Policies are never implemented, but negotiated : analyzing integration of policies in managing water resources in the Indian Himalayas using a Bayesian network

Abstract

The paper contributes by analyzing nonlinear and complex integration of policies in framing a water management problem in a case study hamlet in the Indian Himalayas. It reveals that policies are never implemented, but integrated through the negotiation with other policies and socio-cultural settings in (re)shaping water resources management. It demonstrates the incremental and cumulative integration of policies that are formulated from different governance arrangements in (mis)managing water. In such a regime, the paper calls for statutory public actors to lay-out broad principles in their policy statements that allow multiple actors to debate and negotiate diverse alternatives in order to make the policy-making process integrative, adaptive, and dynamic.