Jan Selby

Dressing up domination as ‘cooperation’: the case of Israeli-Palestinian water relations

This article analyses the extent to which Israeli-Palestinian water relations were affected and transformed by the Oslo process. Focusing in turn on the management of water systems and supplies, the monitoring of water resources and the development of new supplies, the article suggests that many of the seeming and much-lauded achievements of the Oslo process were more cosmetic than real. Comparing Israeli-Palestinian water relations before and since the onset of the Oslo process, the article contends that the Oslo agreements did little more in this particular sphere than to dress up and discursively repackage Israels domination of the West Bank water sector in a new vocabulary of Israeli-Palestinian ‘cooperation’.

The Geopolitics of Water in the Middle East: fantasies and realities

Most expert and public discourse on Middle Eastern water politics holds that water scarcities are of great, if often under-recognised, geopolitical importance. Pessimists and optimists alike tend to assume that water has, or soon will have, profound geopolitical implications. In this paper I argue to the contrary. Specifically, I contend that water problems should neither be understood in naturalistic nor in liberal – technical terms, but instead as questions of political economy; that water is structurally insignificant within the political economy of the modern Middle East; that in consequence water is generally unimportant as a source of inter-state conflict and co-operation; and that, notwithstanding this, water supplies are a crucial site and cause of local conflicts in many parts of the region. I submit also that given the worsening state of economic development within the Middle East, these local conflict dynamics are likely to further deteriorate.

The myth of liberal peace-building

‘Liberal peace-building’ is a subject of intense debate within contemporary IR. This article contends, however, that for all the merits of much of the work on the subject, the overall terms of the debate are rooted in a series of questionable assumptions. Proponents and critics alike hold that peace-building is an essentially liberal project, over which there is a global (or Western) consensus, and which is pursued by a decentralised plurality of institutions irrespective of the particularly of war-endings. This article shows that this is misleading. Focusing on the relations between peace agreements and peace-building, it shows that peace agreements are contextually specific political arrangements, driven above all by strategic considerations of power and legitimacy, in relation to which liberal peace-building doctrines and practices are unevenly applied, instrumentalised or plain ignored—including by international actors. It argues in turn that liberal peace-building discourse overstates both the liberalism of contemporary peace interventions, and the degree of global consensus thereover, and fails to capture the enduring centrality of states, strategy and geopolitics in the making of peace. These arguments are developed with reference to a wide range of cases of post-Cold War peace interventions, though with especial focus on UN peace-building in Cambodia in the early 1990s.

Positivist Climate Conflict Research: A Critique

In recent years a large body of work has emerged that uses a positivist epistemology and quantitative methods to assess the likely conflict impacts of global climate change. This article advances a critique of this positivist climate conflict research programme, identifying within it three serial shortcomings. It contends, first, that the correlations identified by this research are specious, since they always rest upon coding and causal assumptions which range from the arbitrary to the untenable. It argues, second, that even if the correlations identified within this research were significant and meaningful, they would still not constitute a sound basis for making predictions about the conflict impacts of climate change. And it submits, third, that this research programme reflects and reproduces an ensemble of Northern stereotypes, ideologies and policy agendas. A departure from positivist method is required, the article contends, if we are to get close to thinking through the wide-ranging political and conflict implications of the human transformation of the global climate.

Joint Mismanagement: Reappraising the Oslo Water Regime

This chapter offers a critique of the Oslo II regime for the joint management of the West Bank’s water resources, systems and supplies, arguing that this regime should more accurately be thought of as evidence of ‘joint mismanagement’. The argument is threefold. First, that the Oslo II regime was premised on a chimera of ‘cooperation’, which differed in little more than name from the occupation regime that predated it. Second, that the Oslo II regime was a license for environmental destruction, especially of the West Bank’s Eastern Aquifer. And third, that the structure of the Oslo process as a whole militated against the development of effective institutions and against ‘good governance’, in the water sector as elsewhere. The collapse of Oslo should not blind us to the fact that the Oslo II regime does not represent a good model for joint Israeli-Palestinian water management

Global Governance, Conflict and Resistance

Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction J.Selby PART I: STATES, WAR AND CAPITALISM Global Liberal Governance: Networks, Resistance and War M.Dillon Global Governance and State Collapse C.Clapham Global Governance and Conflict Prevention H.Miall Against Global Governance? Tracing the Lineage of the Anti-Globalization Movement P.Wilkin PART II: GLOBAL GOVERNANCE IN POST-CONFLICT ZONES Global Governance and Resistance in Post-War Transition: The Case of Eastern Slavonia and Bosnia J.Large Governance and Resistance in Palestine: Simulations, Confrontations, Sumoud J.Selby Bowling Together Within a Divided Community: Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Conflict: F.Cochrane PART III: RESISTANCE TO GLOBAL REGIMES Global Environmental Governance and Local Resistance: The Global Trade in Ivory R.Duffy Economic Governance in the Information Age: Counter-Hegemonic Challenges and Sub-Hegemonic Adaptations in East Asia N-L.Sum A Provocative Dependence? The Global Financial System and Small Island Tax Havens M.P.Hampton & J.Christensen Conclusion R.Duffy & F.Cochrane Bibliography Index

Rethinking climate change, conflict and security

This special issue of Geopolitics presents a series of critical interventions on the links between global anthropogenic climate change, conflict and security. In this introduction, we situate the special issue by providing an assessment of the state of debate on climate security, and then by summarising the eight articles that follow. We observe, to start with, that contemporary climate security discourse is dominated by a problematic ensemble of policy-led framings and assumptions. And we submit that the contributions to this issue help rethink this dominant discourse in two distinct ways, offering both a series of powerful critiques, plus new interpretations of climate-conflict linkages which extend beyond Malthusian orthodoxy.

The political economy of peace processes

When, during the summer of 2007, the Catholic Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, Sean Brady, attended a celebration of Irish culture in Milwaukee, he had more to speak on than the usual subjects of social breakdown and sexual abuse; his other main concern was to promote inward investment to support the Northern Ireland peace process. Echoing pleas by political, economic and cultural leaders across the Northern Irish political spectrum, he called on the British government to bring down corporation tax in the North to the same 12.5 per cent level as in the Irish Republic, and urged American companies to increase their investment in Northern Ireland (Cooney, 2007). His call was made at a time of growing concern within the Republic about the potential economic repercussions of the resumption of power-sharing in Belfast — a concern that economic growth may become increasingly concentrated in the Dublin-Belfast corridor, crystallised above all by an Aer Lingus decision to open a new Belfast flight hub at the expense of established routes from Shannon (Connolly, 2007). And his call was also made against a backdrop of ongoing discussions in the North, and with London, over a plethora of economic issues — about water bills, house prices, public sector investment, cross-border cooperation and much more besides.

Water scarcity, conflict, and migration: a comparative analysis and reappraisal

How should we characterise the relations between environmental scarcity, conflict, and migration? Most academic and policy analyses conclude that scarcities of environmental resources can have significant impacts upon conflict and migration, and claim or imply that within the context of accelerating global environmental changes these impacts are likely to become more significant still. Many analyses admittedly recognise that these impacts are often indirect rather than direct and that there exist multiple ‘drivers’ of conflict and migration, of which environmental stresses are but one. We argue that even these qualifications do not go far enough, however: they still overstate the current and likely future significance of environmental changes and stresses in contributing to conflict and migration and underemphasise a far more important causal pathway—from conflict and migration to environmental vulnerabilities. These arguments are advanced via a comparative analysis of water—migration—conflict linkages in Cyprus and Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.

Control and flow : rethinking the sociology, technology and politics of water consumption

This chapter summarizes the control and flow of water consumptions, where spatial dimensions parallel different temporal dimensions, in which sustainability discourses are employed. The domain of human choice and consumption is heavily contested, and “eco-tourism,” however rhetorical, is a convenient label on which to hang contrary messages. Practical and theoretical implications for the representation and analysis of sustainable consumption are explained. The processes of ordering and management of the specific technologies involved in channeling and organizing water are also discussed. By implication, policy analysis that considers the institutions of water supply without taking note of the technological and other infrastructures through which actions and practices have effect are severely limited. To simplify the task, three genres of water technology are considered: “barriers” which is used to separate wet from dry, “containers” used to store water, and “purifiers” that is used to create and distinguish among different types.