Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East

Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East provides an original and critical analysis of the nature and causes of the Palestinian water crisis. Though much has been written on Middle East water problems, the existing literature tends to reproduce particular assumptions and perspectives. Little is [...]
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Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East provides an original and critical analysis of the nature and causes of the Palestinian water crisis. Though much has been written on Middle East water problems, the existing literature tends to reproduce particular assumptions and perspectives. Little is said about structural contexts and constraints, about internal water conflicts, about the difficulties that confront states in controlling their domestic water arenas, or about uncertainties surrounding scientific and technical data. Jan Selby's important new work exposes the inadequacies of many of the current arguments and raises the profile of issues that have been underplayed. He draws on not just the conventional sources but those that are often omitted - testimonies from local water engineers and administrators, narrative accounts of people's everyday experiences of water crises, and eyewitness accounts of people's coping strategies. He argues that the water crisis needs to be approached from a range of scales and perspectives - from the long historical patterns of state formation and development within which water crises emerge, to the practices through which people adapt to water shortages in the course of their everyday interaction - and he frames the problems in relation to broader patterns of politics, political economy, state formation and development. The result is a refreshing and hard-hitting analysis that will interest scholars and practitioners in Middle East studies, water policy, politics and international relations, and environmental management. This original analysis of the Middle East water problems highlights questions and issues which have so far only received minimal attention. The author develops a multi-layered account of the nature and causes of the conflict and the Palestinian water crisis. Each chapter addresses a particular aspect of the Israeli-Palestine water conflict and the author uses these to illustrate both the broader nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations and factors that the existing water literature underplays or simply gets wrong. The book will interest students, scholars and practitioners in a wide range of disciplines including Middle East studies, politics and international relations, water policy, geography, environmental studies and environmental management.