Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Water resources management was one of the substantive policy areas in Mexico to undergo “neoliberal” restructuring in response to the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. Mexican water management institutions, at least in form, have shifted away from a “revolutionary” system of highly centralized, corporatist state control directed at increasing supply within a framework of large-scale public works, toward decentralized, integrated (basin-based) management oriented toward the reduction of demand within a framework of environmental regulation. This research evaluates the actual effects of this process of institutional change on trends in spending on water resources at the federal level, and at the state and local level for the five Mexican states and their constituent municipalities that comprise the Río Bravo Basin, i.e., the Mexican side of what Americans know as the Rio Grande Basin. It finds that while federal transfers to subnational governments in the basin have increased (i.e., deconcentration has occurred), devolution of autonomous revenue generating capacity to lower levels of government has not become prevalent through the year 2000.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: From the perspective of international law, governance of international environmental issues has been primarily considered as the responsibility and the right of states. This practice is consistent with the dominant theories of international relations that treat states as unitary actors with the assumption that they represent local citizens and their interests in the international institutions. However, the literature addressing international environmental policy and governance presents empirical evidences showing the influence of non-state actors on international environmental governance. Taking legal and policy perspectives, this paper investigates the dynamic relationships between states and non-state actors in governance of the Rhine River Basin. In so doing, I first discuss the evolution of the issue of the Rhine water pollution to explain how water pollution became environmental governance issues in national and transnational layers. Second, I analyze the interplay of issues, interests, and actors in the governance processes of the 1976 Chemical Convention and the Chloride Convention. The analyses of these two conventions are aimed to shed light on how state-centric international regime operated and to explain how it failed to produce the objectives and goals agreed upon in these legally binding conventions. Finally, the paper issues policy recommendations to address linkage problems across local, national, and international layers in governance of international river basins.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This course compares regions, cultures, societies, and economies within and across the Pacific Basin. The course surveys the geography and history of this region, an increasingly important arena in world affairs. From various perspectives, the course also examines contemporary issues: economic relations, migration, regional institutions, globalization, democratization, transnationalism, and the environment in the Pacific Basin. The emphasis is on the increasing integration of the Asia-Pacific.

Introduction to Pacific Basin is meant to establish a basic foundation of knowledge for freshman, which students may draw on in their upper division courses on the Asia-Pacific. Study Abroad is a requirement of the university for graduation. Since many of the students will participate in Study Abroad in East Asia, either Beijing, Nanjing, Harbin, Tokyo, or Taipei, this Pacific Basin course serves as preparation for the Study Abroad semester.

The course is divided into three segments: the Age of Imperialism, the Age of Asian Nationalism, and the Age of Globalization. Although these divisions are somewhat arbitrary, students take away a sense of how the Pacific Basin has integrated in the last five centuries.

The course introduces to freshman the primary theoretical approaches—Realism, Liberal Institutionalism, and Constructivism—which they will encounter throughout their scholarly careers as undergraduates and graduate students.

The Introduction to Pacific Basin course is a 13-week course that utilizes numerous visuals to make the subject matter come alive--documentaries and photos in weekly PowerPoint presentations, as well as several textbooks. These visuals are stored on "Angel" [similar to "Blackboard"] and will be part of the presentation.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The Boteti River is an ephemeral outflow of the Okavango River. It lies in a remote corner of Botswana where about 25,000 people eke out a difficult existence across a number of widely scattered villages and informal settlements. The river, with its seasonal streams and pans and more or less easily accessible groundwater, is vital to the livelihoods of these people, their livestock, and the wildlife that share this physical space. A combination of factors have led to widespread degradation of the physical resource base – both in the river bed itself and in the wider environment. As part of its outreach role, the Okavango Research Centre has undertaken an action-oriented research project in the Boteti to assist people there with the rehabilitation of their resource base. This project is part of a three-country partnership wherein the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia and the Surplus Peoples Project of South Africa are undertaking similar activities in the Fish River (Namibia) and the Buffels River (South Africa). Underpinning this project is the basic assumption that for integrated water resources management (IWRM) to be successful, subsidiarity – i.e. effective management by and for primary users of the resource base – is essential. This assumption is not simply a ‘fact’. It reflects the general consensus that exists among highly empowered national and transnational actors about the ways and means toward ‘equitable, efficient and sustainable’ use of water resources. For Tony Allan (2001), ‘IWRM’ constitutes the late modern ‘fifth paradigm’ regarding effective water management. Numerous global (e.g. World Water Forum) and regional (e.g. EU) forums have been constituted in the effort to work out effective ways and means of averting what is called an impending ‘world water crisis’. Various decision support tools have been developed; capacity building networks have been established; funding mechanisms have been put in place; competing national and global forums have been set up; and an endless array of websites and listserves have been created. In other words, there is now a vast global communications network in place to facilitate IWRM. Where does that leave the people of the Boteti River Basin? As activist academics, we function as a nodal point in this local/global communication network. We are the bearers of ideas and ideologies. We navigate between extreme environments – from the village kgotla (communal gathering) to the expert-led international workshop; from dusty and disorganised District Council offices where the most reliable form of communication is the telephone, to donor conference offices with all of the latest technology at your fingertips. We speak to and for local people and we speak to governments, NGOs, IGOs and donor agencies. Whereas we are interested in facilitating IWRM, this is more akin to a religious belief than the application of scientific method to a readily amenable problem.This paper articulates the various ways in which the attempt to implement IWRM in a remote African river basin is made more difficult by a vast communication divide, and the methodologies of communication brought to bear in an effort to achieve what we believe to be important ends. This divide takes many forms. For instance, many people in the basin are illiterate, so affecting outreach strategies: how do you disseminate knowledge when only a few people can read? There are also cultural barriers to communication: graphs and tables and maps are unconvincing to people who would rather ‘see for themselves’. Technological barriers are also significant, particularly where there is no electricity. To overcome this barrier, we generally hold stakeholder workshops in the District Capital, Maun, but this then pre-sets the table in favour of those actors used to modern environments (e.g. government officials, academics). Often times actors do not see the same world, so initiating an inter-paradigm debate. For example, where ORC academics generally hold late-modern, eco-centric views, many of those people you are seeking to ‘help’ hold high-modern, ‘man over nature’ views of techno-centric resource management.To overcome these various barriers, we must adjust our methologies, often in an iterative manner. Face-to-face forums are very important especially in the villages. This means that we have no way of using sophisticated decision support tools; rather, we may model a river basin out of mud and recreate through this modelling the hydrological regime of the river basin. We also must engage in extensive outreach, sometimes even bringing key stakeholders into the physical environment to enable them to see for themselves the nature of the problem and/or its source. Thus, the various tools developed at global level hold no purchase in these very important settings. As Turner (2005) points out, just because we change the language toward ‘sustainability’, this doesn’t mean that rural development is any easier. A key question remains, how do we upscale this knowledge into powerful global, regional and national decision-making forums; put differently, how do we make the village visible and its inhabitants heard?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The difficulties encountered with negotiating and sharing a common resource, like water, are well known. A conflict over water exists when an actor feels constrained in the realization of its national goals and objectives through the unilateral use of the resource by another actor. The author addresses water conflicts from the perspective of negotiation theories, by revealing the direct and indirect issues at stake and the coalition dynamics at work. In line with major theoretical debates in the field, the study aims to shed a new light on the ongoing debate on water, security and conflict, as well as power and negotiation. In order to evaluate past and prospective negotiations, a conceptual framework is developed, which identifies the actors’ main (bargaining) variables (e.g., power asymmetries, coalition dynamics, strategies) and interests (water security, territorial claims, economic development, environmental concerns) and suggests some of their inter-relations. The framework draws on negotiation analysis to show how it is that actors will tend to employ power strategies to improve short-term gains, rather than engage in cooperation toward long-term solutions, when a comprehensive settlement is not realized. Counter-strategies on the part of weaker States can prove to be effective when issue-linkage is applied in the negotiation process. In order to understand the power puzzle, the framework is applied to the Euphrates and Tigris Basins. What is the weight of water-sharing in the power dynamics of the three key actors – Syria, Turkey and Iraq? What were the negotiation strategies of Syria and Iraq, downstream riparians on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, towards their powerful upstream neighbor, Turkey. Despite its geographic, political and economic predominance, why has Turkey agreed to a minimal water allocation to Syria? Linkages between water, power and security variables are thus disentangled and the paper concludes that asymmetries of power can paradoxically favor cooperative dynamics over water between upstream and downstream riparian States.