Shared rivers and interstate conflict

“The previous war in the Middle East was about oil, the next war will be about water.” Such predictions have been made regularly, and particularly with reference to the possibility of upstream–downstream conflicts in major rivers which cross interstate boundaries. A good case can be made that competition over water resources may exacerbate conflict and contribute to interstate violence. More than 200 river systems are shared by two or more countries. Many rivers run between countries with a history of conflict, where water plays an important part in the economic life of the country. The dramatic statements about ‘water wars’, however, have a weaker foundation. As resource optimists have pointed out, there is an abundance of water where it is not subject to wasteful uses, human ingenuity can overcome water shortages, and nations can cooperate rather than fight to resolve international water issues. This study is built on newly generated data on boundary-crossing rivers, which have been added to the Correlates of War contiguity dataset. Our results indicate that a joint river does indeed increase the probability of militarized disputes and armed conflict over and above mere contiguity. This risk factor is comparable in size to standard control variables, but much smaller than the effect of contiguity itself. Water scarcity is also associated with conflict, and the upstream/downstream relationship appears to be the form of shared river most frequently associated with conflict. But these results are not very strong and we do not have any systematic data on the issues involved in the shared-river conflicts.     

Water resources, institutions, & intrastate conflict

Although linkages between water scarcity and conflict have received a great deal of attention, both in qualitative case studies as well as quantitative studies, the relationship remains unclear since the literature has generally not considered the effectiveness of governance. We distinguish between direct effects and indirect effects linking water resource scarcity and conflict by systematically examining how intervening factors, such as political institutions, might influence the impact of water scarcity on the probability of conflict. We find support for our hypotheses postulating both direct and indirect relationships between water scarcity, governance, and conflict.     

Shared rivers and conflict – A reconsideration

Neomalthusians have regularly predicted "water wars" while cornucopians have argued that there is no inherent water scarcity and liberal institutionalists have seen cooperation as a more likely outcome of competition for limited water resources than violent conflict. Three earlier studies have found a positive statistical relationship between shared rivers and low-level interstate conflict. Based on a more comprehensive dataset, an improved model of conflict, and a more appropriate control for geographical opportunity, we argue that these results are spurious and that we cannot establish a conflict-inducing effect of shared rivers over and beyond contiguity itself. In fact, the new dataset presented here makes it clear that nearly all neighbors in the international system share at least one river. This calls for a different approach to investigating interaction in shared river basins. This notwithstanding, freshwater and other shared resources may still provide a mechanism to explain why contiguity is robustly associated with conflict, so the water-conflict scenario cannot be dismissed. Indeed, our results show that among river-sharing states, basins with an upstream/downstream configuration increase the risk of conflict. The article finally discusses how river interaction should be further investigated based on these results and what new data are needed to enable such research.     

Rethinking transboundary waters: A critical hydropolitics of the Mekong basin

Efforts to understand the geographical and political complexities of transboundary river basins—both within national jurisdictions and at international levels—must embrace critical interdisciplinary perspectives. In this paper, we focus attention on underdeveloped aspects of transboundary water conflicts and cooperation—e.g., how ecological understandings of river basins are transformed within transboundary institutional arrangements; the way multiple actors in transboundary basins construct geographical scales; and how control over water is represented and exercised within governance and management institutions. We advance the notion of critical hydropolitics as a way of explicating these processes. We draw on a case study of conflict over and within the transboundary waters of the Mekong River basin to illustrate this approach. Our aim is to complement and extend ongoing research and policy debates concerning transboundary waters.     

Conflicts over shared rivers: Resource scarcity or fuzzy boundaries?

Countries that share rivers have a higher risk of military disputes, even when controlling for a range of standard variables from studies of interstate conflict. A study incorporating the length of the land boundary showed that the shared river variable is not just a proxy for a higher degree of interaction opportunity. A weakness of earlier work is that the existing shared rivers data do not distinguish properly between dyads where the rivers run mainly across the boundary and dyads where the shared river runs along the boundary. Dyads with rivers running across the boundary would be expected to give rise to resource scarcity-related conflict, while in dyads where the river forms the boundary conflict may arise because river boundaries are fluid and fuzzy. Using a new dataset on shared water basins and two measures of water scarcity, we test for the relevance of these two scenarios. Shared basins do predict an increased propensity for conflict in a multivariate analysis. However, we find little support for the fuzzy boundary scenario. Support for a scarcity theory of water conflict is somewhat ambiguous. Neither the number of river crossings nor the share of the basin upstream is significant. Dry countries have more conflict, but less so when the basin is large. Drought has no influence. The size of the basin, however, is significantly associated with conflict. Modernization theory receives some support in that development interacted with basin size predicts less conflict, and we find some evidence here for an environmental Kuznets curve. The importance of basin size suggests a possible ‘resource curse’ effect for water resources.     

Rivers as resources, rivers as borders: community and transboundary management of fisheries in the Upper Zambezi River floodplains

This article examines the recent convergence of community-based and transboundary natural resource management in Africa. We suggest that both approaches have potential application to common-pool resources such as floodplain fisheries. However, a merging of transboundary and community-based management may reinforce oversimplifications about heterogeneity in resources, users, and institutions. A scalar mismatch between the ecosystem of concern in transboundary management and local resources of concern in community-based management, as well as different colonial and post-colonial histories contribute to this heterogeneity. We describe a fishery shared by Namibia and Zambia in terms of hybrid fisheries management. We examine settlement patterns, fishermen characteristics, sources of conflict, and perceptions regarding present and potential forms of fisheries management in the area. We also consider the implications that initiatives to manage resources on the local and ecosystem scale have for these fishing livelihoods. Our findings indicate that important social factors, such as the unequal distribution of population and fishing effort, as well as mixed opinions regarding present and future responsibility for fisheries management will complicate attempts to implement a hybrid community-transboundary management initiative.     

Transboundary conservation and militarized interstate disputes

Advocates of transboundary conservation argue that borderlands can be a source of cooperation between neighboring states that previously engaged in conflict. It has been stated that, by opening negotiation channels based on environmental issues, jointly managed cross-border protected areas can promote and reinforce harmonious relations between contiguous states. We explore this assertion by empirically testing how transboundary protected areas (TBPAs) are related to militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) between contiguous states. Through the use of global data on protected areas and MIDs, we find that TBPAs tend to be established between countries that have previously been engaged in MIDs. We also find some evidence that TBPAs can be related to a more peaceful co-existence between neighboring countries in Africa, Middle East, and Asia.     

Climate change,conflict, and cooperation: Global analysis of the effectiveness of international river treaties in addressing water variability

Climate-driven water variability is a natural phenomenon that is observed across river basins, but one that is predicted to increase due to climate change. Environmental change of this kind may aggravate political tensions, especially in regions which are not equipped with an appropriate institutional apparatus. Increased variability is also likely to challenge regions with existing institutional capacity. We argue that our best attempts to assess the ability of states to deal with variability in the future rest with considering how agreements have fared in the past. In this paper, we explore treaty effectiveness, or treaty resilience, by investigating whether particular water allocation and institutional mechanisms help mitigate inter-country tensions over shared water. We use water-related events from the Basins at Risk events database as a dependent variable to test particular hypotheses regarding the impact of treaty design on conflict and cooperation over time. A broad set of climatic, geographic, political, and economic variables are used as controls. The analysis is conducted for the years 1948–2001 using the country dyad as the level of observation. Findings pertaining to our primary explanatory variables suggest that country dyads governed by treaties with water allocation mechanisms exhibiting both flexibility and specificity evince more cooperative behavior. Country dyads governed by treaties with a larger sum of institutional mechanisms likewise evince a higher level of cooperation, although certain institutional mechanisms appear to be more important than others.     

The benefit-sharing principle: Implementing sovereignty bargains on water

A global water crisis is emerging that may challenge states' existing and future water availability. With countries already heavily reliant on international rivers, the issue of managing water scarcity in these basins is mounting. An already complex issue due to climatic change and the politics of access, the management of water resources is complicated further by sovereignty. In a context shaped by political boundaries and a concomitant territorial exclusivity, nation-states seek to guarantee their societies' water by exerting control through physical and institutional infrastructure. Yet, the basin's hydrological interdependency implies co-riparian countries remain vulnerable to each other's use of the shared river, suggesting ecological rather than just political limits to sovereignty. The continued vulnerability, as envisaged within the greening of sovereignty, suggests international cooperation is necessary. Explained as sovereignty bargains, in which states trade reduced autonomy for future benefits, international cooperation is, we suggest, bi-directional and can stem from or create international institutions. We examine an instance of international cooperation that exemplifies an alternative approach to international river management. The benefit-sharing principle focuses on allocating the outputs from water use, rather than the water itself; and was used by the Senegal basin riparians to access key services such as electricity despite a context of poverty, climatic change and intra-basin politics. What emerges is a strong narrative of cooperation sustained, over decades, by the states' willingness to engage in sovereignty bargains.     

The European Policy on Water Use at the Urban Level in the Context of the Water Framework Directive. Effectiveness,Appropriateness and Efficiency

The current European policy on water resources use in cities is undergoing radical reform in an attempt to confront the water quality problems and the dramatically intensified water scarcity. Among the most elaborate documents concerning current water policy is the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which spells out the targets of water policy at the European level. The confrontation of water scarcity, deterioration in quality, and the reduction in costs of the water supply industry emerge as decisive principles of the new European policy on water use in cities. These targets are currently assimilated in the agendas of national water policies in almost all European countries. To achieve these objectives several policy instruments have been applied in Europe. The more prevailing instruments are: demand management, privatization of water companies and efficient/full cost pricing of water use. The present article aims at systematically evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the current water policy for urban systems, by examining the coherence of its instruments as well as their appropriateness for achieving the policy's targets. To start with, the paper presents an elementary economic analysis of the current water policy. The effects of the most common policy instruments are systematically traced in the framework of economic analysis. Next, three indicative case cities are presented and examined. As it turns out, however, the results of the implementation of the main instruments are contradictory. This drastically reduces the effectiveness of the water policy. We indicate that these contradictory effects are inherent in the water policy and originate in the lack of appropriate social processes and institutions for the management of natural resources.     

Climate change,environmental degradation and armed conflict

Climate change is expected to bring about major change in freshwater availability, the productive capacity of soils, and in patterns of human settlement. However, considerable uncertainties exist with regard to the extent and geographical distribution of these changes. Predicting scenarios for how climate-related environmental change may influence human societies and political systems necessarily involves an even higher degree of uncertainty. The direst predictions about the impacts of global warming warn about greatly increased risks of violent conflict over increasingly scarce resources such as freshwater and arable land. We argue that our best guess about the future has to be based on our knowledge about the relationship between demography, environment and violent conflict in the past. Previous rigorous studies in the field have mostly focused on national-level aggregates. This article represents a new approach to assess the impact of environment on internal armed conflict by using georeferenced (GIS) data and small geographical, rather than political, units of analysis. It addresses some of the most important factors assumed to be strongly influenced by global warming: land degradation, freshwater availability, and population density and change. While population growth and density are associated with increased risks, the effects of land degradation and water scarcity are weak, negligible or insignificant. The results indicate that the effects of political and economic factors far outweigh those between local level demographic/environmental factors and conflict.     

Environment, race and nation reconsidered: reflections on Aboriginal land claims in Canada

The course of development in Northern Canada has been transformed in the last 30 years by the comprehensive land claims process. For much of the twentieth century, the settlement and development of northern Canada was experienced by Aboriginal people as a continuing process of encroachment on (and sometimes transformation of) their traditional territories, and of restriction of their customary livelihood. Examples of this process included the alteration of river systems by impoundment and diversion, the pollution and contamination of river systems, government restrictions on hunting and fishing and population relocation and sedentarization. Aboriginal political and legal action led, in the 1970s, to the establishment of a formal process for resolving Aboriginal land claims, and to revised judicial interpretation of Aboriginal and treaty rights. The paper describes how geographers have contributed to documenting those claims, and how land claims settlements have altered the land and resource regimes in northern Canada, and concludes with some observations on the effectiveness of those remedies, and on the changes in Canadian perspectives on Aboriginal northerners, the northern environment and northern development .     

Geographic dimensions of enduring rivalries

In this study, we show that our understanding of rivalries can be enhanced by a greater consideration of the connection between this phenomenon and geographic factors. More specifically, we seek to understand the impacts of territoriality (i.e. disputes over land control) and space (i.e. contiguity) on rivalry. Prior works tell us that these factors are important in individual militarized conflicts, but until now we did not know whether they also impact patterns of recurring conflicts. Although we find that both territorial disputes and contiguity matter little for rivalries in general, we do demonstrate that both factors’ importance grows as we consider the more serious types of rivalries. In other words, most rivalries are not fought over territory or between neighbors, but a substantial portion of proto- and enduring rivalries are conditioned by territorial disputes and proximity. We also investigate whether disputes over land and contiguity have impacts on conflict density, rivalry development, and rivalry severity. We show that both factors increase the frequency of conflict and the chances of serious rivalry development. In contrast, rivalry severity is more of a function of the underlying issue the rivals disagree over (i.e. territorial control) than of opportunity to fight (i.e. proximity).     

Come rain,or come wells: How access to groundwater affects communal violence

This article empirically analyzes the relationship between groundwater scarcity and incidences of communal violence. Case studies suggest that appropriating water is more likely when resource scarcities are not effectively mitigated and where property rights are disputed. Yet, covering water more broadly remains piecemeal in quantitative research on communal conflict. While water scarcity features in large-N literature on climate variability and nonstate conflicts, such studies rely heavily on rainfall data which covers only one aspect of the hydrological cycle. Employing precipitation data alone neglects the use of groundwater, an important factor for drought resilience and the source for 50% of global drinking water. While rainfall remains key for agriculture, pastoralists and smallscale farmers in particular rely on groundwater as a buffer during dry periods. Thus, analyses on water scarcity and conflict ought to combine measures for groundwater, surface water, and precipitation. While controlling for other sources of water, the lack of groundwater access is hypothesized to increase incidences of violent communal conflict. The effect of groundwater on communal violence is also argued to vary with the presence of drought, low rainfall, in densely populated areas, and with state presence. These propositions are tested through large-N analyses using previously not utilized data on water availability with incidence data on violent conflict for Africa and the Middle East (1990–2014). The results show that lacking access to groundwater is associated with a higher risk of communal violence. Further, the effect of groundwater access on communal violence is conditioned by precipitation levels as well as population density. The results also suggest that the effect of groundwater on violence is smaller in areas with higher state presence.     

Property,Authority and Citizenship: Land Claims,Politics and the Dynamics of Social Division in West Africa

In the contemporary African context of rising competition and anxiety over access to land, neoliberal policy interventions designed to clarify property rights, broaden political participation and increase official accountability have frequently provoked rather than alleviated social and political conflict. Comparing case histories of local struggles over land and authority in selected rural areas in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Bénin, this paper argues that in situations where access to land has been linked historically to claims on authority and social belonging, pressures to privatize or clarify ownership have intensified debates over citizenship and governance as well as over land claims per se. Ensuing struggles over land and entitlement have intersected with national as well as local economic and political dynamics, reinforcing ‘traditional’ hierarchies, contributing to the proliferation of formal and informal governing agents and institutions, and frequently disrupting or subverting open governance and sustainable resource use, rather than helping to create conditions for sustainable development and democratization.     

Of floods and droughts: The uneven politics of stormwater in Los Angeles

Stormwater is a complex political and geographical problem. It is at once bound to land-use decisions, tied to geographical features such as lakes and rivers, and capable of flowing across different political boundaries and jurisdictions. In this paper, I empirically focus on how disparate understandings of stormwater are forged through different institutional arrangements and the ways multiple actors interact across scales of governance in Los Angeles. The results indicate four discourses influence decisions on urban stormwater management and are articulated through different forms of knowledge and power in environmental governance. The discourses diverge over contrasting perspectives on infrastructural interventions, the role of economic approaches, and the need for new institutions and rules. I suggest that disagreement may not deter integration and collaboration across different scales of governance, but without addressing conflict over key discursive claims about how stormwater governance should proceed, broadly accepted outcomes may remain elusive. With current trends in environmental governance moving towards hybrid forms that bring together groups that transcend traditional organizational structures, this paper reveals how more sustainable outcomes are being devised through current configurations of knowledge and power.     

Local institutional quality and conflict violence in Africa

All politics is local. In spite of this familiar dictum, most studies that have investigated how institutions shape the conditions for violence and peace have focused on national institutions, and neglected the local dimension. This paper investigates the effects of high-quality local political institutions on the location of violence in internal conflicts in Africa, demonstrating that the quality of local political institutions matters even when the characteristics of national institutions are accounted for. We combine georeferenced survey data from the Afrobarometer surveys with georeferenced conflict data, allowing us to study the links between institutional quality at the subnational level and the occurrence of conflict-related violence. Crucially, we find that administrative districts with high-quality local government institutions are less likely to experience violence in an internal conflict than poorly governed districts. This relationship holds when controlling for a number of relevant factors like economic development, demographics, political opinions, urbanization and country-fixed effects. We also use matching techniques to improve inference, finding rather robust indications that local institutional quality pacifies.     

The Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy and the Post-War Consensus

The post-war settlement among the policy elite is central to much historical literature. This article considers the rise and fall of the idea of ‘industrial democracy’, and its relationship to this settlement. The elite failed to respond coherently to claims for workplace democracy. The notion that politicians could work with ‘the unions’ and ‘industry’ was shown to be deficient. The unions contained numerous views, many hostile to industrial democracy in the form proposed by Bullock and the TUC. Industry was almost uniformly antagonistic. The notion of consensus ostensibly underpinned the attempts of Labour and Conservative politicians to progress this issue. In truth, this was a curious approach. The debate over Bullock was, at root, an argument over whether the owners of capital should cede some of their power in favour of organised labour. There was never likely to be agreement on this. The inconclusive debate over Bullock ultimately showed how fragile the consensus was. The political elite could not forever smooth over underlying disagreements between capital and labour, or between groups of workers with differing interests.     

The Changing Value of Australian Tropical Rivers

Until recently the objectives of tropical river management were narrowly construed: the development imperative drove resource policy. During recent decades, community attitudes to river and water management have changed considerably and the national program of water reform, the National Water Initiative, is accelerating alterations to the way that water is used, managed and priced. A broader range of values and imperatives is now influencing water resource management policy. Not least is the concern over the ecological impacts and economic inefficiencies of the large‐scale hydrological schemes that once excited the public's imagination. This paper reports on a recent study of social and economic values of tropical rivers conducted by the authors for an Australian statutory research and development corporation. The study shows that the values associated with tropical rivers have changed and diversified over time with growing societal awareness of the contribution made by unregulated, healthy river systems to human wellbeing and cultural identity. As a consequence of substantial social change, tropical river management must now contend with a more complex array of societal values and water management objectives.