ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 presents an extensive survey of water institutions and professionals in Arizona and California: the determination of a relevant sample of effective institutions in drought management allows a review of the positions in the field (type of institution, characteristics of the managers, etc.) and the positions taken in terms of instruments of water policy (water reuse, water markets, desalination, adjustment of tariffs, etc.). The analytical framework adapted to the study of water policy goes beyond visible interactions between protagonists in the water sector in Arizona and California, taking into account all the variables affecting the emergence of conservation and the consensus about its implementation. Such a field reveals links between a number of networks that function as so many empirical points of entry for research. The construction of the relational space of the institutions involved in drought management makes it possible to define the variables relevant to an analysis of the positions taken, and the reasons for those positions being taken, by these institutions in their fight to impose a legitimate model of water policy for the Colorado River Basin. The statistical analysis based on this database reveals the principles structuring the implementation of water policies, whose instruments depend as much on the characteristics of the institutions concerned as on those of their leaders.
