Social Capital and Local Water Management in Egypt

By Dalia M. Gouda

From the 1980s onward, billions of dollars were poured into irrigation improvement programs in Egypt. These aimed at improving local Nile water management through the introduction of more water-efficient technology and by placing management of the improved systems in the hands of local water user associations. The central premise of most of these programs was that the functioning of such associations could rely on the revival of traditional forms of social capital-social networks, norms, and trust-for their success. Social Capital and Local Water Management in Egypt shows how the far-reaching social changes wrought at the village level in Egypt through the twentieth century rendered such a premise implausible at best and invalid at worst.
Dalia Gouda examines networks of social relationships and their impact on the exercise of social control and the formation of collective action at the local level and their change over time in four villages in the Delta and Fayoum governorates. Outlining three time frames, pre-1952, 1952-73, and 1973 to the present, and moving between multiple actors-farmers, government officials, and donor agencies-Gouda shows how institutional and technological changes during each period and the social changes that coincided with them yielded mixed successes for the water user associations in respect of water management.
Social Capital and Local Water Management in Egypt is essential reading for anyone working in the field of community based natural resource management in Egypt, including policymakers and practitioners, donor agencies, and civil society organizations, as well as anthropologists and sociologists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781617977633

Book preview

1

Introduction

Background

Egypt is one of the best-known irrigated agricultural societies in the world. Irrigation used to be operated collectively by local community members (Butzer 1976 in Allen 1997, 2; Hopkins 2005). It was based first on traditional rules, then on directives issued by the colonial regime, and later by national state institutions (Hopkins 2008). Since the 1950s, however, interventions by the Egyptian government in the agricultural and irrigation fields have influenced traditional irrigation practices (Molle, Shah and Barker 2003; Zayed 1998; Bach 1998), which has in turn affected water demand and consumption (Abdin and Gaafar 2009).

These changes, coupled with steady population growth and Egypt’s fixed water share from the Nile, have prompted the government to expand land reclamation. Recently, however, water has become the limiting factor. To alleviate water stress and ensure that water is available to a variety of sectors, efforts have been made to improve the efficiency of agricultural water management through the execution of irrigation improvement projects (Allam and Abdel-Azim 2005). The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and donor agencies working in Egypt assumed that the improvement of irrigation infrastructure and the formation of Water User Organizations would restore cooperation among farmers and collective organization for irrigation water management and agricultural activities, which used to be common in traditional irrigation schemes; this, they thought, would help to reduce the pressure on water resources (Aziz 1995; USAID 1994).

The Egyptian government, supported by different donor agencies (in particular, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the German Credit and Reconstruction Bank (KfW), and the Dutch government), has since the late 1980s initiated a number of projects to improve agricultural water use, known collectively as the Irrigation Improvement Projects (IIPs). The main objective of these projects was to improve water use efficiency by improving the distribution of water among farmers and encouraging the formation of WUOs at different hydrological levels to take care of the operation and maintenance of the new irrigation infrastructure (Hvidt 1996; Depeweg and Bekheit 1997 in Wichelns 1998)¹. After about twenty years, however, the WUOs in different parts in Egypt have achieved varying degrees of success. This raises questions for donor agencies and the Egyptian government, which have sought to transfer responsibility for irrigation water management to users by creating WUOs in Egyptian villages without understanding the conditions required for this system to function effectively.

The central argument of this book is that the reason for the limited success of WUOs in Egypt is that they were created on the basis of Robert Putnam’s approach to social capital, and that this approach was too narrow to be effective in practice.² Many development agencies, among them the World Bank, draw on Putnam’s approach, which claims that traditional or latent positive social capital—based on horizontal relationships—can be restored through the establishment of associations to better manage natural resources, but it makes this assertion without accounting for the complexity of the context. The overgeneralized understanding of farmers’ preferences and the neglect of the importance of context hamper the functioning of WUOs at different hydrological levels.

In Egypt, the early IIP documents did not explicitly refer to social capital, but did make statements as to the importance of incorporating traditional schemes for organization and conflict resolution into the design of WUOs. The World Bank document outlining the activities of the second Irrigation Improvement Project (IIP2) stated that the project would consider local conditions and customs when establishing WUOs (World Bank 1994, 47). Furthermore, the head of the Irrigation Sector at MWRI in the 1990s, stated that the informal principles [of irrigation practices and conflict resolution] have been built into the existing formal water user associations (Aziz 1995, 431). IIPs are said to have incorporated traditional forms of farmer participation and conflict resolution in the design of WUOs to increase farmers’ approval of the infrastructure improvements and their willingness to participate in operation and maintenance (Hvidt 1996, 266). In 2005, the stated aim of the Integrated Water Resources Management Plan Project, funded by the World Bank, was to upscale the functions of WUAs on the mesqa to form BCWUAs on branch canals (World Bank 2005, 40). More recently, in Egypt’s East Delta region, the World Bank has referred to the development of social capital through the formation of new organizations including WUOs (World Bank 2010, 20).

Nevertheless, despite two decades of experience, WUOs in Egypt have had only limited success (Ghazouani et al. 2012; Gad and Ali 2009). This fact suggests that a more sophisticated understanding of the complex social practices on the ground is needed so that the role played by social capital in the formation and functioning of WUOs can be better understood, and the WUOs made more effective. Reconceptualizing social capital should enable social practices, and the ways they have changed over time, to be understood in a variety of contexts, which should lead to greater understanding of their ability to exercise social control and support collective action in order to improve the functioning of WUOs in Egypt.

Aim and Objectives

This book seeks to understand the role played by social capital in irrigation water management generally and in the recent creation and operation of WUOs in Egypt in particular. Its empirical objectives are to deepen understanding of the ways in which formal and informal contexts—village, state institutions, irrigation infrastructure, and donors—influence social capital (and therefore social control and collective action) in the community over time, as well as the changing roles of social control and collective action, as functions of social capital, in the formation and functioning of WUOs on different canal levels.

To achieve these aims, the book examines networks of social relationships and norms and their impact on the exercise of social control and collective irrigation water management practices in Egyptian villages. It focuses on four villages in the Kafr al-Sheikh (KSH) and Fayoum governorates in Egypt, looking at informal water user groups and formal WUOs over two time periods—the 1950s and 1960s, and the 1970s onward—to understand how they function and change over time. To this end, it seeks to analyze and understand three distinct but overlapping social fields that serve as the context in which water management takes place: the village field, the institutional field, and the irrigation water management field. In these contexts, it looks at village interactions, the impact of state policies and institutional performance on villagers’ ability to exercise social control and form collective action, and the impact of these various factors on the irrigation water management context. This exercise is undertaken in order to explain the following: first, how the village and institutional contexts have changed in terms of their ability to limit external influence and to exercise their respective functions; second, the impact of irrigation infrastructure and technology on how irrigation is organized, and the way this affects the exercise of the social capital functions, social control, and collective action within the IWM context. It is hoped that this analysis will help to determine whether the current village, institutional, and IWM contexts are as suitable for the creation and functioning of WUOs as they once were for informal water user groups.

To these ends, the book draws on two main concepts, social capital and community-based natural resource management, which are discussed in the following sections.

Social Capital

Several authors refer to social capital as the missing link in development. It is seen by many scholars as important for fostering the management of common natural resources (Fujita et al. 2005; Meinzen-Dick, Raju, and Gulati 2002; Adhikari and Dahal 2008). It allows the local enforcement of norms through community pressure to sanction wrongdoers. Despite the widespread use of the term social capital, it does not have a single clear meaning (Woolcock 1998). Most scholars, however, draw on one of the three schools of thought led by Robert Putnam, Pierre Bourdieu, and James Coleman in discussing social capital and what it can achieve.

For Bourdieu, social capital is neither a positive nor a negative concept, but a fundamental component of human relations that operates to both sustain inequalities and provide the means for overcoming them (Stephenson 2011). Bourdieu’s social capital theory is thus relational, seeking to understand a social phenomenon by considering the relationships between actors that change over time as a result of changes to people’s access to capital (economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) within a certain context that Bourdieu calls a field (Golsorkhi et al. 2009; Everett 2002). He implicitly refers to two types of relationships, dominant (power) and intentional (connections), which reflect vertical and horizontal relationships respectively.

Coleman provides a close look at family social capital that rests on hierarchical authority relationships for enhancing children’s human capital. For Coleman, social capital changes over time as a result of changes to social structure closure, sources available for individuals and individuals’ needs, state intervention through the provision of welfare services and products, and the change of social relationships within and outside the family as a result of socioeconomic, institutional, and technological change. In contrast, Putnam was concerned with the creation of social capital through face-to-face interaction achieved by joining formal voluntary leisure associations. According to Putnam, these associations are based on equal horizontal relationships that lead to the creation of social capital, which has positive public returns. Putnam introduced categorizations for social relationships, bonding and bridging networks, which have since been supplemented by Michael Woolcock’s linking networks (Woolcock 1998).

The social capital functions—social control and collective action—as addressed by Bourdieu, Coleman, and Putnam are discussed in this section, as well as the sources of social capital that motivate and induce certain functions of social capital over time. These perspectives provide the theoretical underpinnings and language that will be used to examine and structure the empirical, analysis, and conclusion chapters.

Functions of Social Capital

For Bourdieu, Coleman, and Putnam, different functions or ends could be achieved through social capital. A literature review conducted in 1998 identified three functions of social capital: (a) as a source of social control; (b) as a source of family support; and (c) as a source of benefits through extra-familial networks (Portes 1998). To this can be added a fourth function advocated by Coleman and Putnam and partly by Bourdieu (with a focus on elites): (d) social capital as a source for promoting collective action.

Though aware of the importance of the four functions, the primary purpose of this book is to understand the impact of social capital on the functioning of WUOs. It will therefore concentrate on the first and last functions: social capital as a source of social control on the one hand and collective action on the other. This is not to diminish the significance of the other two functions: social capital as a source of family support contributes to the functions of social control and collective action in rural areas; it is the reward (exchange of benefits/capital) received by family members in return for obedience. In contrast, the weakening of social control and collective action is a result of increased access by individuals to extra family benefits received from people outside their immediate circle, which reduces interdependence within the local community.

Social Capital as a Source of Social Control

There are three levels of social control: primary social control by the self that is gained through socialization, secondary social control exercised through interaction with others in the community, and tertiary social control imposed by formal state institutions such as the police, religious institutions, and bureaucracies, directly affecting behavior or indirectly through socialization (Buckner 1967, 6–7). These are addressed below.

According to Bourdieu, the habitus as the cultural capital or enduring dispositions is stratified across a society and affects the amount of resources and capital that individuals and groups accumulate or have access to over time (Davis 2010; Karol and Gale 2004). It is also responsible for the internal primary social control that is exercised by the self (Sterne 2003). It provides the individual with information about what is accepted and what is not in a given context based on its rules of the game or the governing norms (Golsorkhi et al. 2009; Lingard et al. 2005) within a field. The field is a structured social space that is composed of unequal social relationships between people who dominate and others who are dominated (Bourdieu 1998, 40). The dominant people impose their preferences through their symbolic power—or status—and the rest of the community misperceive these as being their own preferences (Bourdieu 1990; 1989).

In a community, there are social norms about every aspect of life, such as how a family, peer group, and/or organization are expected to function and behave. The existence of sufficient ties among people would, according to Coleman, guarantee norms observance through the formation of closure (meaning dense social relationships among community members), which facilitate informal monitoring and social control (Coleman 1988). Coleman emphasized social control within the family, exercised through hierarchical authority relationships (1987). He asserts that in the United States, parents had strong controlling authority over their children before the 1960s due to the mainly financial dependency of the latter on the former and due to social structure closure (Coleman 1987; Coleman 1988). Since the mid-1970s, however, there has been a move away from parental authority and a decline in hierarchical authority, which has led, among other things, to parents losing their legitimacy to exercise authority over their teenage children (Coleman 1987, 35).

Coleman emphasized the importance of social norms in a community when they are effective and powerful to facilitate some actions and constrain others, such as reducing crime rates, and rewarding those who follow accepted behavior (1988). Social norms are sustained by the threat of social sanctioning within a social structure. Social structures that facilitate the application of norms depend on the closure of social networks and dense, multiplex relations. These are dense and multifaceted relations that allow the resources of one relationship to be used for other purposes (Coleman 1988, 104–107), in other words, which make social capital fungible. The enforcement of social norms and sanctions becomes possible because of peoples’ interdependency in various activities. In contrast, in open structures norm violations are not easily discovered or punished, which affects people’s trust in the structure and thus weakens social capital (Coleman 1988; Adler and Kwon 2002).

Putnam differentiates between bonding and bridging networks, which he refers to as bonding and bridging social capital. The bonding social capital constitutes relationships of trust and reciprocity within dense or closed networks among people who know each other; it only cements homogeneous groups whose members feel that they are alike, which allow group members access to benefits provided by the group (Putnam 2000; Stone and Hughes 2002, 3; Woolcock 1998). In contrast, bridging social capital is outward looking and encompasses people across diverse social cleavages (Putnam 2000, 22). In other words, it connects people from different social, economic, cultural, and even political backgrounds (Xia 2011, 153; Woolcock 1998).

Furthermore, Putnam argues that bridging networks lead to a cohesive, well-functioning society (Putnam 2000; Sobel 2002, 151). Although he refers to the importance of bonding networks for family members (Chambers and Kopstein 2001), he views bonding networks as more likely to lead to negative or bad social capital, in contrast to bridging networks, which will have an overall positive impact on society (Putnam and Goss 2002). Putnam focuses mainly on bridging horizontal relationships, while neglecting bridging networks resting on vertical relationships based on economic or social differences. Accordingly, he focused on the notion of association that gives equal rights to its members and provides another level of social control that takes place between peers. In such cases, members are equally able to exercise social control over each other (Putnam 2000). It has, however, been suggested that for the horizontal relationships of bridging networks to be created between people who do not know each other, norms of generalized trust are necessary (Szreter 2002; Rothstein 2008). We will return to these concepts.

According to Bourdieu, the community context is a complex network of relations that is constantly challenged through struggle, where all actors accept the rules of the game that prescribe certain forms of legitimate contestation (Bourdieu 1992; Wacquant 2006; Moi 1991). Over time, however, the structure of the context experiences a constant shift of power relationships due to the change of capital endowment (economic, social, or symbolic) or the change of perception about power within the field as a result of knowledge changes that allow the habitus to act differently (Karol and Gale 2004). Accordingly, any change in habitus, capital, or field changes the practice of the individual (Swartz 2002).

For Bourdieu, society is composed of a plurality of social fields (Siisiäinen 2000; Lizardo 2004), including social, bureaucratic, legal, academic, and economic fields. The autonomy of the field is determined based on the degree of external influence (Wacquant 2006; Valve 2003). In some cases, fields may dominate or influence others, such as the political field dominating the economic and social fields (Swartz 2006). This highlights that a social field is not absolutely autonomous, but only semi-autonomous, as it is influenced by other social fields as well as by the wider social context.

The state controls the people by monopolizing the legitimate use of physical and symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1994). Physical violence is used through the application of coercive measures as a means of exchanging it for other kinds of capital that is useful to the state, such as stability or reproduction (Haanstad 2008). In contrast to physical power, symbolic power (or symbolic violence) constrains and dominates individuals through the imposition of cognitive, taken-for-granted perceptions and classifications of the social world that affect social relationships, for instance by approving prevailing hierarchies and inequalities as well as legitimizing state power and actions (Heslop 2010). The domination of the state—according to Bourdieu—allows it to develop and impose the rules of the game that affect the struggle, or the contestation of power, as well as power distribution between groups.

According to Bourdieu, education and mass media are essential instruments for the creation of symbolic power in modern states that shape the habitus in a stratified manner, thus promoting social inequality rather than eradicating it (Garrett 2007; Swartz 2006; Swartz 2004; Bourdieu 1998). Through the compulsory education system the state forces students to perceive their own social situation according to the interpretations of the state and determines what is considered right and wrong within a society. This regulates or constrains the ability of society to contest state power, which limits social conflicts (Bourdieu 1977). According to Bourdieu: to change the world, one has to change the ways of world-making, that is, the vision of the world and the practical operations by which groups are produced and reproduced (1989, 23).

However, the state’s monopoly over symbolic power is never absolute (Bourdieu 1990, 137, in Loveman 2005). One of the reasons for the lack of absolute monopoly could be globalization and increased exposure, as well as rapid cultural change (Kemp 2010) or the weakening of state instruments of symbolic violence, which increase the chances for society to challenge state power as in the case of the post-apartheid regime in South Africa (Burawoy and von Holdt 2012).

For Bourdieu the bureaucratic field as one of the symbolic means of violence is a field that has its own practices, internal rules, and hierarchical authority structure (1994). Positions in this field depend on the possession of specific capital, namely bureaucratic expertise that shapes actors’ habitus. The bureaucracy is responsible for the daily management of society for the common good, because ideally it is seen to be objective as well as legitimate and seeking to apply universalist principles (Wacquant 2012; Valve 2003). The bureaucratic field is influenced by other fields, including the social, political, and economic. If it becomes heavily influenced, however, it loses its autonomy, which affects the way outsiders perceive positions within the field (Valve 2003). This may induce bureaucracies to focus on their own interests above the public interest (Lingard et al. 2005). That sort of shift would change the way people perceive the bureaucracy and the state.

Bourdieu emphasized the role of European welfare states in the provision of welfare services as a necessary means for achieving social equality. In many countries of the global South, such policies guaranteed the domination of the state as they made the dominated population dependent and thus in favor of state domination to continue to receive such services (Siisiäinen 2000). For Bourdieu, however, neoliberal strategies seeking to reduce state expenditure have a more serious impact on social relations and social capital through increased unemployment, impoverishment, marginalization, and the fragmentation of the society, because of the state’s gradual withdrawal from its social functions (Wacquant 2012; Mitrović 2005). This has been the case in most African states, including Egypt, which have had to adopt neoliberal reform packages imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce state subsidies, welfare programs, and charge fees to provide services (Haque 1999). This reduced the state’s symbolic influence and sometimes led to more hostile or conflicting state–society relations.

Social Capital as a Source of Collective Action

Social capital as a source of collective action promotes cooperation and organization for a common purpose by helping individuals overcome their diversities (Ostrom 2000). Common rules devised by the group give individuals the confidence that what applies to them applies to others too. These rules reflect the degree to which individuals agree to mediate or control their own behavior in favor of the collective (Pretty and Ward 2001). Furthermore, mutually agreed sanctions ensure that those who break the rules know they will be punished (Ostrom 2000). This further encourages people’s cooperation and the taking of collective action for common purposes.

According to Bourdieu, people with similar positions, especially advantaged elite groups within a social field or across fields tend to cooperate—by investing in social capital—to be able to reproduce their social positions and maintain their domination. In such cases, the benefits of collective action are exclusively for the group. Furthermore, the groups advantaged in terms of capital endowment and extra family benefits are able to exert disproportionate influence on the construction of social reality that affects other groups within the field (Mills 2003 in Weick et. al 2005). For Coleman the ability of community members to cooperate derives from the trustworthiness of the closed social structure that guarantees the reciprocation of obligations and expectations. This is facilitated by shared norms that enable the sanctioning of wrongdoers, which in turn allows cooperation among community members to produce collective returns (Coleman 1988).

Coleman refers to horizontal social relationships that support the creation of community social capital through the exchange of obligations among community members. This exchange is backed by social norms that allow the sanctioning of wrongdoers—facilitated by the ease of information exchange among community members—and guarantee the return of obligations, which enhance the trustworthiness of the social structure and thus increase exchange between community members (Coleman 1990).

Social capital does not only benefit the individual who exerts the effort for its creation; the benefit transcends that person and adheres to the whole community (Coleman and Hoffer 1987, 228). Thus, deficiencies that impair social capital generation within the family—for instance, parents’ absence or their lack of time dedicated to their children—also affect social capital creation outside the family—community social capital—as a result of the embeddedness of the family in dense local social relationships that compose the social structure (Coleman 1988, 113).

Putnam focuses on the creation of social capital through face-to-face interaction achieved by joining formal voluntary leisure associations—bridging social capital—that would lead to the correct understanding of self-interest to produce benefits beyond family and kin (Schultz 2002). He views generalized reciprocity as a product of joining associations that in turn reduces the uncertainty about people’s future actions and thereby increases their willingness to cooperate with others beyond their immediate sphere of interaction, in the knowledge that there is an implicit agreement of reciprocating acts (Rothstein and Stolle 2002).

Woolcock added linking social capital networks to Putnam’s bonding and cooperation-enhancing bridging networks (1998). Linking social capital is considered to be a form of bridging social capital, as it is also concerned with connections outside the immediate family and friendship circles, specifically with people of higher status within government and social institutions who can provide access to ideas, information, and services (Woolcock 2001). These networks might also encompass vertical and more democratically structured relationships (Szreter 2002). Linking networks can create vertical patron–client relationships that are used to gain exclusive access to services by capitalizing on individual connections to influential people in high socioeconomic and political positions (Szreter and Woolcock 2004). In contrast, democratic linking networks refer to relationships with state officials who act as true social brokers by providing equal benefits to all people (Szreter 2002, 580).

According to Putnam, voluntary formal leisure associations are based on equal horizontal relationships that lead to the creation of social capital with positive public returns. For Putnam, associations socialize people and allow them to acquire civic skills. This provides a solution to the dilemma of collective action by encouraging cooperation on the basis of generalized reciprocity, which promotes unlimited exchange between people who do not know each other (Keele 2007; Putnam 1993). It has been argued, however, that there is little evidence to support the claim that membership in voluntary associations will lead to the emergence of generalized reciprocity (Ramos-Pinto 2006; Foley and Edwards 1999). However, for these associations to flourish, well-functioning state institutions are required.

The performance and policies of institutions influence the creation and functioning of social capital, thereby affecting the emergence of generalized trust and thus people’s willingness to cooperate (Rothstein and Stolle 2008). The concept of generalized trust corresponds to Putnam’s generalized