Governance-related values as dimensions of good water governance

Abstract

While many studies have investigated governance‐related values such as sustainability, economic efficiency, or social justice as dimensions of good water governance, the concept of governance‐related values as a separate category of values has received considerably less attention. The present study reviews existing, mostly normative work on governance‐related values and water governance from various disciplines, including policy‐oriented and water ethics literature. The review points towards a lack of studies that seek to understand empirically how governance‐related values are perceived and related in the mind of the public as well as among relevant stakeholders. The study proceeds with an illustration of how quantitative research methods can be used to study these linkages in practice. It uses data from a large household survey on public preferences for governance‐related values conducted in the Upper Paraguay River Basin, Mato Grosso, Brazil, and examines these with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis techniques. The results suggest that there may be three relevant broad categories of governance‐related values, namely democratic governance‐related values, economic governance‐related values, and scientific governance‐related values. The article concludes by pointing out the need for further empirical research and academic debate on the fundamental ways in which governance‐related values are interrelated as dimensions of good water governance, and environmental governance more broadly.