Nonprofits and their Networks: Cleaning the Waters along Mexico’s Northern Border.  Tucson:  University of Arizona Press. 2008.

Winner of the Association of Borderland Studies’ Silver Book Award

On the border of the United States and Mexico, few policy issues face such acute challenges as those related to water. Responses by government agencies and the market on both sides of the border have been insufficient, and these limitations raise the question of what role the non-profit sector can play.  Finding that organizations do have a positive impact, Daniel Sabet seeks to understand how autonomous nonprofit organizations have emerged and developed along the border. He employs data from more than 250 interviews with members of civil society organizations and public officials, surveys of neighborhood association leaders, observations at public meetings, and many secondary sources. His research compares the experiences of third-sector organizations in four prominent Mexican border cities: Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, and Nuevo Laredo. Sabet finds that political change is a necessary precondition for the establishment of an independent third sector. The demise of one-party rule in Mexico has given nonprofit organizations greater opportunities to flourish, he finds, but persistent informal rules still obstruct their emergence and development. Sabet concludes that the success of the third sector will depend on the organizations’ networks. He examines organizational ties to three key groups—U.S. nonprofits, the business community, and government-created methods for public participation—and evaluates the importance of these connections for the future.

“Thickening Civil Society: Explaining the Development of Associational Life in Mexico.” Democratization. Vol. 15(2): 410-432. 2008.

“Building Bridges: Binational Civil Society Cooperation and Water-Related Policy Problems.” The Journal of Environment and Development. Vol. 14(4): 463-485. 2005.

“Nonprofit Networks: Explaining Emergence, Effectiveness, and Density.” In Freddy Mariñez and Cristina Zurbriggen eds. Gestión de redes institucionales ¿Un nuevo modelo de gestión? México: Noriega Editores. 2012