following reasons: voters have imperfect information, special interest groups will lobby for those interests, politicians are short-sighted with respect to policy, and there are few incentives for candidates to account for individual pref rences. Similarly, reform efforts, which result in a redistribution of economic benefits, will generate significant political opposition. Interest groups will form to impact the reform process so i:hat the end results best serve their constituents. These political groups may slow, divert, or stop desirable reforms (e.g., Morocco - Dinar et al., 1998). In his book, _Cadillac Dessert,_ Marc Reisner aptly describes the result of rent-seeking in irrigation projects. He details the history of "pork-barrel politics and rent-seeking motives" in the American West from the time of early Mormon settlers in Utah to current intrigues with the water lobbyists.

The literature in this vein is quite dispersed, but it is possible to identify three main approaches. The first is the interest group approach (Backer, 1983). Here political decisions are viewed as the outcome of a struggle between pressure groups (also Panagariya and Rodrik, 1993). Second is the politician-voter interaction approach where the interaction between voters and supportmaximizing politicians result in policy (Peltzman, 1976; Hillman, 1989; de Gortner and Tsur, 1991). Lastly are the bargaining process models (Zusman, 1976), where policies are determined via a bargaining process with players of different power (also Scarpa, 1994; Jordon, 1995, Finkelshtein and Kislev, 1997; Zusman, 1997, Ruasser and Zusman, 1991, 1998).

Grossman and Helpman (1994) offer a synthesis approach that incorporates principal-agent theory with pressure group activity. In addition there have been recent extensions to these approaches incorporating environmental aspects of water management. These include cooperative game studies looking at incentives for individuals to participate in group management schemes (Bardhan, 1993; HIurwicz, 1998); in the exploitation of common property resources (Ligon and Narain, 1997; Becker and Easter, 1998); and the literature surrounding environmental regulation (Laffont and T role, 1996; Chen et al., 1998; Loehman, 1998).

# **_5.2 Applications to Irrigation Water_**

Recent studies looking at irrigation water reform often will employ one or more of these approaches to model the political economy involved. For example, lobbying efforts for irrigation in the American West have possibly provided the greatest source of material for political economy water studies. Already mentioned, Reisner (1993) traces the history of U.S. land reclamation in the West, taking rains to highlight the highly subsidized, inefficient, and inequitable nature of the irrigation water provided by Congress to western states. He hypothesizes that a significant reason behind President Carter's resounding election defeat in 1980 was due to his opposition to iunding "a couple dozen" extremely questionable and expensive irrigation projects. Rucker and Fishback (1983) examine the early activities of the Bureau of Reclamation following the Reclamation Act of 1902 using a simple rent-seeking model. Gardner (1983) discusses how in the irrigation economy of California, water is a constraining input and is often priced below the value of its use. Both of these studies use the difference between optimal prices and actual prices as evidence of rent seeking and describe how these rents eventually dissipate with Ainrthe **r** ent-seeking behavior. Another early California 33