Peopling the Environmental State: River Restoration and State Power

Abstract

Dam removal in the United States is an increasingly attractive option for advocates of river restoration. We argue that dam removal in New England (United States) is a useful lens for examining state actors’ capabilities to govern environmental processes. Our analytical framework builds off and integrates strategic-relational approaches (SRAs) to state power and those approaches more concerned with “peopling” the state through state agents’ everyday encounters with civil society. The complex suite of issues—ranging from safety and the environmental benefits of free-flowing rivers to historical preservation and cultural heritage—characterizing dam removal and similar restoration efforts challenge state agents to become more multidimensional in environmental governance. Our research reveals that some state agencies in New England have been more effective than others at adopting these novel roles and managing environmental conflicts. Our research also suggests we view the “state” as a complex collective of relations and actors that exerts power over nature–society relations in strategic and often contradictory ways. Our empirical findings, coupled to more nuanced theories of state–nature relations, direct attention to how state power is unevenly distributed within environmental governance arrangements. These findings also suggest that consideration of environmental interventions directed by state agents has the potential to contribute to a progressive and ecologically mindful set of political commitments.

在美国, 对于修复河流的倡导者来说, 拆除水坝是一个越来越有吸引力的选择。我们认为, 在美国新英格兰地区, 拆除水坝有助于探讨国家治理环境过程的能力。我们的分析框架改进了国家权力的战略关系方法, 并结合了通过国家与民间日常接触去实现“人民化”国家的方法。从自由流动河流的安全和环境效益, 到历史保护和文化遗产等, 这些复杂的问题描绘了大坝拆除和类似修复工作的特点, 促使国家机构采取更加多元化方式进行环境治理。我们的研究表明, 在新英格兰地区, 一些国家机构比其他机构更有效地采取了这些新角色、开展环境冲突的管理。研究还建议, 我们应当将“国家”视为关系和行为者的复杂集合, 在行使自然与社会关系的权力时, 应当采取战略性的、往往相互矛盾的方式。我们的实证研究结果, 结合了国家和微妙的自然关系理论, 将关注点指向环境治理中国家权力的不平均分配。结果还表明, 考虑国家指导的环境干预措施, 可能有助于形成一套渐进的、注重生态的政治承诺。

La remoción de represas en los Estados Unidos es una opción crecientemente atractiva entre quienes propugnan por la restauración de ríos. Sostenemos que la remoción de represas en Nueva Inglaterra (Estados Unidos) es una lente útil para examinar las capacidades de los agentes estatales para gobernar los procesos ambientales. Nuestro marco analítico construye e integra enfoques estratégico-relacionales (SRAs) con el poder del estado y con aquellos enfoques más preocupados con “poblar” el estado a través de los encuentros cotidianos de los agentes estatales con la sociedad civil. El complejo juego de asuntos––que van desde seguridad y beneficios ambientales de los ríos que fluyen sin interferencias hasta la conservación histórica y la heredad cultural––que caracterizan a la remoción de represas y esfuerzos de restauración similares, retan a los agentes estatales a ser más multidimensionales en la gobernanza ambiental. Nuestra investigación revela que algunas agencias estatales de Nueva Inglaterra han sido más efectivas que otras en adoptar estos roles novedosos y en el manejo de conflictos ambientales. También sugiere nuestra investigación que veamos el “estado” como un complejo colectivo de relaciones y actores que ejercen poder sobre las relaciones naturaleza–sociedad de modos estratégicos y a menudo contradictorios. Nuestros hallazgos empíricos, asociados con teorías más matizadas sobre las relaciones estado–naturaleza, orientan la atención hacia cómo está desigualmente distribuido el poder del estado dentro de los esquemas de la gobernanza ambiental. Estos hallazgos también sugieren que la consideración de intervenciones ambientales dirigidas por agentes estatales tiene el potencial de contribuir a un conjunto progresista y ecológicamente consciente de compromisos políticos.

Key Words:

• dam removal
• environmental governance
• political ecology
• river restoration
• state theory

关键词:

• 大坝拆除、环境治理、政治生态学、河流修复、国家理论。

Palabras clave:

• ecología política
• gobernanza ambiental
• remoción de represas
• restauración de ríos
• teoría del estado

Acknowledgments

The authors thank James McCarthy for his guidance and commentary and several anonymous reviewers whose recommendations were insightful and resulted in an enhanced article. Our colleague Jonathan Chipman provided crucial input regarding our figures and table. We also thank the dozens of individuals throughout New England who offered their time and ideas regarding dam removal and river restoration. Finally, we also thank the array of students who helped with data entry and interview transcriptions, especially Anna Wearn, Chloe Gettinger, Brendan Schuetze, and Maddy Kroot.

Notes

1 Although beyond the scope of this article, the multitude of actors engaged in dam removal activities in New England and elsewhere who engage a variety of institutions and river ecologies at local, state, basin, regional, and national levels in river restoration processes strongly suggest that a focus on scalar politics in water governance would be a rewarding direction for future work (see Harris et al. 2015).

2 Although FERC relicensing has been instrumental in efforts to remove hydropower dams in New England (and elsewhere; Crane 2009), most removals in New England have focused on smaller structures.

Additional information

Funding

The research presented here was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Award No. BCS-1263519) and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy.

Notes on contributors

Chris Sneddon

CHRIS SNEDDON is Professor in the Department of Geography and the Department of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 037551. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the politics of knowledge production in transnational river basins and, more broadly, the geopolitics of development. His work focuses on human uses of water and on the transformation of river basins due to large-scale development.

Francis J. Magilligan

FRANCIS J. MAGILLIGAN is Professor in the Department of Geography at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 037551. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests span the physical and social sciences through his focus on the biophysical and social dimensions of dam removal, watershed connectivity, and human impacts on riverine systems.

Coleen A. Fox

COLEEN A. FOX is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography and the Department of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 037551. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include the interplay between local and scientific knowledge systems, the politics of water governance, and the politics of development.