Since 1930s, Turkish state instrumentalized building large-dams as a significant way of confirming its power in its frontiers. These dams had been the symbols of modernized Turkish state and they affirmed the capabilities of the state in terms of technological expertise and innovation. In the last five years, by a series of legal reforms, the Turkish state started to give use rights of the rivers to private companies to build small-scale dams for the production of energy. The government legitimized this policy switch to small-scale dams by referring to the sustainable development discourse and the discourse of efficient resource management. Although environmental activists and local residents criticized the large-dam projects, these critiques had not been as vocal as we observe in the case of small-dam projects. Therefore, the kind of resistance that the small-scale dam projects encountered in local areas was surprising for both the government and the companies that undertake these projects, especially when the silence of the public towards the large-dam projects in Turkey is taken into consideration. Taking the emerging public critique of small-dams as a vestige to trace, this paper will try to understand the impact of the private sector-involvement in water-management on the ways rural people experience state and reconfigure their positionality vis-à-vis the state. Considering the fact that the practical impacts of state-led hydropower projects have been as harsh as the current private sector-led hydropower projects, it is significant to better understand the particular conjuncture that rendered such a public critique possible. Relying on ethnographic observation and historical investigation, this paper critically engages with the political-economy literature, which focuses on the social impacts of water privatization. The paper aims to contribute to this literature by bringing an analysis of privatization that accounts for not only material but also subjective impacts of privatization. The paper argues that one significant factor that determines the possibility of a public critique, is how affected public give meaning to inequalities, frictions, dispossessions and externalities caused by development projects. Accordingly, the paper concludes that the absence of the state as a symbol of “public good” and “national pride” is a factor that should be taken into consideration for a better understanding of emerging public critique and resistance regarding the small-scale dams.