Hydraulic bureaucracies and Irrigation Management Transfer in Uzbekistan: the case of Samarkand Province

Since the 1990s, Irrigation Management Transfer has been considered the world over to be a policy aimed at rolling back state influence in water management according to a neo-liberal approach. The initiative was endorsed by international organizations as a way of reforming the water sector in developing countries. Reflecting on this process, the role of hydraulic bureaucracies in driving reforms oriented towards IMT has often been neglected in academic debate. This article discusses the logic of IMT implementation and the establishment of Water Users' Associations (WUAs) in Uzbekistan, specifically in Samarkand province. These dynamics have been analysed over the last 10 years showing different trajectories within Uzbekistan. Data were collected through extensive fieldwork in three districts in Samarkand province. The evidence acquired shows that, on the one hand, WUAs were established to be a new structure for state control over water and agriculture, in conflict with IMT rationale, and, on the other, that WUAs were created in the province as a result of a local initiative promoted by the hydraulic bureaucracy and accepted by the national authorities due to influential power relations.