Unraveling Irrigation Governance: A Qualitative Systematic Review of Global Transformations Amid Agricultural Modernization and Neoliberalism

Agricultural modernization coupled with neoliberalism has led to substantial alterations in irrigation governance. However, mainstream literature primarily focuses on efficiency and effectiveness, neglecting the complex politics and power dynamics inherent in these transformations. This qualitative systematic review scrutinizes 145 peer-reviewed articles to elucidate the diversity, contestations, and inconsistencies in irrigation governance practices, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Our analysis exposes varied and often contradictory trends in hydraulic infrastructure, technology adoption, property rights, water market institutions, and participatory management. These variations are influenced by interactions between material, discursive, and spatial power dynamics, resulting in the marginalization of impoverished smallholders, gender inequalities, and loss of community autonomy. We advocate for future research to move beyond localized studies, investigating trans-local political mechanisms and power relations. This paper offers a comprehensive summary of irrigation governance’s intricacies and proposes new avenues for synthesizing and theorizing critical agrarian and water governance studies.