The politics of fresh water resources

In this dissertation I explore the political consequences of sharing fresh water resources. The very nature of water resources makes them conflictual because of the problem of hold up. The problem of hold up requires that three elements be present. First, there must be a specific asset. This is an asset that would be greatly reduced in value in any other situation. The second element is that the contracts governing the relations must be incomplete. Finally, there must be some value in hold up for the other actor. The fact that development on a river is a specific asset makes the relationship between riparians precarious at times. In an economic setting the consequence of being held up is monetary. When dealing with states rather than firms, the consequences are much more likely to be political. States can attempt to use leverage generated by the control over a river to attempt to make political gains over fellow riparians.; The dissertation has three main findings. First, that states that share fresh water resources are more likely to become involved in international conflict. In addition, states that place a high demand on their domestic fresh water resources are also more likely to become involved in international militarized conflict. Second, the types of agreements that states enter into to regulate water resources can impact their overall political relations with one another. Agreements that try to integrate the resource under a common authority tend to have positive long-term effects on political relations; while agreements that institutionalize concepts, such as absolute sovereignty, can harm long-term political relations between states. Finally, the presence of government does not eliminate political conflict over the distribution of fresh water resources.