Coercive and cooperative policy designs: Moving beyond the irrigation system

The governance and management of large-scale irrigation schemes involves the integration of the formal and informal rules and responsibilities of actors at different system spatial scales. To achieve sustainable water management in the irrigated sector an understanding of the interlinkage between these actors is essential. It is to this interlinkage that this paper is focused. Drawing on research in environmental and hazard management, this paper explores the usefulness of applying a coercive/cooperative policy design framework to the study of irrigation management in a developing country context. It is argued that such a framework is a useful theoretical construct for exploring the multi-level relationships between governments, irrigation agencies and farmers in the governance and management of large-scale irrigated agriculture. Using the Muda irrigation scheme as a case study, this framework illustrates how an apparent mismatch between coercive governance and cooperative management influences the attainment of key policy objectives