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

Selby, Jan

doi:10.1017/s026021050300007x

Cited by 84 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 3 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…One way that Israel maintains the consolidated control it has over the water resources is through the use of institutional structures set up in the 1995 Oslo II accords -the Israeli -Palestinian Joint Water Committee (JWC). Selby has described the Joint Water Committee as a tool more of domination than of cooperation (Selby, 2003b), one that ensures "joint mismanagement" of shared resources (Selby, 2005). An inequitable distribution of the water resources and an unresolved water conflict with its neighbours is the result.…”

Section: Some Outcomes Of Hydro-hegemonymentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydro-hegemony – a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts

2006

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The increasing structural and physical scarcity of water across the globe calls for a deeper understanding of transboundary water conflicts. Conventional analysis tends to downplay the role that power asymmetry plays in creating and maintaining situations of water conflict that fall short of the violent form of war and to treat as unproblematic situations of cooperation occurring in an asymmetrical context. The conceptual Framework of Hydro-Hegemony presented herein attempts to give these two features -power and varying intensities of conflict -their respective place in the perennial and deeply political question: who gets how much water, how and why?Hydro-hegemony is hegemony at the river basin level, achieved through water resource control strategies such as resource capture, integration and containment. The strategies are executed through an array of tactics (e.g. coercionpressure, treaties, knowledge construction, etc.) that are enabled by the exploitation of existing power asymmetries within a weak international institutional context. Political processes outside the water sector configure basin-wide hydro-political relations in a form ranging from the benefits derived from cooperation under hegemonic leadership to the inequitable aspects of domination. The outcome of the competition in terms of control over the resource is determined through the form of hydro-hegemony established, typically in favour of the most powerful actor.The Framework of Hydro-hegemony is applied to the Nile, Jordan and Tigris and Euphrates river basins, where it is found that current hydro-hegemonic configurations tend towards the dominative form.. There is evidence in each case of power asymmetries influencing an inequitable outcome -at the expense of lingering, low-intensity conflicts. It is proposed that the framework provides an analytical paradigm useful for examining the options of such powerful or hegemonized riparians and how they might move away from domination towards cooperation.

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Section: Some Outcomes Of Hydro-hegemonymentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydro-hegemony – a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts

2006

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“…Negotiating the scale of management under conditions of power asymmetry can also explain why some international scholars have criticized the spatial institutional components of the IsraeliPalestinian agreements, including setting the JWC jurisdiction over the West Bank rather than the entire Mountain Aquifer. This spatial choice was called "dressing up domination as co-operation" (Selby 2003) or as an "imposed-order regime" that benefits the Israeli side at the expense of Palestinian water (Zeitoun 2007).…”

Section: Discussion: Lessons From the Israeli Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Spaces of Water Governance: The Case of Israel and Its Neighbors

Feitelson

Fischhendler

2009

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

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This article examines the scale dynamics of water governance. Five generic scales are identified, each associated with a particular ideology and discourse. Hence, scale dynamics are hypothesized to oscillate as a function not only of power and economic factors (although these are central) but as reflections of shifts in dominant ideologies and shifts in sanctioned discourses. The dynamics are examined in the intra-Israeli and the Israeli-Arab cases. In the intra-Israeli case the scale dynamics largely conform with the hypothesis. Once the national level is exceeded, however, the different story lines associated with the generic scales are used only to legitimize negotiating positions, and the actual regime scale is a compromise among physical features, power factors, and sovereignty considerations. The difference in dynamics between the intranational and international levels is explained by the need of international regimes to address the discrepancy between resource domains and sovereignty rights domains, rather than the discrepancy with property rights domains at the intrastate level.Este artículo examina la dinámica de escala sobre el gobierno del agua. Se identifican cinco escalas genéricas, cada cual asociada con una ideología y discurso particular. En consecuencia, se hipotetiza que las dinámicas de escala oscilan como una función, no solo de factores económicos y de poder (aunqueéstos son centrales), sino como reflejo de cambios en las ideologías dominantes y cambios de los discursos autorizados. Las dinámicas son examinadas a la luz de casos en contexto israelí e israelí-árabe. En el caso israelí propiamente dicho, la dinámica de escala en gran parte está conforme con la hipótesis. Tan pronto como se transmonta el nivel nacional, sin embargo, las diferentes líneas de la historia asociadas con las escalas genéricas se utilizan apenas para legitimar posiciones de negociación, y la escala del régimen real aparece como un compromiso entre rasgos físicos, factores de poder y consideraciones de soberanía. La diferencia de dinámica entre los niveles intranacionales e internacionales se explica más por la necesidad que tienen los regímenes internacionales de tomar en cuenta la discrepancia entre dominios de los recursos y dominios de los derechos de soberanía, que por la discrepancia con dominios de derechos de propiedad al nivel intraestatal. Palabras clave: Israelí-árabe, escala, transfronterizo, agua.

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“…While the presence of a bilateral agreement may look like sign of good cooperation, often agreements are not implemented or are the cause of conflictive relations (Selby 2003;Zeitoun and Mirumachi 2008). In the Yarmouk case, the presence of agreements with Jordan coexisted with the presence of conflictive relations over the allocation of the waters of the Yarmouk.…”

Section: Shaping Contexts In the Yarmouk Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic political contexts and power asymmetries: the cases of the Blue Nile and the Yarmouk Rivers

Hussein

Grandi

2017

Int Environ Agreements

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This paper explores the evolving patterns of hydropolitical relations in the dynamic contexts of Yarmouk and Blue Nile Rivers in comparison. The analysis aims at shedding light over the complex implications that recent political and social changes have aroused for the water disputes between Jordan and Syria on the one hand, and Ethiopia and Egypt on the other. In both basins, cooperative efforts toward the integrated management of transboundary waters have been only partially effective and largely undermined by the perpetuation of unilateral actions by riparian states. In the case studies, the lack of a basinwide vision over the control and use of shared waters has resulted in disputes among the basin states and ultimately in an unsustainable, unfair, and unwise utilization of the resources. This paper argues that a substantive and effective integration of national water policies is unlikely to occur, unless power asymmetries are properly addressed in order to overcome the likelihood of hegemonic regimes.

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

Cited by 84 publications

References 3 publications

Hydro-hegemony – a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts

Hydro-hegemony – a framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts

Spaces of Water Governance: The Case of Israel and Its Neighbors

Dynamic political contexts and power asymmetries: the cases of the Blue Nile and the Yarmouk Rivers

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