The water weapon: Havoc and harmony over international rivers (India, Pakistan, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, Syria)

For forty-three years, India and Pakistan maintained stable cooperation over the Indus River. During this period, Jordan and Israel oscillated from conflict to cooperation over the Jordan River. Finally, Turkey and Syria spent this time fighting over their Euphrates River. What accounts for this variation from conflict and cooperation?; This study proposes a two-step answer to this research question. Before introducing these steps, it is necessary to understand that international rivers impose an interdependent and vulnerable relationship on their states. This occurs because every upstream activity influences the quality and quantity of water available to the downstream state. Similarly, downstream activities influence the upstream state's ability to develop the river. Moreover, rivers bestow onto their states the potential use of the water weapon. This means that states possess leverage over their riparian neighbors. This leverage permits them to impose economic, political, and military losses. These losses arise because a state's ability to meet its food and energy needs, respond to floods and droughts, maintain its drainage systems, or allocate its domestic water budget is threatened.; To minimize losses, states must communicate and they establish either an informal or a formal institution. Regardless of their formality, all institutions possess a design dictating their capabilities. The first step of the argument is to demonstrate that institutional design has a direct impact on states' ability to manage peacefully their water disputes. If the institution has the capacity to monitor and it contains conflict resolution mechanisms, it is able to facilitate and maintain cooperation. However, as these capabilities decline, so will the institution's ability to facilitate cooperation.; The second step pushes back the causal chain to understand the origin of institutional design. It argues that the nature of the hydrological structure states confront has a direct impact on investment in design. The hydrological structure consists of two elements, the quantity of water carried by the river and the extent to which states developed the river. The former is the distributional conflict and the latter is hydrological interdependence. The variation in the combination of these elements has a direct impact on investment in design.