Dissent, Piracy, and Protests: Water Resources and Violence

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel focuses on how water resources affect international and domestic conflict process and security. Water resources are essential to human survival. As water scarcity issues become more severe, there are growing concerns over conflicts between countries and people in contests for water resources, both internationally and domestically. In this panel, we investigate how water resources affect the dynamics of interstate and intrastate conflicts with a variety of perspectives and cases. We focus on the contention for water resources between the haves and have-nots, or the least affected and the most affected, and how it affects conflict processes broadly. Who has more water resources? Who gets more water benefits and who does not? How do contests over water resources or water-relative assets affect people’s perceptions and behaviors, thus influencing conflict processes? We believe that this panel broadens our understanding on conflict and cooperation over water resources.

Dams are often referred as modern miracles to provide many public goods, such as electricity and stable water supplies. However, at the same time, dams have created negative externalities, wiping out indigenous villages and forcefully relocation of people in river basins, thus causing economic and social grievances. The paper by Lee, Keels, and Wiegand addresses how dams affect social dynamics in Africa by comparing dams that focus on public goods provision (e.g. hydroelectricity) and dams that control water supply (e.g. irrigation). By connecting these types of dams in Africa to social conflict data (SCAD), we will have a better understanding of how dams and water resources affect social contentions and domestic violence.

Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing has been receiving more attention recently due to its severe influences over maritime security and people’s life. In their paper, Schmidt and Mitchell argue that IUU fishing affects the opportunity and willingness of piracy. People become more willing to engage in piracy as there are more illegal fishing occurring in the ocean and as there are increasing economic grievances between people. Empirical results show that states’ naval capacity decreases piracy activity, while IUU fishing increases the frequency of piracy incidents.

Fishing disputes are also at the heart of many maritime conflicts in the South China Sea. Maritimes disputes involving boundaries, resources, and navigational rights involve issues of who gets how much, very similar to traditional territorial disputes and conflicts. Jeong’s paper focuses on how popular protests affect a government’s bargaining power in maritime dispute settlement. She argues that popular protests increase a government’s bargaining power only when a rival counterpart perceives that protests credibly constrain the home government. The credibility of protests as signals depend on the intensity of protests, the home government’s regime type, and the level of repression against the protesters.

Citizens may employ violent strategies beyond protests if they experience grievances caused by the scarcity of water resources. Junk’s paper explores this question by examining how water scarcity interacts with regional water treaties to influence incidents and types of intrastate violence (using SPEED data). His results show that increased renewable water availability makes all types of dissent less likely. Water treaties increase the likelihood of mass protests but decrease the likelihood of political violence.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 21: Conflict Processes

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 20: Foreign Policy

Individual Presentations

• Dams and Social Contentions in Africa - Sojeong Lee, University of Tennessee; Krista E. Wiegand, University of Tennessee

• How Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Affects Piracy - Cody Joseph Schmidt, University of Iowa; Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, University of Iowa

• International Water Treaties, Water Scarcity, and Varieties of Dissent - Christopher Junk, University of Iowa

• Natural Hazards, Migratory Flows and Conflict Risk - Kristina Petrova, Uppsala University

Chair

• Krista E. Wiegand University of Tennessee

Discussant

• Andrew Owsiak University of Georgia