ing, which is dominated by the government and donors. The agricultural economy and the
local governance institutions both present serious obstacles to water institutional reforms:
Concepts such as WUA and ISF implicitly rely on empowered, rights aware water users in a
democratic market economy. However, while land reform and decentralization introduced
such principles for agriculture and local government on paper, de facto pre existing power
relations and dependencies persist. These hinder the successful implementation and function
ing of new water institutions. Water institutional linkages lead to discrepancies particularly due
to the disregard for the water administration in reform activities.