Comparative Research Design - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 52

bute was calculated according to the size and location of land. Informally, it was often the
relation to the local elite (farm director, local officials) that was decisive. But the actual decision
regarding water allocation differed from formal rules: In theory, the general meeting of the
members decided on water allocation among the brigades. Informally, the decisions were made
according to the production targets decided upon by the s/k management together with the
local party committee and the local water administration ( RaiVodKhoz ) (Thurman 2002: 4 7).
All of the water bodies were considered to be state owned. Apart from a relatively low
usage fee, water use did not have to be paid for on a quantitative basis. The Soviet ideology of
total human command over nature led to a belief in the ability to exploit of natural resources,
including water resources, indefinitely. This fact, along with the unclear and competing distri
bution of competencies among different state agencies, led to an erosion of the local sense of
responsibility and a usage without regard for others' interest. The old norms and rules that
ensured a relatively high yield with low water consumption eroded and water consumption
increased drastically. Only in the light of the Aral Sea disaster and growing environmental
awareness in the late 1980s, in 1988 more competencies were delegated to agencies at the re
publican level. Decision making power regarding water usage and distribution in Central Asia
however remained with the central planning unit in Moscow (Klötzli 1997: 178ff, Grabish
1999: 38ff: O'Hara 2000: 375f).
However, the pre Soviet time should not be idealized: “Rent seeking in water allocation is
a tradition in Central Asia that predates the Soviet Union by centuries.” (Thurman 2002: 7).
Wegerich (2005: 240) also sees certain continuity: “Even though these [Soviet] policies either
indirectly influenced or directly altered the institutions responsible for local water management,
these institutions kept a certain pattern. This pattern was the system of patronage”. It was not
only the system of patronage that persisted during the Soviet Union, but also the authority of
informal institutions such as aksakals and mirabs that maintained their influence. However, the
context of patronage changed in the Soviet Union and allowed self interested resource exploi
tation on a much bigger scale.
Concerning water management at the inter republican level, in the 1980s a system of wa
ter quotas for the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya was established (see Table 4).
Table 4: Water quotas for transboundary rivers in Central Asia

Uzbekistan Turkmenistan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

Amu Darya 48,2% 35,8% - 0,6% 15,6%

Syr Darya 50,5% - 42,0% 0,5% 7,0%

Source: SPECA 2004: 36.
Compared to the data on water formation (see chap. 5.4.2), the quotas show that paradoxically
those republics where the most water resources originated Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had
the right to use a small amount. The downstream SSRs of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turk
menistan were entitled to use most of the water resources as most of the cotton production of
the Soviet Union took place in those republics.
A second important inter republican governance mechanism was the establishment of a
water energy exchange system between the republics. As described earlier (see chapter 5.4.2),
huge reservoirs were constructed in the two upstream SSRs in order to store the water until it
was needed in the downstream countries for irrigation. In order to compensate the Kyrgyz and
Tajik SSRs for their losses in arable land and the costs of operation and maintenance of the