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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how the Lao state’s engagement in hybrid governance to facilitate the Nam Nua 1 (NNua1) Hydropower—a Chinese transboundary hydropower within Lao borders—impinges on its political authority in making hydropower decisions and in implementing resettlement programs.

Paper long abstract:

The governance of hydropower projects in Laos has been more hybrid and transboundary since the new government followed the advice of its patron banks to pursue public-private partnerships (PPP) in the 1990s. For many scholars, this hybrid governance of transboundary hydropower implies limited statehood or hollowing out the state. This article, however, argues that the collaboration of multiple actors to govern transboundary hydropower does not totally circumscribe the Lao state’s political authority or domestic sovereignty. Drawing on the case of the Nam Nua 1 (NNua1)—a Chinese transboundary hydropower under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—the article presents how the Lao state remains the dominant political actor in manoeuvring transboundary dynamics and in manipulating the engagement of multiple hydropower actors to govern the NNua1 Project. The article also discusses how the Lao state negotiates its transboundary hydropower relationships with various hydroelectric financiers and investors, cooperation frameworks, and other countries that share the Mekong River Basin to achieve its economic goals. It argues that the hybrid governance does not engender limited statehood, but rather limited participation of transboundary environmental publics and resettled villagers. This governance also privileges private-sector actors. The article does not only contribute to the social analysis of cross-border collaborative governance and the Belt and Road Initiative’s local dynamics, but also to the formulation of better policies for improving the recent form of hybrid governance of transboundary hydropower in Laos.