Blue Community Ambassador David McDonald, Professor of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University, Canada, and Director of the Municipal Services Project, a global research network that explores progressive forms of public services with a focus on equity, sustainability and democratic engagement, will be in Zurich for a guest seminar at ETH.
IED special seminar with David McDonald | What’s Public About Public Water?
Location: ETH Zurich, SOL B4
Friday, 27 February, 2026, 12:30–13:30 h
Debates about water privatization have tended to construct a simplistic binary of public versus private. In reality, ‘public’ water is varied and complex in its institutional and ideological make-up, illustrated in part by the rise of very different types of ‘remunicipalized’ water services over the past ten years as well as the growth of ‘corporatized’ public utilities. Drawing on two decades of empirical and theoretical work on this topic, Dr McDonald will highlight key tensions and synergies in the emerging debates about the nature of public water services.
