Democracy in practice: a global systematic review of democracy and water governance research

Both democracy and water governance face substantial challenges in today’s world. Freshwater supplies are critically important, but they are threatened by climate change and human activities. At the same time, democracy worldwide faces its own problems, including the rise of authoritarian leaders and policies and the growing political influence of private wealth. In this context, our team conducted a systematic review of the international scholarship on democracy and freshwater. Analyzing 162 articles from 2014 through 2024, we outline three practices of democracy that emerge from the literature. First, democracy is commonly framed as an institution, defined primarily by formal actors, processes, and policies. Second, democracy is realized as collaboration, illustrated by the recent rise of practices that incorporate public knowledge, experience, and concerns into water decision-making. Finally, democracy as a revolution refers to the ways in which communities themselves embrace democracy as a form of resistance; in some cases, this also takes shape as the proactive creation of water systems beyond formal bodies. Taken together, these three practices account for both the limitations and the promises of democracy and water and provide useful avenues for ongoing examinations of this relationship.