Neoliberal corporatization in water management in Mexico. Lessons from Leon, Guanajuato

Abstract

Public drinking water and sanitation services providers at the Mexican municipal level have the legal basis to define the management scheme with which they will assume the provision. Since last century eighties, these models have been concentrated into public, private and mixed, the latter influenced by the neoliberal wave. The purpose of this document is to explore the Mexican case form of corporatization, taking the Drinking Water and Sewerage System of León, Guanajuato, Mexico, as the unit of analysis. Under the approaches of water corporatization and market environmentalism and with a mixed methodology; an hemerographic review, and a descriptive-relational exploration of the operating office physical-commercial information, a neoliberal corporatized water management is determined, a public company with private behavior. It is concluded that this modality has been deliberately constructed, focused on market expansion and capital accumulation despite the fact that its public nature links it to social priorities.