This chapter examines the factors affecting cooperation in irrigation communities, based on a survey conducted in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. Cooperative behaviour in an irrigation community is negatively related to inequality of landholding, urban or market connections, and positively related to duration of access to water, monitoring by guards, social homogeneity, small group size, proportional cost-sharing rule, and collective adversarial relation with other villages over water. The impact of the involvement of the Public Works Department, government and village elite in water allocation and maintenance is discussed.
Keywords: cooperation, irrigation community, Tamil Nadu, India, water management,