
































Microsoft Word - Valles review.docx


 
 
STEPHEN PAUL MUMME, 2023, Border Water: The Politics of U.S.-Mexico Transboundary 
Water Management, 1945-2015, New York: The University of Arizona Press, 414 pp., 
ISBN  978-0-8165-4830-9 
 
Instantly, one feels how Border Water: The Politics of U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Water 
Management fulfills the most elusive of all scholarly intents – finding a lacuna in the literature. 
Mumme begins his expansive and exhaustive monograph by signaling that the reader would find 
it difficult to come across such a holistic historical account of water governance on the U.S.-
Mexico border from 1945 to 2015, though his latter chapters move beyond that period. The three 
main waterways stretching from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico – the Tijuana, Colorado, and 
Rio Grande – required binational cooperation to supply the regions along the border with useful 
water. Following the creation of the 1944 Water Treaty, which would manage these sources and 
establish institutional control of the national boundaries, binational cooperation was crucial in 
spurring development on both sides of the border. The result was a treaty, though modified over 
the decades, that drew in governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders, and which Mumme 
claims was negotiated on more equitable grounds than the divisive border treaties of the 19th 
century.  
 
Border Water is a work of political science and frames the recounting of history using paradigms 
of international change, public policy, and social movements. Mumme organizes the monograph 
chronologically, most chapters beginning with an outline of the metapolitics affecting Mexico 
and U.S. relations broadly. The first section, which encompasses chapters 1 and 2, centers on the 
1944 Water Treaty between the two nations, and administration by the International Boundary 
and Water Commission (IBWC). Chapter 1 looks at the genesis of the 1944 treaty in a potentially 
tense political environment into and directly after WWII. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy 
approached Mexico and other Latin American nations as strategic post-war partners. Chapter 2 
follows the IBWC’s management after the war, including irrigation, sanitation, and boundary 
disputes. Chapters 3 and 4 outline the salinity conflict on water sourced from the Colorado and 
later the Rio Grande. 
 
Chapters 5 through 8 constitute the second section’s focus on environmental challenges after 
1973. Chapters 5 and 6 explore changes in transboundary riparian management after the salinity 
conflict. The border region saw exponential population growth and industrial development 
through the 1980s. Following the devaluation of the peso, the Mexican side of the border became 
increasingly industrialized through maquiladoras, foreign owned factories in the border region 
that make largely tariff-free, export-bound products. Chapters 7 explores the impacts of NAFTA, 
the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexicans moved at increasing rates into the border 
region, further producing environmental and industrial waste, which drew in environmentalists to 
address a variety of negative ecological impacts. Chapter 8 moves on to the post-9/11 era. 



Changes in the political environment on both sides of the border led to decreased funding for 
environmental institutions and increasing public-private development.  
 
The final sections comprising chapters 9 and 10 review what readers can learn from the history 
of binational water management. Chapter 9 looks at the ebb and flow of water management as 
well as the impact of the broader political climate. Chapter 10 considers the current moment and 
future challenges. Mumme reflects on the legacy of the 1944 Water Treaty and characterizes the 
binational agreement as a “quasi-constitutional treaty,” an international joint-venture that has 
become an unalterable cornerstone of political and infrastructural logic.  
 
Reading through Mumme’s extensive book was thoroughly enlightening. The juxtaposition of 
broader political concerns and the enactment and evolution of the treaty vividly depicted the 
complexities of managing resources on such a massive scale. The slow evolution and encounters 
of governmental and nongovernmental organizations and actors demonstrates the myriad factors 
involved in producing and maintaining infrastructural projects crucial to agricultural, industrial, 
and urban development. As a scholar of immigration in Texas, I was struck by my lack of 
consideration for the physical border as a potentially fluid boundary, as a river left 
unmanipulated by humans will continue to change shape. Moreover, the history of Mexico and 
the U.S. borderlands is magnified by an understanding of binational resource management and 
its resulting conflicts. My family is from northern Mexico, and I spent my summers knowing that 
potable water was limited to a few hours in the morning. Water management touches the lives of 
millions on both sides, but the experience of scarcity remains concentrated in Mexico. 
 
This leads me to a potential limitation, or at least a question arising from the author’s analysis of 
equitable negotiations. Mumme absolutely acknowledges the factors contributing to unequal 
standards of living on the Mexican side with an analysis of NAFTA and a conversation on the 
maquiladora industry. However, there remains a tone of reverence on the decades-long evolution 
of resource management that I would like to see problematized, though I understand that is 
beyond the scope of the work. Perhaps this is the point where this work becomes exciting for 
scholars that concentrate on the borderlands in general. The macro lens employed by Mumme is 
just one piece that can be used by qualitative researchers that study border communities. Border 
Water helps clarify issues of resource scarcity and uneven economic remuneration for those 
working in a relatively new urban region. For scholars of the U.S. borderlands and those who 
lean on the works of Anzaldua among others will find the banality of resource management 
unsettling, I contend it is a necessary inclusion for framing the Mexico-U.S. relationship. Finally, 
the narrative of political action stemming from a treaty will inform how researchers can frame 
institutional actors and their aims working within the confines of infrastructural development.  
 
Border Water was truly an engaging read that motivated me to think about the broader political 
landscape of binational cooperation. Researchers on immigration tend to view the border as a 
space that produces clear adversarial encounters when undocumented immigrants attempt to 
cross. Yet, the role of Mexico tends to be left out in favor for villainizing the U.S. role in 
managing the region. This work shows that that there are many players involved in enacting 
legislation and binational agreements. As such, Mumme’s book is a worthwhile read for any 
scholar of the border regions or of immigration. Furthermore, scholars of environmental 



anthropology will find this resource important for contextualizing different types of actors and 
their roles in border dynamics.  
  
Biography: I recently defended my dissertation in Education Policy Studies at the University of 
Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, I completed a Masters in Anthropology at Iowa State 
University. My research explored students participating in a college-readiness program from a 
Latino immigrant community in Dallas, Texas, as they transitioned out of high school. 
 
 

© 2024 Edgar Valles 

 


