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Karin Aggestam

Karin Aggestam

Professor | Director of CMES | Scientific Coordinator of MECW

Karin Aggestam

Depoliticising water conflict. The quest for functional peacebuilding in the Red Sea-Dead-Sea-Water-Conveyance project.

Author

  • Karin Aggestam
  • Anna Sundell

Summary, in English

This article analyses the nexus of technocracy-peacebuilding and its implications on water conflicts and hydropolitics. It is a conceptual exploration, which advances an interdisciplinary approach by combining theories from two distinct research fields: peacebuilding and transboundary water management. It probes the argument that synergies between water management, development and peacebuilding frequently lead to technocratic and functional solutions. As empirical case illustration, the transboundary project, the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance (RSDSWC) is analysed regarding its peacebuilding and peace promoting potential. Three concluding remarks are drawn from the conceptual and empirical analysis. First, strong emphasis on technocratic solutions is inclined to favour supply-oriented options rather than solutions based on ethics of sustainable development and right-based distribution. Second, functional solutions to water conflicts downplay at times complex hydro-political and asymmetrical relations between adversaries. Third, wider trends of privatisation in the water sector coincide with similar developments in the field of peacebuilding where new transnational actors are gaining influence as “new peacemakers”, which are likely to have long-term consequences on power relations and the resolution of water conflict.

Department/s

  • MECW: The Middle East in the Contemporary World
  • Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)
  • Department of Political Science
  • Middle Eastern Studies

Publishing year

2016

Language

English

Pages

1302-1312

Publication/Series

Hydrological Sciences Journal

Volume

61

Issue

7

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)

Keywords

  • Read Sea
  • hydropolitics
  • technocracy
  • depoliticisation
  • peacebuilding
  • water conflict
  • Dead Sea
  • Israel
  • Jordan
  • Palestinians

Status

Published

Project

  • Lund Human Rights Research Hub

Research group

  • Middle East politics
  • Freds- och konfliktforskning

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0262-6667