Democracy in a Time of Drought: Understanding Local Water Conflicts

• In Event: Adressing Implications of Drought

Abstract

Among the many questions surrounding democracy is whether it is capable of addressing the environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. In the last century, democratic systems in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere effectively accommodated the demands of social movements by adopting and enforcing stringent legislation to reduce air and water pollution, protect species and ecosystems, and preserve natural landscapes. But the environmental challenges of the twenty-first century are fundamentally different, and so far there is reason to question whether democracies are up to the task of meeting them. Populist and nationalist movements have already succeeding in dramatically altering U.S. climate change policy, and may well threaten that of the European Union as well. Meanwhile, China has adopted what is arguably the world’s most stringent regulatory regime to control certain forms of pollution, and made the promotion of local officials contingent on meeting environmental protection objectives. The sub-field of “authoritarian environmentalism,” which interrogates whether regime type materially impacts environmental outcomes, has never seemed more relevant.

This paper seeks to contribute to this growing debate by examining the particular issue of local water conflict. Many scholars and policymakers still expect a World Bank official’s 25-year old prediction that “the wars of the future will be fought over water” to come true. But in reality, international water wars are exceptionally rare, while political-economic conflicts between sub-national actors, including states and provinces, are increasingly prevalent. The paper, which is based on extensive research conducted for a forthcoming book manuscript, Subnational Hydropolitics: Conflict, Cooperation, and Institution-Building in Shared River Basins, from Oxford University Press, examines in-depth case studies of both conflict and cooperation at the subnational level in four countries: the United States, India, China, and France. The paper explores how both conflicts and cooperation unfold across these very different political settings. The case studies cover both long-running disputes like India’s Krishna basin conflict, as well as models of cooperation like France’s Water Agency system.

The paper argues that increasing sub-national water conflict is driven by two inter-linked forces, identity politics, which gives sub-national politicians a reason to compete over shared water resources; and political decentralization, which provides them with the tools to do so. Democracies channel these forces in complex ways. On the one hand, democratic systems typically give voice to identity politics, and often encourage forms of devolution and decentralization. However, by providing multiple points of access to the political system for civil society and water user groups, democratic systems also create the prospect of forging “constituencies for cooperation.”

This paper seeks to contribute to a better understanding of how natural resource conflicts, especially those over shared water resources, unfold across regime types. It concludes that democratic systems are in fact better at responding to and containing water resource conflicts with complex, multi-causal roots, like drought. Authoritarian systems, on the other hand, are better at addressing acute issues like flooding. The paper further argues, however, that some democratic systems are better than others in preventing and resolving water conflicts. Those that actively encourage non-governmental participation in decision-making, like some European countries, are more successful in both preventing and resolving such conflicts. These conclusions suggest that the literature on authoritarian environmentalism should adopt a disaggregated, issue-based analytical lens, while the collective action literature should pay greater attention to the import of regime type on the prospects for effective collective action.

Author

• Scott Moore, University of Pennsylvania