ABSTRACT
Many countries undertake efforts towards participatory water management that consist of replacing top-down institutional structures with bottom-up and networked structures. These efforts can be explained by the instrumental and normative benefits expected from public participation, and the resulting promotion of ‘public participation’ by both international organizations and water scholars (see also Chapter 2 of this book). Debates around public participation indicate however that there are multiple views regarding the definitions and uses attributed to the concept. Gallie (1956) introduced the idea of an ‘essentially contested concept’ and identified the following five conditions that determine whether a concept is essentially contested:
the concept denotes a valued achievement
the achievement is internally complex although its worth is defined for the whole
the achievement is ambiguous with different descriptions for different people
the achievement is vague since its attribution can change contextually and temporally
the users of the concept defend the way that they use it against the other users
