The School of Water Governance

Water and Politics

This course explores the complex interplay between water resources and political power, unraveling how governance, economies, and social systems influence and are shaped by water management decisions. Through a critical lens, participants will engage with theories and frameworks that uncover the underlying dynamics driving water politics in different contexts.

The journey begins with “Power and Hydro-Politics,” where learners examine how authority and influence determine water access, allocation, and control. Next, “Critical Theory, Political Ecology, and the Study of Water Politics” introduces analytical approaches to understanding the deeper social and environmental implications of water governance.

In “The Political Economy and Political Ecology of Hydro-Social Dynamics,” the focus shifts to the intricate relationships between economic systems, societal structures, and water resource distribution. Finally, “A Political Ecology of River Basin Development” explores the transformative impacts of large-scale water projects on ecosystems and communities, revealing the tensions and trade-offs involved.

This course equips participants with the tools to critically analyze and navigate the challenges of water politics, offering a nuanced understanding of how power and policy shape the world’s most vital resource.

Course Provider

The detailed information about each instructor involved in this course is provided in each lesson.

NEWAVE e-Lecture Series

This course is part of the NEWAVE e-Lecture Series on Water Governance Theoretical Perspectives. This online training module is designed to engage the NEWAVE Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) and the wider public in interactive, thought-provoking discussions on various water governance theoretical perspectives. Learn more about the e-lecture series here (Link).

Course Content

The presentation seeks to remedy the ‘power-blindness’ of much water governance and diplomacy literature, arguing that water is not necessarily contested, but when it is subject to power, that is not necessarily negative. It discusses some ways of categorising and operationalising power in understanding water conflict and cooperation.

Instructor: Prof. Jeroen Warner

Dr. Jeroen Warner is an Associate Professor of Crisis and Disaster Studies, Sociology of Development, and Change Group at Wageningen University. He took his MSc in International Relations from the University of Amsterdam and his Ph.D. in Disaster Studies from Wageningen University. Dr. Warner teaches, trains, and publishes on domestic and transboundary water conflict and cooperation, participatory resource management, and governance issues. His main research interests in the disaster studies domain are disaster construction, disaster politics, social resilience, and culture, especially in cities. He has long experience of working in Bangladesh and Brazil.

Recommended readings: Power and hydro-politics

References:

  • Warner, J., & de Man, R. (2020). Powering hydrodiplomacy: How a broader power palette can deepen our understanding of water conflict dynamics. Environmental Science & Policy, 114, 283-294.
  • Carstensen, M. B., & Schmidt, V. A. (2016). Power through, over and in ideas: conceptualizing ideational power in discursive institutionalism. Journal of European public policy, 23(3), 318-337.
  • Clement, F. (2013). For critical social-ecological system studies: integrating power and discourses to move beyond the right institutional fit. Environmental Conservation, 40(1), 1-4.
  • Warner, J. & Wegerich, K. (2010). Is water political? Towards international water relations. In: K. Wegerich & J. Warner (Eds.): The politics of water: a survey. London Routledge.

This lecture will make the case for a critical theory- and political ecology-informed approach towards water politics. It will introduce the distinction between ‘critical’ and ‘positivist’ (or ‘problem-solving) theories, drawing upon the work of International Relations scholar Robert Cox and the earlier work of Max Horkheimer. It will consider how this distinction may be applied to water politics, and environmental politics more broadly, as well as the value of doing so. It will then introduce ‘political ecology’ as one type of critical theoretical approach. And it will illustrate the value of adopting a political ecology approach towards water issues through brief consideration of three issues: (1) the roots of the socio-ecological crisis in north-east Syria; (2) Israeli-Palestinian water inequalities; and at a different scale (3) the global trade in what is often called ‘virtual water’.

Instructor: Prof. Jan Selby

Jan Selby joined the University of Sheffield in June 2020 as Professor of Politics and International Relations. After completing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Lancaster (2002), Jan’s first post was as a lecturer in Lancaster’s Department of Politics and IR. After a short stint at Aberystwyth, he then moved to the Department of IR, University of Sussex, where he worked for 15 years (2005-20). He held several leadership positions at Sussex, including Head of Department (2007-09), Director of Research (2011-20), and Director of the cross-disciplinary Sussex Centre for Conflict and Security Research (2012-18). Professor Selby’s research and teaching focus on climate change, water and energy politics, though he also works periodically on themes in IR theory, and conflict, peacebuilding and development.

Recommended readings: Critical theory, political ecology, and the study of water politics

References:

  • Cox R.W. (1981). Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. Millennium – Journal of International Studies 1981; 10; 126.
  • Selby, J .(2014). Positivist Climate Conflict Research: A Critique, Geopolitics, 19:4, 829-856.
  • Selby, J .(2019). Climate change and the Syrian civil war, Part II: The Jazira’s agrarian crisis. Elsevier, Geoforum 101 (2019) 260-274

We are witnessing something unprecedented: Water no longer flows downhill. It flows towards money (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) Over the past few years, a growing body of work has emerged on the political-economy and political-ecology of water and water circulation. This is re-defining the contours of water resources research and opening up an exciting and vitally important research agenda for the years to come. Political-ecological perspectives on water suggest a close correlation between the transformations of and in the hydrological cycle at local, regional, and global levels on the one hand and relations of social, political, economic, and/or cultural power on the other.

In a sustained attempt to transcend the modernist nature-society binaries, hydro-social research envisions the circulation of water as a combined physical and social process, as a hybridised socio-natural flow that fuses together nature and society in inseparable manners. It calls for revisiting traditional fragmented and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of water by insisting on the inseparability of the social and the physical in the production of particular hydro-social configurations. Such perspective opens all manner of new and key research issues and urges considering a transformation in the way in which water policies are thought about, formulated, and implemented. The seminar will focus on both conceptual issues and provide empirical illustrations.

Instructor: Prof. Erik Swyngedouw

Prof. Erik Swyngedouw is a professor of geography at the University of Manchester in the School of Environment, Education and Development, and a member of the Manchester Urban Institute. Prof. Swyngedouw has committed his studies to political-economic analysis of contemporary capitalism, producing several major works on economic globalisation, regional development, finance, and urbanisation. His interests have also included political-ecological themes, and the transformation of nature, urban governance, politics of scale, notably water issues, in Ecuador, Spain, the UK, and elsewhere in Europe. His recent work focuses on democratic politics and the strategies and tactics of new political movements, and the political ecology of desalination. He has published over 100 academic papers in leading academic journals in geography and cognate disciplines and in scholarly books.

Recommended readings: The political economy and political ecology of hydro-social dynamics

References:
  • Swyngedouw, E. (1997). Power, Nature, and the City. The Conquest of Water and the Political Ecology of Urbanization in Guayaquil, Ecuador: 1880–1990. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 29(2), 311–332.
  • Swyngedouw, E. (1999), Modernity and Hybridity: Nature, Regeneracionismo, and the Production of the Spanish Waterscape, 1890–1930. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89: 443-465.
  • Swyngedouw, Erik., Kaika, Maria & Castro, Jose Esteban. (2002). Urban Water: A Political Ecology Perspective. Built Environment (1978-). 28. 124-137.
  • Swyngedouw, Erik. (2013). UN Water Report 2012: Depoliticizing Water. Development and Change. 44. 10.1111/dech.12033.
  • Boelens,R., Hoogesteger, J., Swyngedouw, E., Vos, J. & Wester, P. (2016). Hydrosocial territories: a political ecology perspective. Water International vol 41, No.1, 1-14.

There is a puzzling question as to why societies invariably over-develop their resources and over-extended their capacity to abstract water. Societal and political reasons are first reviewed. But what is overlooked is the consequence of overexploitation over the greater and tighter interconnectedness of users and ecosystems in a system that lack slack to adjust. This has crucial implications in terms of governance since the impacts of particular interventions on the hydrological cycle will be heightened and the distribution of costs and benefits will become a paramount issue. This presentation reviews the diversity of such impacts and emphasizes how they should be taken into consideration in a comprehensive water governance approach.

Instructor: Prof. François Molle

François Molle has 34 years of experience in research for development in the fields of irrigation systems and irrigated farming systems analysis, water resources development and management, and water governance and policy. His initial expertise shifted from small dam systems (Northeast of Brazil) to large scale irrigation management (Mali, then Thailand, Sri Lanka, Egypt), to the analysis of regional development (Southeast Asian and Nile Deltas), river basin governance, and water policy (Southeast Asia, Jordan, Iran, Sri Lanka, Syria, Egypt), and groundwater governance (Middle-east and Northern Africa). François Molle is mostly interested in multi-disciplinary and systemic approach of irrigation systems, aquifers and river basins, governance and policy analysis, and in the interaction between societies, technology, and the environment.

Recommended readings: A political ecology of river basin development

References:

  • Molle, F. (2009). Water, politics, and river basin governance: Repoliticizing approaches to river basin management. Water International 34(1): 62-70.
  • Huitema, D. and S. Meijerink (2017). The politics of river basin organizations: institutional design choices, coalitions, and consequences. Ecology and Society 22(2):42.
  • Molle, F . (2008). Why enough is never enough: The societal determinants of river basin closure. International Journal of Water Resource Development 24(2): 247-256.