Manuel Prieto

Dr. Manuel Prieto

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Academic Career Length

17Years (2010-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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1 August 2015 in Mountain Research and Development
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Journal Article
Open access
MPManuel Prieto
Manuel Prieto
The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a free-market water system. This article contributes to the critiques of this model by showing the effect of its implementation in the Atacameño community of Chiu-Chiu, located in the Atacama Desert in the south-central Andes. In this community, the privatization of water rights ignored local water management practices that had produced a high-altitude wetland (known as a vega). This led to the inhabitants’ dispossession of crucial water rights and to wetland degradation. This process belies statements that the Chilean model relies on an unregulated market and instead highlights the state’s role in marginalizing local irrigation practices by reducing the water consumption of the indigenous population while keeping the copper mining industry (the main source of Chilean income) and related growing urban populations supplied with water.
2 November 2011 in Environmental Politics
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
DTDavid Tecklin
David Tecklin
CBCarl Bauer
Carl Bauer
MPManuel Prieto
Manuel Prieto
As one of the earliest and deepest cases of neoliberal reform, Chile's political economic model has been the subject of extensive debate. The associated environmental law and policy that emerged in this context has, however, received little attention. The country's environmental policymaking process as well as the character and effects of the environmental regime that emerged are examined. Environmental policymaking has been tightly constrained by institutional and political arrangements that embody neoliberal principles such that legislation only advances when internal demands connect up with global forces. As a result, and despite many regulatory initiatives, the environmental regime expresses a strongly market-enabling quality instead of the market-regulating character commonly ascribed to environmental law and policy.
1 August 2020 in Political Geography
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Journal Article
Closed access
MMManuel Mendez
Manuel Mendez
MPManuel Prieto
Manuel Prieto
MGMilton Godoy
Milton Godoy
1 January 2016 in Revista de Estudios Sociales
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Journal Article
Open access
MPManuel Prieto
Manuel Prieto
The Chilean Water Code of 1981 is a radical case of implementation of free market policies. In the Atacama Desert, the Atacameño people of the city of Calama have mobilized their indigenous identity and traditional celebrations within the context of the imposition of this code. Using a political ecology framework, in this article I examine how their claims, in opposition to the neoliberal model of water exploitation, are interwoven with the process of identity formation, traditions, and market behavior. For this purpose, I have studied transactions of water rights and conducted interviews of urban leaders. The results bring into question the neoliberal hypothesis that water rights flow towards the uses of greatest economic value within a free market.
15 March 2012 in Water International
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Journal Article
Closed access
MPManuel Prieto
Manuel Prieto
CBCarl Bauer
Carl Bauer
This paper presents an institutional analysis of hydropower development in Chile, focusing on the main legal institutions involved and relevant jurisprudence. Hydropower expansion took place within a neoliberal institutional framework imposed by the military government (1973–1990) that included reforms in both the water and electricity sectors. One of the stated purposes of these reforms was to remove ideology from both water management and electricity generation and ensure the neutrality of the state. The paper argues that the security of property rights for hydropower activities is not value-neutral but sustained only through marginalizing other water rights and interests, such as in-stream uses.
4 November 2015 in Water International
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Journal Article
Closed access
MPManuel Prieto
Manuel Prieto
The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a successful free water market system. This paper analyses water-rights transactions to determine how this water market has behaved in the northern Atacama Desert. It questions the neoliberal assumption that Chile’s unregulated water market has acted as an active tool to reallocate water towards uses that provide the highest economic value. Instead, it argues that the state is the central actor in water allocation. This problematizes the notion that the Chilean water model is one of the most unregulated in the world.