| In a world characterized by wide-spread ecological degradation, the disjunction between political borders and ecological processes presents a significant barrier to international cooperation around environmental problems. While the dynamics of ecological systems require that they be understood and addressed at the ecosystem scale, politics remains overwhelmingly centered at the state scale. Nowhere is this more evident than in international river basins, where the tension between flowing water and sovereign, territorial states creates a particularly complex political-ecological situation. To avoid the conflicts that are inherent to this situation, states enter into agreements to cooperate around river basin development. Yet the nature of international cooperation is such that it often reproduces the norms and practices of sovereignty---along with the values and assumptions that underpin it---thereby never truly overcoming the barriers to an ecosystem approach.; This dissertation analyzes the sovereignty-environment nexus in the Mekong River Basin, drawing on empirical and theoretical research in adaptive management and environmental governance. The Mekong River posses through or borders six states as it flows from the Plateau of Tibet to the South China Sea. While the river today is largely free-flowing, it is the focus of plans for over one hundred large dams on its mainstream and tributaries. River basin ecology stands to be dramatically altered by this hydro-development, and environmental alteration is likely to affect millions of people whose livelihoods are linked to the ecological processes sustained by a free-flowing river. By analyzing current efforts at 'sustainable river basin development,' the research reveals that different representations of the river---as a natural resource issue, a legal structure, or a commodity---enable and justify particular norms and practices of sovereignty, which, in turn, act as barriers to ecosystem governance. The research demonstrates that sovereignty---expressed through autonomy, legitimacy, and control---is especially resilient in regional river basin planning and development in the Mekong Basin. The research concludes that ensuring ecological integrity in this international river basin may require not only alternatives to the sovereign, territorial state, but also to the cultural practices and perspectives of modernity that underpin the state system. |
