Cooperation Rules: Insights on Water and Conflict from International Relations
Publisher: Anthem Press
Author(s): Patrice C. McMahon
Date: 2017
Topics: Cooperation, Governance, Renewable Resources
This volume is based on papers presented at a small conference, “Water Security and Peacebuilding in the Middle East: Avenues for Cooperation,” held at the University of Nebraska in May 2014. The meeting brought together leading researchers in the multidimensional problem of water security and related public policy issues. Since our focus was on the Middle East, the scholars invited were specialists in areas ranging from Ethiopia, to Israel and Palestine, to Iraq and the Gulf States. While generally aiming to underscore the effi cacy of international water agreements, institutional mechanisms designed to implement them and scientifi c and technological advances that could be “game changers,” the contributors nonetheless pointed to signifi - cant obstacles to cooperation and peace building. As the chapters that follow indicate, the authors are aware of the problems created by great inequalities of economic, political and military power throughout the region. And they share my view that a widened intellectual and disciplinary perspective is essential if wide and long- term shifts in attitudes toward water security are to be achieved.