Hydro Politics: Water-Based Explanations of Political Violence and Conflict Resolution

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Hydro-political security complexes are emerging to negotiate water-sharing policies that promote political stability, international security, economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability. Yet hydro politics remains under-researched, cloaked in other security concerns, or dismissed as an issue of scarcity to be addressed by emerging technologies.

Water-based explanations of political violence need to incorporate technology, ecology, energy, economy, security, politics and policy. The complexity of hydro-politics requires innovative strategies to prevent conflict and promote cooperation.

The purpose of this research is to analyze innovative new negotiation strategies to promote cooperation within hydro political complexes. The research examines conflict and cooperation in international river basins with asymmetrical power; specifically, the political, economic, technological, and ecological conditions in which countries assert power to alter access to international waters.

The study examines water conflict resolution in 41 countries within six major international river basins: the Nile, Zambezi, Parana La Plata, Amazon, Jordan, and Ganges basins. The strategies, leverage, incentives and constraints employed by weaker riparians constitute the substantive elements of this research.

Stream: Economic Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Dr. Kehl conducts research on economic development and international resources security. She teaches international political economy and comparative development in the Department of Political Science and the Graduate Program of International Public Service and Development at Rutgers University. Her most recent publications include a book on foreign investment and global development (2008), and a new project on foreign investment and resources security, which emphasizes the relationship between natural resources, economic prosperity, political stability, and international security.