El auge de las re-estatizaciones en Argentina ¿Hacia un nuevo modelo público del agua?

WATERLAT-GOBACIT Working Papers (ISSN 2056-4864 - online) Vol. 4 No 2, pp. 78-118. (www.waterlat.org)

During the last fifteen years, it is possible to identify a global trend towards the re-statization of water and sanitation utilities that had been previously privatized. This return to the public domain can also be identified in Argentina, where between 2002 and 2015 11 out of 15 previously privatized utilities were placed back under state control. This phenomenon was the result of a combination of political-economic processes with sector-specific problems. The new public water companies have specific characteristics, which make them different both from private management as well as from the old state model. However, despite this change in the management model, there remain a number of questions about what are actually the characteristics that define the new public model. The article analizes the process of re-statization looking at the emblematic cases of the national company Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos S.A. (AySA) in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, and the provincial utility Aguas Santafesinas S.A. (ASSA), in Santa Fe Province, addressing the key characteristics of this new stage in the history of the water and sanitation sector in the country, trying to identify the elements of continuity and rupture in relation to previous management models.