Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geoforum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum Public stealth and boundary objects: Coping with integrated water resource management and the post-political condition in Montana’s portion of the Yellowstone River watershed Lucas Ward a, ⁎ , Matthew B. Anderson b , Susan J. Gilbertz c , Jamie McEvoy d , Damon M. Hall e a Environmental Management & Policy, Yellowstone River Research Center, Rocky Mountain College, Billings, USA b Department of Geography and Anthropology, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, USA c Department of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, Montana State University, Billings, USA d Department of Earth Science Montana State University, Bozeman, USA e Center for Sustainability, Saint Louis University, USA ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Water management Scale Boundary objects Standard packages Post-politics Q method ABSTRACT This paper uses the case of recent efforts in the Yellowstone River watershed to illuminate how the implementation of Integrated Water Resources (IWRM)-styled activities by a Montana state agency is best understood as an exercise in practical expediency that indirectly, but consequentially, supports hegemonic neo- liberalism. We present an innovative use of Q method, focus groups, and participant observations, as means to examine how scale-based interventions by the state moved IWRM-style reforms forward. The activities under consideration allow us to advance an empirically-based critique of so-called integrated approaches to environmental reform with a specific focus on the rescaling process inherent to adoption of the IWRM model. We argue that efforts to transition to IWRM-style governance are likely to be accompanied by stealthy, scale- based interventions. We use the concepts of “standardized packages” and “boundary objects” to raise questions about the degree to which use of such tactics should be interpreted as evidence of a broader hegemonic project to further imbricate neoliberal governmentality, as the literature on post-politics would suggest, or whether eco- scaling and careful circumscription of participation are simply the most convenient strategies for those charged with difficult and complex tasks. 1. Introduction Aridity has long been an obstacle to development in the Western United States (Reisner, 1993; Stegner, 1953; Worster, 1992). As in other parts of the world (Cohen and Bakker, 2014; Swyngedouw, 2013; Ward, 2013), in the past three decades the approach to water management in the American West has transitioned from a focus on increasing water supplies through large, state-led, infrastructure projects (i.e., dams and canals) (Gleick, 2003; Kallis and Coccossis, 2003; Sauri and del Moral, 2001) to a focus on managing consumer demand through the applica- tion of neoliberal market-based principles and devolving decision- making and conflict resolution to local watershed groups (Conca, 2006; Gleick, 2003). In this context, Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) has come to be widely regarded as the best pathway to develop and maintain water supplies and investments in ways that are socially and environmentally sustainable (Durham et al., 2003; Graefe, 2011; GWP, 2005; ICWE, 1992; UNEP, 1992). In its purest form, the IWRM approach is intended to lead to the adoption of watershed-scale management schemes that are science-based, market-oriented, and decentralized (ICWE, 1992; GWP, 2005; Bateman and Rancier, 2012). As such, IWRM shifts away from traditional governance arrangements dominated by state agencies and anchored to political administrative boundaries, which are now viewed as un-scientific, fragmented, and sectorally divided (Bateman and Rancier, 2012; GWP, 2005). IWRM attempts to reform governmental functions in two ways: (1) re-scaling of governance arrangements to the watershed scale, and (2) integrating stakeholder participation and input into watershed manage- ment processes, which are, ostensibly, articulated through “river basin organizations” (RBOs) (Bateman and Rancier, 2012; Cap-Net, 2008; Cohen, 2012). When IWRM uses re-scaling and participation to depoliticized processes, these same efforts necessarily extended govern- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.04.017 Received 25 October 2016; Received in revised form 26 April 2017; Accepted 27 April 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: lucas.ward@rocky.edu (L. Ward). Geoforum 83 (2017) 1–13 0016-7185/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. MARK