The paradox of social resilience: Explaining delays in water infrastructure provision in Kathmandu
One of the enduring puzzles within the management of water and other environmental resources is the sustained under-investment despite their critical importance. This paper brings together two emerging lines of research in answering this puzzle: first, that the blame-averse nature of governments l...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Water Alternatives Association
2018-02-01
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| Series: | Water Alternatives |
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| Online Access: | http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol11/v11issue1/409-a11-1-4/file |
| Summary: | One of the enduring puzzles within the management of water and other environmental resources is
the sustained under-investment despite their critical importance. This paper brings together two emerging lines of
research in answering this puzzle: first, that the blame-averse nature of governments leads them to avoid tackling
issues which are perceived to have low payoff, and second, that the paradox of social resilience by which acts of
coping with natural disasters and adverse events have led to a self-perception of resilience. While the motivations
behind blame aversion are well researched, how the paradox of social resilience contributes to and interacts with
such bureaucratic motivations remains little understood. Using a quantitative investigation of narratives of a more
than 10-year delay to the Melamchi Water Supply Project in Kathmandu, Nepal, this paper reveals the dynamics
of this interaction; it finds that a self-perception of resilience leads to narratives of low emotional intensity or
'valence', which in turn feed the perception of low payoffs for governments. This accentuates motivations of
blame aversion, thus creating a vicious cycle of inaction. In Kathmandu, the self-perception of resilience is partly
due to the coping mechanisms provided by a large, informal water-vending market. This paper suggests that one
way of breaking the cycle is to increase the emotional intensity of the narratives by focusing on the true cost of
coping with the delay in water supply. Our study further predicts that this vicious cycle is generally extant in
policies with low negative valence – that is, in most environmental policies.
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| ISSN: | 1965-0175 1965-0175 |