New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 1 - Fall 2014 | Page 10

New Water Policy and Practice

cases in which large dam construction projects have been associated with the displacement and impoverishment of local people
in developing countries. However, these
impacts are not specific to dams. They occur perhaps more frequently and extensively with road, rail, mining, and commercial
agriculture projects as well as with private
property development and urban expansion
more generally.

However, the literature generated
by the dams discourse has generally avoided consideration of the more generic issues
of expropriation, or eminent domain as it is
known in the United States, or of the political
economy of large public and private projects
in different contexts. This reflects the primary objective of the campaigns which was to
prevent the construction of large dams rather than to promote equitable development
and social justice. However, the joint focus
created a coalition which provided social
legitimacy for the environmentalists and
put the formidable lobbying capacity of the
environmentalists at the disposal of the social activists. In this context, the distinction
bet