The Politics Of Water In Africa Norms Environmental Regions And Transboundary Cooperation In The Orangesenqu And Nile Rivers Inga M Jacobs

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List of Illustrations
LIST OF MAPS
Map I.1 Shared River basins in Africa 6
Map 3.1 The Orange-Senqu River basin 64
Map 4.1 The Nile River basin 109
Map 4.2 Chinese support to hydraulic development projects in the Nile 139
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1 The conventional cooperation-conflict continuum of cater 20
Figure 2.1 Conventional norm development (first and second wave) 53
Figure 3.1 Demand requirements in the Orange-Senqu River basin 66
Figure 3.2 Schematic timeline showing the emergence of different water
management institutions in the Orange-Senqu Basin over time 82
Figure 3.3 The current institutional framework of the Orange-
Senqu River basin 98
Figure 4.1 NBI operational structure 119
Figure 4.2 Timeline of political events in the NELSB region 129
Figure 4.3 The current institutional framework of the Nile Equatorial
Lakes Sub-Basin 136
Figure 5.1 Multi-level development of cooperative norms in
water governance 176
Figure 6.1 Conceptual illustration of the primary processes and causal
linkages between water, energy, food security and development 183
Figure 6.2 SADC Water Sector’s Policy Harmonisation (PH) Imperatives 189
Figure 6.3 Institutional complexity in Africa 191
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List of Tables
Table 3.1 Physical characteristics of the Orange-Senqu River basin 65
Table 3.2 Contributions to the Orange-Senqu River basin by country 66
Table 3.3 Composition and mandate of Joint Institutions for Water
Management in the Orange-Senqu River basin 83
Table 3.4 Agreements, Treaties and Protocols established solely
between the basin states of the Orange-Senqu River 90
Table 4.1 Physical characteristics of the Nile River basin 108
Table 4.2 Contributions to the Nile River basin by country 110
Table 6.1 Policy harmonization at different levels of scale 188
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Foreword
Is water a technical or a political issue? Certainly the water sector is totally dominated
by technical people, mostly engineers, but also natural scientists of various persuasion.
Political scientists are a rare breed in the water sector, certainly in South Africa, but also
globally. Personally I believe that water is not purely a technical issue. In fact, I have gone
so far as to say that our national economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of our national
hydrology. This is so because economic development is predicated on the one flawed
assumption of continued growth. Indeed, financial analysts value shares traded on the
various stock exchanges of the world, by taking the net asset value and multiplying it
by the future growth potential. Without future growth potential that multiplier equals
zero, and so the share is deemed to have insufficient value to trigger a buy option. Our
economy is thus predicated on the flawed assumption that growth is inevitable and
continuous, and this probably lies at the heart of the current global economic crisis.
This makes water political, because our economies are nested within ecosystems and
these are sustained by the flow of water across landscapes and through countries. These
environmental systems provide the source and sink relationship to the economy that is
starting to become relevant. A fundamental assumption underpinning ecology is that
of dynamic equilibrium. This is not a stable state, but rather an equilibrium that sees a
series of processes balancing each other to the point where those ecosystems function
within a range of parameters that are ‘useful’ to mankind. Economies can grow while
ecosystems are capable of providing the source/sink services needed, because we know
it is simply illogical to assume that something which is assumed to be driven only
by constant growth can be nested within, and sustained by, something that is known
to be in dynamic equilibrium. In short there are finite limits to ecosystems, and by
implication there are finite limits to the economic growth potential, and thus capacity
to create jobs, of the various national economies.
After the global economic meltdown in 2008, the investment community suddenly
became aware of undisclosed risk. This triggered a new drive to understand risk
inherent to stocks being traded on global markets, and from this came an interest in
water as an element of economic growth and development. One such analyst – Susan
Chang – published a piece in The Investment Professional, the official journal of the
New York Society of Security Analysts, entitled A Watershed Moment: Calculating the
Risks of Impending Water Shortages. Chang noted that ‘by 2025 it is estimated that
1.8 billion people will be living in conditions of absolute water scarcity (defined as
annual per capita freshwater availability below 1,000 cubic metres a year), and two-
thirds of the world’s population could be living under water-stressed conditions (with
annual freshwater availability below 1,700 cubic metres per capita)’. This has major
implications for governments, security forces, investors and decision-makers in both
the public and private sectors, because in effect, many of the problems currently
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Foreword ix
plaguing the developing world will start to manifest in the developed countries as
well. The financial and investment community is smart and they have got it right the
first time. Water is indeed the foundation to our global economy, so with population
growth trends being what they are, and water availability being finite, it is inevitable
that increased competition over water resources will drive politics globally.
That is why this book is so important, because it seeks to offer a systematic
understanding of how sovereign states engage over the emerging issue of water as a
limiting factor to future economic development potential. The big question is, will
sovereign states seek to cooperate or compete for dwindling resources? Will they find
new optima at levels of analysis and management above the river basin or sovereign
nation state? If so, what will that unit of management be? If it is at the supranational
level, then what norms, environmental regions and instruments of transboundary
cooperation will emerge? Will sovereignty cease to be relevant in a new world
redefined by water availability, as opposed to boundaries arbitrarily determined by
former colonial powers and past military conflict?
Africa has the lowest conversion ratio of rainfall to run-off in the world. This has
caused the World Bank to suggest that Africa is hostage to hydrology, with many
national economies being directly coupled to the vagaries of the weather. The more
developed countries in Africa have managed to decouple their national economies by
building hydraulic infrastructure. But is this enough to sustain economic growth and
job creation in the face of finite limits to water resources, and variable flow regimes
driven by climate change? Will these countries’ comparative advantage be slowly
eroded away as population growth drives water stress, or will they be able to renegotiate
themselves into an advantaged future in the various transboundary river basins of the
continent? Will endemic water scarcity provide currently disadvantaged states with
new leverage to negotiate better equity in the allocation of natural resources? Will
the various governments manage to incentivize the creation of the type of ingenuity
needed to solve these increasingly complex problems?
All of these are political questions and all of these are based on water. Indeed, Africa
has 64 known transboundary rivers that collectively contain around 93% of the total
water available, covering 61% of the surface area of the continent, in which a staggering
77% of the population lives. If water is important, then transboundary water is a very
big deal indeed, and this is why the book is relevant. It represents the state of the art with
respect to Political Science and international relations (IR) theory as it pertains to the
management of rivers that cross international borders. Drawing heavily on the work of
various Political Science and IR scholars active in the global water sector, the author has
systematically pieced together a body of knowledge that exceeds the value of the sum of
its constituent parts. In short, this is an authoritative presentation of theory and practice
in the management of water resources that is of use to managers, technicians, decision-
makers in government and the corporate world, journalists and scholars.
Dr. Anthony Turton
Professor: Centre for Environmental Management,
University of Free State, South Africa
Founding Trustee: Water Stewardship Council Trust
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Preface
My journey with water, and specifically, transboundary rivers started seven years ago.
As a scholar of international relations (IR), I started out intrigued by the popular
dinner table topic at the time that the wars of the twenty-first century could be about a
resource as ‘unassuming’ as water. Water has and always will be a vital resource essential
to human survival and for which there is no substitute. While water is still seen as a
‘renewable resource’, reality dictates that there is only a finite quantity of water available,
a limitation acutely felt in water-scarce regions. It therefore necessitates sharing but is
rather desired to be controlled and confined.
The late 1990s saw a surge of literature investigating the links between water and
war, labelling water disputes as one of the ‘New Wars’ in Africa, and comparing it to
the likes of other resource wars such as those over oil and diamonds. In response, a
slew of research from a diverse range of disciplines found evidence to the contrary
and the debate over ‘water wars’ was won in favour of cooperation. However, despite
numerous pro-peace academic accounts, fear perceptions forecasting conflict
scenarios still rear their heads from time to time in the public mind. The most
recent contributions (Warner, 2012) attribute this to frames and narratives created
by individuals who convincingly promote conflict threat perceptions that others
believe, and so giving life to perceptions of water conflict in the global discursive
community.
With a shifted focus on cooperative management of transboundary waters, I
delved a little deeper to further my understanding of how and why nation states and
other actors cooperate over internationally shared water resources. The application
of a constructivist approach to African international politics focusing on the role of
norms and norm adaptation was particularly helpful in depicting the complexity
of transboundary water governance. Norms literature on international river basin
management within the field of hydropolitics has undergone major development in
recent years, however, there have been few attempts to conceptualize a multi-level
normative framework for transboundary water governance. Specifically, particular
norms created at specific levels of scale have been researched in isolation of those
existing at other levels. I believe that this exclusionary approach endangers the
harmonized and integrated development of international water law and governance,
producing sub-optimal cooperative strategies.
I then set out to understand and conceptualize how particular norms of water
cooperation constructed at different levels of scale are developed, transformed and
are interconnected in two African regions. Several research ideas were based on my
doctoral thesis entitled Norms and Transboundary Cooperation in Africa: The Cases
of the Orange-Senqu and Nile Rivers, from the School of International Relations,
St. Andrews University, Scotland. This book therefore owes its comprehensive analysis
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Preface xi
to extensive PhD fieldwork and project work conducted in all four Orange-Senqu
riparian states – South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho; and Uganda and
Rwanda in the Nile Equatorial Lakes-Sub-Basin. I am indebted to the hundreds of
policymakers, academics, researchers, activists, students and community members
who shared their experiences and insights in the form of semi-structured interviews,
informal discussions, email correspondence, and participatory methods such as
workshops, focus groups, closed meetings and participant observation, to determine
the relationships between global, regional and domestic norms; the degree to which
individuals identify with particular norms.
This book builds on dominant models of norm development such as the ‘norm
life cycle’ model (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Finnemore and Sikkink, 2001), the
‘spiral model’ (Risse, Ropp and Sikkink, 1999), and the ‘ideational life-cycle model’
(Marcussen, 2000). All of these models share the premise that norms tend to be stable
structures acting as constraints on agents’ behaviour and as constitutive of identity and
interests, and furthermore provide a cognitive framework with which agents are able
to make sense of a complicated world (Marcussen, 2000). In contrast, this book’s point
of departure is that norms are not stable structures, but rather dynamic entities that
affect and are affected by interactions with other norms and levels of scale. Flockhart’s
(2006) model of ‘complex socialization’ as well as Acharya’s (2004) model on norm
localization is also particularly useful in this investigation since it draws on factors that
create variance in socialization processes.
Finally, in its objectives to illustrate the ways in which water is embedded within
other natural resources, and to emphasize that effective water management should
reflect this embeddedness, the book draws attention to the traditional over-emphasis
by the water epistemic community of water as the integral and strategic resource for
economic development. The danger in this outlook is the tendency to develop strategies
andresearchagendasinisolationfromotherresource-,sector-orissue-basedstrategies.
There is now a shift in the global trend of the water discourse, that is from insufficient
focus on water and environmental issues in development studies, to environmental
and water as the most important drivers to cooperation. Now, the shift should move
towards viewing water and other resources such as land, oil, human capital etc. in an
integrated and interconnected manner beyond theoretical conceptualizations such as
integrated water resource management (IWRM). This entails a paradigm shift in how
water is managed, but also how water professionals see themselves.
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Acknowledgements
Family, the most basic social unit in the human context signifies affiliation by
consanguinity, affinity or co-residence, but may also refer to the socially constructed
kind based on region, nationhood, culture, tradition, honour, friendship, geographic
or virtual sense of place and even profession. Seeing as this book is about collectively
shared understandings, it is only appropriate that I thank the various families that have
shaped my understanding and who have walked this journey investigating norms on
the Orange-Senqu and the Nile.
First, I am indebted to my professional extended family. This includes my study
supervisors: Professors Ian Taylor, Scarlett Cornelissen and Willie Breytenbach for
their encouragement and guidance from the very beginning of my interest in water
politics and beyond. I am also indebted to the School of International Relations at
the University of St. Andrews in Scotland; the Political Science Department at the
University of Stellenbosch in South Africa; Grinnell College in the United States; and
Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong, for contributing to my understanding
of international relations (IR).
I would also like to thank my ‘Community of Elders’, true greats if you will, for
patiently giving up their time to share their wisdom on water governance in Africa.
These include: Dr Anthony Turton, Dr Marius Claassen, Mr Piet Heyns, Dr Pete
Ashton, Mr Dudley Biggs, Mr Peter Pyke, Dr David Phillips, Mr Peter Pyke, Mr Lenka
Thamae, Adv. Lucy Sekoboto, Mr Jakob Granit, Mr Peter Nthathakane, Mr Audace
Ndzayeye, Mr Washington Mutayoba and Professor Afunaduula. Few people outside
of the water sector may know them, but these men and women, driven by their concern
for sustainable knowledge transfer have helped to address this challenge by advising me
andsomanyotherscholarsthathavesoughttheirguidance.Theyareourprimaryscarce
resource. Additionally, to the countless interview participants, informal discussants
and email responders, who shared their experiences and insights – you provided me
with an insurmountable knowledge base from which I was able to draw, and for that I
thank you. I am eternally grateful to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) in South Africa, and specifically, the Water Governance Research group, led by
Dr Marius Claassen, who have helped me articulate many of the ideas represented in
this book, and who epitomize the essence of family in colleague form.
Finally, I am blessed to have the ‘love’ family I have. I am indebted to my mother,
Lydia Jacobs, and my father, Johnny Jacobs, in so many ways, but primarily for arming
their children with a good education, and instilling in us a sense of ‘Yes, I can.’ You
have instilled in me a sense of hard work, smart work and perseverance . . . this book’s
finishing factors. I also express my very sincere gratitude to Jodi, Kurt, Jonathan, Nikki,
Howard, Bronwyn, Connor, Cassidy, Amber and Micah for helping me maintain my
sanity throughout the research and writing process. Lastly, I would like to thank
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Acknowledgements xiii
my dear Luis for your love and patience, reading drafts, making coffee and being a
supportive critique. I celebrate this achievement with you.
The spirit of Ubuntu – that profound African sense that we are human only through
the humanity of other human beings – is not a parochial phenomenon, but has added
globally to our common search for a better world.
Nelson Mandela
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List of Abbreviations
AEC Assessment and Evaluation Commission
AfDB African Development Bank
AMCOW African Ministerial Council on Water
ANC African National Congress
ATP Applied Training Project
AU African Union
AUC African Union Commission
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
CBO community-based organization
CBSI Confidence Building and Stakeholder Involvement Project
CCP Cities for Climate Protection Programme
CEMAC Community of Central African States
CEN-SAD Community of Sahel-Saharan States
CEPGL Economic Community of Great Lakes Countries
CFA Cooperative Framework Agreement
CMA Catchment Management Agency
CNDD-FDD National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Forces for the
Defence of Democracy
COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement
DRC Democratic Republic of Congo
DWA (South African) Department of Water Affairs
EAC East African Community
ECCAS Economic Community of Central African States
ECGLC Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
EN-COM Eastern Nile Council of Ministers
ENSAP Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Programme
ENSAPT Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Programme Technical Team
EPA Economic Partnership Agreement
EU European Union
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FTA Free Trade Agreement
GDP gross domestic product
GEF Global Environmental Facility
GHG greenhouse gas
GNU (Sudanese) Government of National Unity
GoSS Government of South Sudan
GWP Global Water Partnership
HDI Human Development Index
HPC Hydropolitical Complex
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List of Abbreviations xv
HSCT Hydrosocial Contract Theory
IBT Inter-basin transfer
ICJ International Court of Justice
ICLEI International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
ICOLD International Committee on Large Dams
ICT information and communication technology
IGAD Inter-Governmental Authority for Development
IGO Intergovernmental Organization
ILC International Law Commission
INGO International Non-governmental Organization
IOC Indian Ocean Commission
IR international relations
IWA International Water Association
IWRM integrated water resource management
JIA Joint Irrigation Authority
JPTC Joint Permanent Technical Commission
JTC Joint Technical Committee
KBO Kagera Basin Organization
LHDA Lesotho Highlands Development Authority
LHWC Lesotho Highlands Water Commission
LHWP Lesotho Highlands Water Project
LVBC Lake Victoria Basin Commission
LVEMP Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project
LVFO Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization
MAP mean annual precipitation
MAR mean annual run-off
MDG Millennium Development Goal
MENA Middle East and North African region
MRU Mano River Union
MW megawatt
NBD Nile Basin Discourse
NBDF Nile Basin Discourse Forum
NBI Nile Basin Initiative
NEL-COM Nile Equatorial Lakes Council of Ministers
NELSAP Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program
NELTAC Nile Equatorial Lakes Technical Advisory Committee
NEP National Environmental Policy of Lesotho
NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development
NGO non-governmental organization
NILE-COM Council of Ministers of Water Affairs of the Nile Basin States
NILE-SEC Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat
NILE-TAC Nile Technical Advisory Committee
NRA National Resistance Army
NTEAP Nile Transboundary Environment Action Project
NWA National Water Act (South Africa, 1998)
OAU Organisation of African Unity
OKACOM Okavango River Basin Commission
ORASECOM Orange-Senqu River Commission
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List of Abbreviations
xvi
POE panel of experts
PPP Purchasing Power Parity
PWC Permanent Water Commission
RBO River Basin Organization
REC regional economic community
REDD+ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
REO regional environmental organization
RIA Regional Integration Agreement
RISDP Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (SADC)
RPF Rwandese Patriotic Front
RSAP Regional Strategic Action Plan (SADC)
RSCT Regional Security Complex Theory
RWP Regional Water Policy (SADC)
RWS Regional Water Strategy (SADC)
SACU Southern African Customs Union
SADC Southern African Development Community
SADCC Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference
SADC PF SADC Parliamentary Forum
SADC WD SADC Water Division
SAHPC Southern African Hydropolitical Complex
SANCOLD South African National Committee on Large Dams
SAP Strategic Action Programme
SIRWA Structurally Induced Relative Water Abundance
SOLD Survivors of the Lesotho Dams
SPLM/A Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army
SVP Shared Vision Program
SWI Shared Watercourse Institution
TCTA Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority
TECCONILE Technical Cooperation Committee for the Promotion of Development
and Environmental Protection on the Nile
TFDD Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database
TRC Transformation Resource Centre
UEMOA West African Economic and Monetary Union
UMA Arab Maghreb Union
UN United Nations
UN Convention UN Convention 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNECA Economic Commission for Africa
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO-IHP United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization –
International Hydrological Programme
UNFCCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
VNJIS Vioolsdrift and Noordoewer Joint Irrigation Scheme
WB World Bank
WMA Water Management Area
WRMP Water Resource Management Programme
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List of Abbreviations xvii
WUA Water user association
WWC World Water Council
WWF World Water Forum
ZACPLAN Zambezi River Basin System Action Plan
ZACPRO Zambezi River Basin System Action Project
ZAMCOM Zambezi River Commission
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The politics of water, as is the case with all other forms of politics, is as much about
the distribution of resources as it is about the search for conflict resolution and not
necessarily about its achievement of the latter. It involves inherently social activities
of decision-making involving power, persuasion, compromise and consensus. This
very basic characteristic of hydropolitics is where we begin because it alludes to the
disparity between the activity of water governance and its study. Throughout the world
water has been governed on the basis of competing demands, which has implied an
inextricable link between diversity and conflict on the one hand, and a willingness
to cooperate and act collectively on the other. These processes are largely based on
subjective and normative understandings. However, the ways in which we have studied
the governance of water have been based on notions of objectivity, quantification,
accuracy, linearity and rationality.
Added to the dichotomy of the study of water governance and its practice, the
governance of any river basin, but particularly international or transboundary1
river basins that are shared between two or more states, implies the management
of competing demands on the resource (Postel, 1999). These demands will continue
to intensify as a result of increasing water scarcity, degrading water quality, rapid
population growth, urbanization and uneven levels of economic development
(Giordano and Wolf, 2002). Along with growing urban challenges, the twenty-first
century has come to be characterized by widespread environmental changes, with
rising demands for resources, higher levels of pollution and the ever-increasing
effects of climate change. Among these, achieving and maintaining water security is
one of the greatest challenges that modern-day states will have to overcome.
This makes it imperative that demands on the resource are governed carefully to
ensure its availability, at an affordable price and of a good quality, to existing and future
generations. The 2006 United Nations (UN) Development Report convincingly states
that ‘governance issues form the central obstruction to sound and equitable water
sharing and management’ (UN, 2006: 12).
Based on the myriad demands on our water resources by many stakeholders,
humankind has developed a complex system of normative codes of conduct that
prescribe how we ought to act when managing such resources. Over time, we have
developed global, regional and domestic laws, policies, principles of best practice and
Introduction
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The Politics of Water in Africa
2
norms, that dictate appropriate behaviour in the governance of transboundary rivers
in an attempt to eradicate or minimize real, perceived or predicted conflicts over water.
Here, I adopt Katzenstein’s widely used definition of norms as ‘collective expectations
for the proper behaviour of actors with a given identity’ (Katzenstein, 1996: 5). Norms
therefore provide standards of appropriate conduct and prescribe social practices
(Dimitrov, 2005).
Despite our awareness of its existence, very rarely have we tried to grapple with
the interconnected complexity of this normative sphere governing our transboundary
waters. In so doing, we have failed to move water governance beyond rational, linear,
quantifiable and objective understandings. It is only in delving into this normative
complexity that we begin to see how truly political and social the governance of water
can be. Indeed, multi-level analyses further our understanding of the ways in which
the multiplicity of norms, actors, power, knowledge and capacity influence each other
at different levels of scale from the international to the sub-national. Additionally,
even fewer analyses have made the causal linkages between forms of soft power or
normative governance, and how they can promote the development of communities
of interest2
or environmental regions. This logic is closely associated with the need to
advance the short-term, and territorially bound notion of water as an economic good
for national security and immediate demand, to the utilization of water resources as a
long-term tool for regional integration and the development of regional communities
of interest beyond political boundaries. For this, a multi-level governance framework
is necessary.
Moreover, multi-level analyses have not only received less attention in the water
governance discourse to date, but mainstream analyses have tended to prioritize a
particular levelofscale–thehydrologicalbasin–astheprimaryunitofanalysis(Jacobs,
2010a). In this book, I use a definition of international river basins that encompasses
‘lived in’ social spaces, that is the sum of social practices and discourses that exist within
a biophysical space. This space is given direction by regionalizing state and non-state
actors including riparian states, as well as external actors that may physically originate
outside of the river basin and/or region, but which form part of its social space of
normative influence all the same. China’s role as the new hydraulic infrastructure
financier in East Africa has had a major impact on how African states have forged
out a new set of normative principles in realizing their dam-building imperatives.
The expanded definition of the unit of analysis allows transboundary governance to
free itself from the constraints of a bounded and territorialized nature of water and
state, and move into a fluid transnational space that is largely social, normative and
subjective, and where norms provide impetus for political will and action. This logic
sheds light on where water is and should be managed – the river basin versus the river
community, and the national versus the transnational level.
Similar to the isolation of scale, particular norms (e.g. equitable utilization) created
atspecificlevelsofscale(e.g.internationalnorms)havealsobeenresearchedinisolation
of those existing at other levels of scale (Jacobs, 2010a). The degree to which principles
contained within the 1997 United Nations Convention of the Non-navigational Uses
of International Watercourses (referred to as the 1997 UN Convention from hereon)
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Introduction 3
have diffused to lower levels of scale has been studied at length. Much less emphasis
has been placed on the degree to which locally based norms and principles have filtered
up into the global policy landscape. This exclusionary (‘silo’) approach endangers
the harmonized and integrated development of international water law producing
sub-optimal cooperative strategies (De Chazournes, 2009). More specifically, the
isolation of one norm ignores the manner in which the norm affects another norm’s
development trajectory, its acceptance, the resistance to it, the manner in which it
is localized and morphed into something new (Jacobs, 2010a). Surely norms and
principles related to a country’s political democratization process will have an impact
on how water management norms develop in that particular context?
The isolation of norms also mars the opportunity that water presents for regional
integration as an entry point to integration processes and not only as an outcome of
successful regional integration efforts. This thinking perpetuates the development
of sectoral ‘silos’ as each sector strives to maximize development opportunities from
within, with limited coordination with other sectors.
I address these critical knowledge gaps through a re-conceptualization of how
particular norms of water cooperation constructed at different levels of scale
(international, regional, basin, national, sub-national) are developed, transformed
and are interconnected in two African regions. The relationships between norms
constructed at different levels of scale in Africa’s Orange-Senqu and Nile River basins
will be investigated, as well as the ways in which both norm and context are transformed
as a result of the other. Also, the process of norm diffusion from different levels of
scale is particularly relevant, following three main processes of norm development
(1) Top-down norm diffusion from the global level (2) Regional norm convergence
(state-to-state, and basin-to-basin-to-region) and (3) Bottom-up (sub-national to
national) convergence. In essence, the interface between these international, regional
and domestic norms will be explored in an attempt to understand which norms gain
acceptance and why. And through this process, a multi-level normative framework for
water governance is advocated based on the premise of norm, as well as context-specific
dynamism, and non-linear norm development in the case-study areas. Finally, the
linkages between multi-level norm convergence processes and multi-level governance
institutions will allow scholars of international relations (IR), development studies, and
African studies to review the broad policy implications that these two transboundary
river basins have for environmental regions in Africa, connected by virtue of their
riparian status to water resources and resultant economic ties.
I therefore advocate for a more systemic and integrated interpretation of normative
transboundary water governance because each level of scale, from the international
to the local, forms part of an international normative framework that governs
transboundary waters, and various norms interact and function in the context of the
system as a whole (De Chazournes, 2009). Each level of scale gives meaning to how
norms are translated and socialized, and how they in turn, transform contexts. Also, I
examine the non-linear process of norm diffusion from one level of scale to another.
The discovery made is that almost all interests are redefined, although to varying
degrees, when norms are socialized. Power relations between actors and also between
7/20/2001 7:14:41 AM

4
norms therefore form a critical piece in the puzzle of norm development in cooperative
water management.
This means that norm diffusion from the global level is taking place, although
some norms are highly contested, and local resistance to them is evident, while
others display a legitimating effect and are congruent with pre-existing local norms.
At the basin level, I focus on the sociopolitical, legal and institutional processes that
symbolize a movement towards norm convergence in the case-study areas. Regional
norm convergence is possible, and is occurring in both case studies analysed, although
to varying degrees as a result of different causal factors and different historical,
sociopolitical and cultural contexts. Convergence towards a cooperative agenda is
facilitated by several drivers but is also hampered by barriers to regional convergence.
The way in which these are managed ultimately determines the degree of convergence
experienced.
Drivers to norm convergence act as catalysts to the development of a ‘community
of interests’ by explicitly steering state and/or basin behaviour towards a multilateral
cooperative agenda into which the majority of agents buy. They may also actively
facilitate this process by becoming enabling agents (through technical cooperation,
capacity building, sustainable knowledge transfer policies); or alternatively, implicitly
shaping the normative context (e.g. congruent norm sets and norm localization). These
drivers facilitate norm convergence in different ways due to the various ways in which
norms are diffused. Barriers to achieving norm convergence include but are not limited
to: skills flight and a lack of sustainable knowledge transfer, a lack of trust, a lack of (or
varied) capacity (human resources) and weak, unsustainable institutions.
It is also important to note that the basket of drivers and barriers will be unique
to each transboundary basin. The Orange-Senqu and Nile River riparian states
present very different political identities and local contexts, each containing existing
constellations of norms, which have affected the ways in which they have responded
to the influence of external norms, how the norm has been translated at the local level,
and the degree to which it has been incorporated into state policy.
In this regard, the book aims to achieve several key research objectives. First, it
will describe and examine processes of emergence and socialization of the global
norm set of transboundary cooperation of water resources, or lack thereof, as well as
its influence on the domestic structures of riparian water policy in the Orange-Senqu
River and Nile River basins. Secondly, it will examine the domestic political milieu
of riparian states. Notwithstanding their varying degrees of water demand, Orange-
Senqu and Nile riparians present fairly different political identities, each containing
existing constellations of norms, which have affected the ways in which they have
responded to the influence of these norms, how the norm is translated at the local
level and to what extent it is incorporated into state policy. In so doing, we will explore
the interface between these international norms and regional/domestic norms in an
attempt to understand which norms gain acceptance and why. Thirdly, it will examine
lateral norm convergence at the regional level from state to state as well as from the
national to basin to regional levels. Fourthly, it aims to review policy harmonization
as an indicator of norm convergence but also explore sociopolitical processes
as drivers and barriers to this convergence. And finally, it aims to conceptualize
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Introduction 5
multi-level norm convergence as it exists in the Orange-Senqu and Nile River basins
using examples of norm sets at various levels of scale.
Approach and methodology
This study employs a qualitative approach based on a comparative case-study
descriptive-analysis of the Orange-Senqu River basin and the Nile River basin. The
methodological approach comprises of two stages: (1) theoretical research based on
a textual analysis conducted through a mixed-method conceptual lens and (2) field
research in the two case-study basins. A mixed-method data collection strategy
was adopted, consisting of semi-structured interviews, informal discussions, email
correspondence and participatory methods such as workshops, focus groups, closed
meetings and participant observation, to determine the relationships between global,
regional and domestic norms, and the degree to which individuals identify with
particular norms.
Several of these norms have been codified in international law. For constructivists,
adherence to international law is an important indicator of the socialization of
international norms. A crucial indicator of international norm effects used in this
investigation is the 1997 UN Convention, to mitigate the impending water crisis
by using legal means to resolve transboundary watercourse disputes. However,
the 1997 UN Convention is not yet in force, and therefore, no legally binding
mechanism exists at the international level to ensure compliance with global norms.
As such, using international water law as a sole indicator of norm effects would not
explain acceptance, compliance or resistance to norms at the local level. Additional
research was therefore needed to ascertain the extent of socialization of normative
principles in terms of implementation and compliance, as well as its effectiveness.
This translates into the exploration of sociopolitical processes as drivers and
barriers to this convergence. A second category of important indicators used in this
study are legal acts, policies and other multilateral agreements of international and
regional organizations/institutions. International and regional organizations teach
states new norms of behaviour as well as help disseminate them (Finnemore and
Sikkink, 2001).
Finally, the respective river basins will be examined in detail within their real-
life contexts. As case studies are usually multidimensional analyses a number of
actors, mechanisms, institutional procedures and causes were identified within
the study’s domain. Therefore, a single unit of analysis does not confine this study.
For instance, the role of non-state interest groups exist on the sub-national, basin,
regional and international levels; states on international, national and basin levels;
while transnational bodies blur the lines between national, regional and global levels
of analysis. This multilayered approach to the levels of analysis is challenging and
presents a complex but more holistic and integrated picture of the impact of norms.
Their interplay may be cohesive and harmonious, but may also be disjointed and
conflicting. In short, not only do variations in norm effects exist due to variations
in domestic and regional structural contexts (political, cultural, ethnic, historical
7/20/2001 7:14:41 AM

6
cooperation or lack thereof), but also norm effects differ as a result of the variations
in the interplay of norm diffusion and/or contestation.
A focus on Africa
This book’s focus on Africa, and the hydropolitical and normative frameworks
governing its transboundary rivers, is significant in that all major rivers and freshwater
lakes and aquifers on the continent are shared by two or more countries. Each country
on the continent shares at least one freshwater body with its neighbours, which has at
times resulted in hostile relations among riparian states (Toepfer, 2005). There are 263
international lake and river basins in the world today, 64 of which are in Africa as is
evident in Map I.1.
Additionally, the hydropolitical climate in Africa is characterized by a diversity of
local configurations, including a multitude of biophysical, sociocultural and political
Congo
Zambezi
Lake Chad
Nile
Rovuma
Okavango/
Makgadikgadi
Limpopo
Orange-
Senqu
Cunene
Cuvelai
Incomati
Umbeluzi
Maputo
Pungué
Save
Buzi
Senegal
Niger
Juba-
Shibeli
Lake Turkana
Lake Natron
Lotagipi Swamp
Umba
Awash
Gash
Baraka
Medjerda
Oued Bon Naima
Tafna
Guir
Daoura
Dra
Atui
Volta
Ogooue
Nyanga
Chiloango
Ntem
Utamboni
Benito
Akpa Yao
Cross
Sanaga
Gambia
Geba
Corubal
Great Scarcies
Mana-Morro
Moa
Loffa
Little Scarcies
St. Paul
St. John
Cestos
Cavally
Sassandra
Komoe
Bia
Tano
Mono
Oueme
Thukela
Pagani
1000 km
N
© P.J. Ashton
Lake Chilwa
Africa’s 64 shared
river basins contain:
• 65 % of the area
• 78 % of the people
• 93 % of the
surface water
Map I.1 Shared River basins in Africa (Ashton and Turton, 2009)
7/20/2001 7:14:41 AM

Introduction 7
contexts which contribute to Africa’s hydropolitical fragility. These include, but are
not limited to, a range of domestic policy variance between riparian states. There is
also a great deal of variability in economic development between states and a broad
spectrum of social, economic and cultural institutions, as well as the highly varied
spatial and temporal precipitation and the (mal)-distribution of water. The multi-
level interaction of norms is implicitly recognized in African hydropolitics due to the
shared nature of freshwater on the continent however, there is still a schism between
this interconnected reality and how norms are researched in isolation.
The choice of the Orange-Senqu River basin in Southern Africa and the Nile
River basin in East and North Africa rests first, on the need to analyse and compare
regional norm convergence in two African regions; East Africa and the Greater Nile
region, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), as a means to
compare and contrast any similarities and/or differences that may exist as a result of
regional dynamics. The preponderance of an Anglophone legacy in southern Africa
and in the Nile Equatorial Lakes Sub-Basin (NELSB) (which is the area of the Nile
that will be most extensively covered in this book because of the new and emerging
sociopolitical dynamics affecting transboundary water governance there) also
allows for a comparative analysis in terms of colonial legacies as well as the wave of
independence in both regions and its impact on hydropolitics. Secondly, while the
definition of each case-study area is based on the biophysical resource, that is the river,
and therefore includes the geographical grouping of states surrounding the resource,
these particular cases were also chosen for the unique sociopolitical communities they
have formed. Both case studies are examples of lived-in social spaces, our definition for
an international river basin.
The use of two vastly different river basins as case studies is also significant for
several other practical reasons. First, norms follow different development trajectories in
the Orange-Senqu River basin than they do in the Nile. This is as a result of biophysical,
sociopolitical and historical differences. Biophysically, the Nile River is longer and the
river basin is therefore larger. Secondly, Nile River basin management involves many
more state actors than does the Orange-Senqu River, flowing through eleven riparian
states including: Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea, Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda (Abraham,
2004; NBI, 2007; Waterbury, 2002; Wolf, 1998). This has resulted in a multitude of
local cultures and ethnic groups with a wide range of local norms and customs. The
range of historical, sociopolitical and legal variance; as well as the varying levels of
stakeholder participation, have also determined the level of institutional development
and cooperation in these basins. Context-specific factors have also affected the level
of trust shown for external norms and as such, the degree to which they have been
successfully institutionalized.
In the Orange-Senqu River basin, for instance, there is a comparatively high level
of collaboration not only between states, but also between sovereign states and non-
state entities (Meissner, 2000a). Technical cooperation is particularly dominant in the
basin (ibid.). Additionally, in parallel with technical collaboration, political institu-
tions and agreements have also been enacted (ibid.). Yet, while collaboration in the
7/20/2001 7:14:42 AM

8
Orange-Senqu River basin has been predominantly of a technical nature (as opposed
to political), multilateral collaboration makes for easier socialization of environmental
norms of transboundary cooperation since the mechanisms and organizational plat-
forms which foster and facilitate norm diffusion are already in place.
In contrast, Nile River basin governance has been embroiled in bilateral
agreements/treaties and unilateral action for longer than its southern African
counterpart. Political instability, tense co-riparian relations and a general lack of
trust as a result of cleavages brought about by colonial treaties, have led to greater
resistance to the transboundary cooperation norm set in the Nile River basin than
it has in the Orange-Senqu River, with some scholars going so far as to argue that
a community of riparians does not exist in the Nile Basin (Waterbury, 2002). This
is largely as a result of the contestation between the global norms of equitable and
reasonable utilization and historic rights.
These case studies will be analysed individually for the value they add to a study of
norm convergence due to the unique ways in which norms have influenced contexts
and vice versa. They will then be reviewed together in a comparative summation of
case-specific norm convergence, which eventually constructs the multi-level normative
framework.
It should also be noted that when norm development is analysed in an African
context, it is usually approached from the point of analysing international/external
norms and tracking the ways in which they have been accepted in the African context.
As Amitav Acharya argues ‘Constructivist scholarship on norms tends to focus on
“hard” cases of moral transformation in which “good” global norms prevail over the
“bad” local beliefs and practices’ (Acharya, 2004: 239). While these types of analyses
are useful in understanding global norm dynamics, they uncover little about the
local response to such norms, the interface between these and regionally or locally
constructed norms, and the dynamics between the coexistence and/or contestation
between these norms operating at different levels of scale. Through a multi-level lens,
we are able to capture the dynamism and interplay of norms, and we begin to see where
the most powerful normative influences lie and why they dominate.
Bridging the theoretical gap between
science and policy
The theoretical significance of this investigation stems from the need for more
nuanced theorization in transboundary water governance analyses, including more
water literature explicitly conceptualized in non-realist or critical theory approaches
of IR. Since Du Plessis made this claim in 2000, little progress has been made that
goes beyond realist theoretical frameworks or implicit adoptions of this, with few
exceptions (Furlong, 2006, 2008). Even Warner and Zeitoun who provide a compelling
argument for the significance of IR frameworks to understanding transboundary
water issues, concede that ‘. . . the number of serious studies applying IR frameworks to
transboundary water issues remains limited’ (Warner and Zeitoun, 2008: 803).
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Introduction 9
Allan refers to the evolution of almost identical concepts in different academic
disciplines, all of which are relevant to hydropolitics, but none of which have been
integrated or harmonized in any useful way (Allan, 2001). Scholars of hydropolitics
have, however, used the two rival theoretical traditions, that is the dominant school
of rationalism versus the marginal school of reflectivism to argue for or against
the existence of water conflict (Du Plessis, 2000; Meissner, 2000a, 2004; Turton,
2000a), albeit concealed under policy analysis and issues of security. Moreover, the
hydropolitical discourse has been reactionary and has therefore, developed in parallel
lineage with the great debates in IR (Du Plessis, 2000).
Contemporary hydropolitical discourse is therefore subliminally situated within
the mainstream (and particularly realist), rationalism of IR theory. Since these theories
demarcate the discursive parameters, many scholars, writing from a mainstream
perspective, have thereby subconsciously defined what can and cannot be talked about
in the hydropolitical discourse. Thus, a discursive elite advocating for hegemonic
theories has been produced. While competing theoretical conceptions are on the
increase, there is still ‘a need and an opportunity for conciliatory, theorising and
bridge-building’ (Du Plessis, 2000: 12). It is because of this need that I apply various
constructivist approaches on norms of water cooperation to investigate the degree to
which they influence behaviour.
Despite the growing popularity of non-mainstream discourse and the turn
that science has taken in exploring alternative approaches to conceptualizing
water governance, there is still a lag between science and policy. Policymaking
and implementation still exist within a positivist paradigm, which encourages the
development of solutions based on well-defined policy problems. Scientific inputs are
then solicited to fill an identified knowledge gap, thereby solving the problem. There
appears to be very little alternative ways of developing and implementing policy and,
as such, very little consideration is given to the idea of the social construction of
policy problems and the inherent subjectivity of moral judgements involved in these
problems and related decision-making (Strydom et al., 2010). An analysis of global,
regional, basin-wide and local norms is therefore useful and has implications for
the rest of Africa, because it illustrates the significance of their interconnectedness
in terms of the interaction at play as well as how their content is affected whether
by moral judgements, or subjective preferences or alignment with pre-existing
principles.
The global norm set of transboundary
water cooperation
The water conflict and cooperation discourse will be approached from a constructivist
perspective to include an analysis of the effect of norms and norm development on
regional approaches to water governance. This approach highlights the applicability
of a normative conceptual framework to understanding multi-level water governance.
Indeed, as Conca (2006) argues, an uneven landscape exists comprising of multiple
7/20/2001 7:14:42 AM

10
normative orientations and institutional developments. The global norm set of
transboundary cooperation can be defined as the basket of principles as articulated in
the 1997 UN Convention listed below:
1. Participation of riparian states
Article 4 (UN, 1997a) stipulates that every riparian state is entitled to participate in
negotiations surrounding an international watercourse, and to consult on any lesser
agreements affecting that state.
2. Equitable (and reasonable) utilization
This is an ambiguous rule referring to equal sharing, although a review of
the standards for equitable utilization demonstrates that while equal access is
guaranteed, equal shares are not (ibid.: Article 5).
3. No harm doctrine
This principle stipulates that watercourse nations, in using an international
watercourse, should take all ‘appropriate measures’ to prevent the causing of
significant harm to other watercourse nations (ibid.: Article 7).
4. Inter-riparian cooperation and information exchange
Article 8 obliges states to cooperate, on the basis of ‘sovereign equality, territorial
integrity, mutual benefit and good faith’ while Article 9 calls for regular exchanges
of information and data between riparians. Similarly, information exchange and
consultation with the other parties on the effects of any ‘planned measures’ is also
stipulated (ibid.: Article 11).
5. Prior notification
This principle is defined as the requirement to make other riparian states aware that
a planned measure ‘might change the course or volume’ of water resources, ‘so that
if they might threaten the rights of riparian owners of the adjoining sovereignty a
claim may be lodged . . . and thus the interests on both sides will be safeguarded”
(ibid.: Article 12), and
6. Ecosystem protection
Ecosystem as defined in the 1997 UN Convention imposes on states an obligation to
‘protect and preserve the ecosystems’ (ibid.: Article 20) of international watercourses
and to ‘prevent, reduce and control the pollution of an international watercourse
that may cause significant harm to other watercourse states or to their environment,
including harm to human health or safety, to the use of the waters for any beneficial
purpose or to the living resources of the watercourse’ (ibid.: Article 21). Articles
22 and 23 elaborate further on environmental concerns, obliging governments to
prevent the introduction of alien species or new species and protect and preserve
the marine environment.
7. Dispute resolution
Guidelines are outlined for dispute resolution procedures that include an obligation
to resolve disputes peacefully, an endorsement of arbitration and mediation, and
procedures for the creation and workings of fact-finding commissions (ibid.:
Article 33).
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Introduction 11
Scholars disagree on whether these above-mentioned guidelines are in fact principles
(Conca, 2006; Wolf, 1999) or the codification of existing norms (McCaffrey and
Sinjela, 1998). According to McCaffrey and Sinjela (1998), the important elements of
the UN Convention such as equitable utilization, no harm and prior notification are
codifications of existing norms; whereas Wolf (1999) argues that these principles have
only been explicitly invoked in a handful of water negotiations or treaties. Similarly,
Conca et al. (2006) avoid the use of the term ‘norm’ because it connotes a logic of
appropriateness, characterized by norm convergence, that is whether governments
are converging on common principles for governing shared river basins in the form
of a global regime. Conca et al. (2006) argue that unidirectional progression towards
a global regime for international rivers is not occurring because the rate at which
international agreements are being reached has not increased. Instead, a more complex
pattern of principled evolution is at play (ibid.). The authors produce evidence of
convergence on two different normative frameworks (one stressing shared river
protection, the other stressing the state’s rights to water). Some key principles appear
to be subject to a global normative pull and take on deeper meaning over time, but
simultaneously, many others do not. Normative dynamism exists, but is not at all
unidirectional. This will be elaborated in greater detail in the book, but it is noteworthy
for conceptualization purposes to note the classification debate between norms and
principles. This investigation found that external norms do get diffused and socialized
in ways that are unique to particular contexts. These context-specific processes allow
for norm localization and translation, and norms may look different to what they were
initially. Norms also may follow different development tracks while evidence of their
influencemaybequitedifferenttopreconceivedperceptionsthatspringfromrestrictive
theoretical frameworks. Other externally produced norms will also be referred to in
this study such as the subsidiarity principle and historic rights.
Even though these principles of transboundary cooperation were articulated in the
1997 UN Convention and therefore act as an ‘emerging’ global norm set, they date back
to the 1960s and 1970s when the UN responded to the need for clearer rules governing
transboundary waters by requesting the International Law Commission (ILC) to codify
and progressively develop the rules applicable to the development and management of
international watercourses. These rules (referred to today as the 1966 Helsinki Rules)
formed the foundation for the 1997 UN Convention. A broader global environmental
agenda, propelled by the North (particularly Scandinavian states) therefore, emerged
in the 1970s, appearing most significantly at the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference
(UN, 1972). The UN then pursued transboundary water issues again at the 1977 Mar
del Plata Conference, where the Action Plan adopted by the participants contained
11 resolutions and 102 recommendations (UN, 1977). From then on, water became
enveloped in a general concern for the environment, losing its relatively distinctive
status as a separate area of global concern. Yet, in recent years, water has regained its
importance on the international agenda.
The 1997 UN Convention offers much value as a water governance framework as
well as an indicator of norm diffusion since it shows which countries have committed
7/20/2001 7:14:42 AM

12
themselves in principle to abiding by the principles of transboundary cooperation
such as equitable utilization and the no harm doctrine. However, while the 1997 UN
Convention is codified international water law, since it is not yet in force, it acts only as
a framework agreement.
Chapter outline
This introductory chapter has outlined the rationale, central thesis, objectives,
theoretical approach and research methodology of this study. Chapter 1 then builds
on this foundation and provides the conceptual framework. It situates the book
within the domain of environmental and water politics and the conflict-cooperation
problematique, and also introduces the influence of ‘soft power’ in transboundary
water governance in Africa. Chapter 1 also aims to develop a theoretical framework
on which the analyses of the case studies may be built. This entails a brief description
of the hydropolitical discourse, its linkages to IR theory and an analysis of several
dominant IR theories as well as their applicability or inapplicability to the impact of
norms on regional water governance. Specifically, Chapter 1 describes the importance
and utility of a constructivist approach as opposed to realist and liberal interpretations
of IR. Additionally, it provides greater theoretical elaboration on norms and norm
development with a focus on the socialization of norms at the international, regional
and local levels.
Chapter 2 sketches the method used to analyse norm convergence in the case-
study chapters, using four main tracks: global norm convergence from the top-down,
regional norm convergence (involving lateral processes of state-to-state and state-to-
basin-to-region) and bottom-up (local to national) norm convergence. The fourth track
is more an outcome of the coexistence of these three tracks, that is, norm dynamism
or contestation.
Chapters 3 and 4 introduce the two case studies. Drivers and barriers to norm
convergencewillbeunpackedinmoredetailandcomparedintheensuingcomparative
analysis chapter. Chapter 3 will apply the central thesis of multi-level governance in
the analysis of the Orange-Senqu River basin. At the basin level, this chapter focuses
on legal and institutional processes that symbolize a movement towards norm
convergence in the Orange-Senqu River basin. Also, qualitative research in the basin
revealed significant drivers and barriers to the development of a community of interest
in the Orange-Senqu River basin around water resources. Sustainable knowledge
transfer policies or the lack thereof is of paramount importance to the sustainability
of competence and to the ability of a river basin organization to absorb institutional
shocks such as skills flight. The maintenance of institutional memory in this regard,
also helps to facilitate norm convergence through social learning. These are some of
the drivers and barriers investigated in the Orange-Senqu River basin that not only
affect regional norm convergence at a basin level, but are particularly relevant to
sub-national normative influences.
7/20/2001 7:14:42 AM

Introduction 13
Similarly, Chapter 4 will apply the central thesis of multi-level governance in the
analysis of the Nile River basin. It incorporates results of a textual analysis as well
as qualitative interviews, to argue for regional norm convergence around specific
issue clusters of cooperative management norms through processes of institutional
strengthening and benefit-sharing. This chapter will provide evidence that non-linear
norm diffusion from the global level is taking place, although some norms are highly
contested, and local resistance to them is evident. Moreover, in the case of the Nile,
global principles found in the global norm set, such as the no harm doctrine and
equitable utilization have clashed as a result of upstream-downstream differences.
At the sub-basin level, there has been a movement towards norm convergence with
NELSB states starting to articulate a joint development agenda for its resources
as a result of political stability and economic growth as well as the support of new
infrastructure financiers such as China. This is a tremendous achievement given the
history of institutional incapacity, lack of trust and varied levels of capacity.
Chapters 5 and 6 focus on the causal linkages between drivers and barriers
of norm convergence, and the creation of a community of interest, as well as the
policy implications for using water as a tool for regional integration. Chapter 5
conceptualizes the development tracks of norms in the two case-study areas. It
analyses the relationships between cooperative management norms constructed at
different levels of scale in the Orange-Senqu and Nile Rivers, and the ways in which
both norm and context are transformed as a result of the other. Also, it examines the
non-linear process of norm diffusion from one level of scale to another. The discovery
made is that almost all interests are redefined, although to varying degrees, when
norms are socialized. Power relations are therefore imperative; between actors and
also between norms. This chapter therefore constructs a normative framework based
on the premise of norm, as well as context-specific dynamism.
Whatthenisthelinkbetweennormconvergenceandpracticalpolicyinterventions?
How can an understanding of the complexity of multi-level norm development
improve decision-making in the management of transboundary waters? Chapter 6
links the conceptualization of ‘soft power’ to how it is implemented, enforced and
institutionalized in policy.
This chapter also links the process of norm convergence to increased integration
efforts between sectors. International river basins are part of an increasingly complex
landscape of policies, trading relations and sectoral demands. This institutional
complexity presents challenges but also opportunities for the water sector to
increasingly integrate with other sectors in terms of decision-making in agriculture,
energy, industry and urban development in particular. Chapter 6 examines natural
resources and water in particular, as tools to facilitate regional integration efforts
because of the need to address important resource questions in an integrated manner.
It grapples with the ever-looming challenge of moving from science to policy, and
from policy to implementation.
Chapter 6 also highlights regional economic communities as key multi-level
institutions through which cooperative water governance can take place, particularly
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14
as these communities become part of bilateral or multilateral trade agreements with
other trading blocs and given their inherent links to river basin organizations.
In addressing governance challenges facing the water sector today, and advancing
the understanding of the multi-level governance approach, the concluding chapter
examines the applicability of multi-level governance and water norms to governance
in other natural resource issue areas. In reflection, environmental governance
mechanisms are found on a multiplicity of levels, from the global to the local. Norms
and other regulatory/constitutive mechanisms are therefore closely linked, and make
up a complex normative architecture that shape how we behave.
Notes
1 The term transboundary river is used to refer to rivers which cross or flow along
international state (and therefore political) boundaries. The term international river
is also used in this book and refers to a freshwater source (surface and groundwater)
whose basin is situated within the borders of more than one sovereign state as well
as the lakes and wetlands through which some of these flows may pass. International
rivers can therefore either be successive (crossing) or contiguous (flowing along the
boundary, which is then normally the ‘Thalweg’ or deepest part of the watercourse)
rivers. (‘Thalweg’ is the German word for the ‘deepest valley’ under the water).
2 A community of interest is defined as a group of people that shares a common bond or
interest. Its members take part in the community to exchange information, to improve
their understanding of a subject, to share common passions or to play. In contrast to
a spatial community, a community of interest is defined not by space, but by some
common bond (e.g. a feeling of attachment) or entity (e.g. farming, church group). As
such, the definition is broad, leaving communities a lot of discretion in determining
which issues are important to them.
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The management of international rivers has become increasingly problematic due to
the state of freshwater water today – the only scarce natural resource for which there is
no substitute (Wolf, 1998), and one which fluctuates in both time and space (Giordano
and Wolf, 2003). As a result, ‘water’ and ‘war’ are two topics that have been assessed
together at great lengths. Water disputes have indeed been labelled as one of the ‘New
Wars’ in Africa, comparing it to the likes of other ‘resource wars’ such as those over oil
and diamonds (Jacobs, 2006). Thus, there is a great fascination with the notion of a
‘water war’, and while there is evidence to the contrary and the debate over ‘water wars’
won in favour of cooperation (Jacobs, 2006; Turton, 2000a, 2000b) this argument still
rears its head time and again.
Norms and trends in the water conflict discourse
The perception of water as a source of international warfare is pervasive not only
in the public mind but also in political circles. In 1985, former Secretary General
of the UN, Dr Boutros Ghali, uttered the now (in)famous words: ‘The next war in
the Middle East will be fought over water, not politics.’ Academic literature on water
resources as well as popular press are filled with similar sentiments, particularly as
a result of the real or perceived impact that increased scarcity may have on socio-
economic development and the lives of people all over the world. Furthermore, the
scarcity of water in an arid and semi-arid environment may lead to intense political
pressures, or to what Falkenmark (1989) refers to as ‘water stress’. The Middle East is
considered to be the ideal example of this, where armies have been mobilized and water
has been cited as the primary motivator for military strategy and territorial conquest.
However, this territorial argument, based on a state’s desire to obtain water beyond
its borders, is limited when one considers the nature of water-sharing agreements,
particularly over the use of the Jordan River between Israel and its neighbours. As part
of the 1994 Treaty of Peace, Jordan is able to store water in an Israeli lake while Israel
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leases Jordanian land and wells (Giordano and Wolf, 2002). This example reflects the
ability of states to cooperate without the desire to conquer territory, particularly in a
politically contentious region.
Since the allocation of water has often been closely linked with conflict situations,
there has been a tendency to rely on history (by reinterpreting history in a way which
justifies a conflict potential) as proof of water’s ability to cause interstate war (Church,
2000). Arguments such as these, however, isolate specific cases in which water becomes
embedded in sociopolitical, economic, cultural or religious tensions, and are therefore
used as (falsely) justifiable reasons for going to war. For example, Church refers to the
early 1950’s dispute between Syria and Israel, where sporadic fire was exchanged due to
the Israeli water development in the Huleh Basin (ibid.). But the author questions the
degree to which this dispute can be classified as a water war, since the causal relation-
ship between water and war is greatly obstructed by ethnic, cultural and religious ten-
sions that existed between these states (ibid.). This leads one to ask the question, what
really was the cause of the war? The unsuccessful military expedition by Egypt into dis-
puted territory between itself and Sudan in the late 1950s is another (mis)-cited exam-
ple, and again, begs the question, what really was the cause of the conflict – water or
a disputed territorial boundary? According to Church, this suggests that history does
not provide the clear-cut lesson upon which contemporary literature relies (ibid.).
Some scholars have also argued that the problems of water management are
compounded in the international arena by the fact that the international law regime
that governs it is poorly developed, contradictory and unenforceable (Giordano and
Wolf, 2002). Analyses based on this argumentation, however, ignore the fact that there
are more water agreements in the world than there are, or have been, water-related
conflicts (ibid.).1
Despite the obstacles riparian states face in the management of shared
water resources, these very states have demonstrated a remarkable ability to cooperate
over their shared water supplies.2
However, analyses cautiously point out that despite
the lack of interstate warfare, water has acted as both an irritant and a unifier. As an
irritant, water can make good relations bad, but is also able to unify riparians with
relatively strong institutions (Ashton, 2000a, 2000b; Wolf, 2005).
Water’s ability to increase interstate tensions is most prevalent in the debate
between sovereignty and equitable distribution of shared water resources. Underlying
this is the contradiction between the compartmentalization of states who claim
sovereignty rights over resources in their territory versus the indivisible and
uninterrupted continuum of water (Westcoat, 1992). The question here is simple: can
a country use its water as it pleases? This results in a clash of two global norms, that
is sovereign ownership and exclusive rights over one’s resources versus the principle
of shared ownership and equitable utilization of an international river. Depending
on which side of the debate states sit, either the securitization of water as an issue of
high politics and national security is prioritized, or the desecuritization of water as
an issue to be debated in the public domain wins out.
In current debates, there are those who focus on the regional (and global) conflict
potential of accelerating environmental problems such as drought and sea-level rise.
Here, the Malthusian discourse is noteworthy. It hypothesizes a linear relationship
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Soft Power in Transboundary Water Governance 17
between population growth and scarcity. Malin Falkenmark is instrumental in this
regard, for developing the ‘water scarcity indicators’, based on the central notion of
a ‘water barrier’ (Falkenmark, 1989: 112). Her thesis postulates that as populations
increase, so too does water scarcity, which leads to competition and potential conflict.
This type of theorization then led other authors to conclude that the inherent linkages
between water scarcity and violent conflict predicted the inevitable occurrence of water
wars in the twenty-first century.
Homer-Dixon, the most prominent author on the subject of scarcity and conflict,
outlines three major sources of environmental scarcity and their interaction (Homer-
Dixon, 1994). First, supply-side scarcity describes how the depletion and pollution
of resources reduce the total available volume. Secondly, demand-side scarcity
explains how changes in consumptive behaviour and a rapidly growing population
can cause demand to exceed supply. And thirdly, structural scarcity occurs when
some groups receive disproportionably large slices of the resource pie, leaving others
with progressively smaller slices (Turton, 2000a). Homer-Dixon does, however,
acknowledge that environmental scarcity is never a conflict determining factor on its
own, and is usually found in conjunction with other more detrimental causes (Homer-
Dixon, 1994). As such, environmental scarcity can aggravate existing conflict and make
it acute. In southern Africa, this plays out when marginalized communities are forced
to migrate and settle on contested land, thereby bringing these incoming communities
into conflict with people who are already struggling to survive. Migrations away from
the Kalahari towards the panhandle of the Okavango Delta, and urban migration
towards Windhoek in Namibia, are two such examples.
Then, there are those who see environmental degradation as an opportunity for
social ingenuity, conflict prevention and management. Leif Ohlsson argues that as
water scarcity increases, so too does the need for social adaptation to the consequences
of this scarcity (ibid.). With increased desertification or the greater frequency of
droughts, lifestyles have been forced to adapt and social patterns have been forced to
shift. Ohlsson also distinguishes between first-order resources, and social or second-
order resources. Adaptive capacity is therefore determined by the degree to which
some states that are confronted by an increasing level of first-order resource scarcity
(scarcity regarding the resource, that is water) can adapt to these conditions provided
that a high level of second-order resources (social adaptive capacity or what Homer-
Dixon refers to as ‘ingenuity’) are available.
Still, other scholars oppose any causal linkages between scarcity and war (as opposed
to conflict). Anthony Turton defines a water war simply as a war caused by the desire for
access to water. ‘In this case, water scarcity is both a necessary and sufficient condition
for going to war’ (ibid.: 36). Turton therefore identifies ‘pseudo’ wars as those conflict
events that take place when hydraulic installations such as dams and water treatment
plants become targets of war. A war in this category is thus caused by something quite
unrelated to water scarcity, and is therefore, not considered to be a true water war, but
rather a conventional war, with water as a tactical component.
Furthermore, when rivers form part of contested international boundaries, they
may also be the focal point of war as water issues become politicized. In this case again,
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18
water scarcity is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for going to war (ibid.).
One example is that of the military confrontation that broke out between Botswana
and Namibia over the control of an island (important for grazing) situated in the
contested boundary area of the Chobe River (Breytenbach, 2003). As such, water as
the cause of war is a very narrowly defined condition, with limited empirical evidence
of its existence over time. Most authors, arguing for the increasing threat of water wars,
are often misled when labelling conventional wars as water wars, or exaggerating the
threat of a dispute escalating into military aggression.
Norms and trends in the water
cooperation discourse
Norms and trends in water therefore originated largely in an attempt to eradicate or
minimize real, perceived or predicted conflicts (Jacobs, 2010a). The global norm set of
transboundary cooperation is arguably the most prominent, comprising of principles
such as equitable and reasonable utilization, the no harm doctrine, information
exchange, consultation with other riparian states and ecosystem protection. This norm
set has evolved over time into its current form because of the need to reconcile the
tension between shared river protection and the rights of states to utilize their water
resources as they see fit.
Criteria for normatively assessing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practice in
transboundary water management
Global fatigue
It can certainly be argued that the need to accommodate the multiplicity of demands
on water, has led to an ‘institutionalized’ way of knowing and dealing with water
(Lach et al., 2005) that is considered to be normatively ‘good’, driven largely by
influential state and non-state actors of the North. Research conducted on the degree
to which global norms have diffused to lower levels of scale raise the question of the
appropriateness of these global norms to different contexts, which are often accepted
rather uncritically as a goal for which to strive. Described by Acharya (2004) as
the first wave of normative change, these analyses tend to give causal primacy to
‘international prescriptions’ and in so doing, often undermine the important agential
role of ‘norms that are deeply rooted in other types of social entities – regional,
national, and sub-national groups’ (Legro, 1997: 32). As Checkel observes, this focus
on the global scale, creates an implicit dichotomy between what is considered to
be ‘good’ global norms, seen as more desirable and ‘bad’ regional or local norms
(Acharya, 2004; Checkel, 1999; Finnemore, 1996; Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998).
Analyses that take this stance often perpetuate a biased moral superiority of the
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‘global’, by regarding global norm diffusion as a process of ‘teaching by transnational
agents’, which downplays the agency role of local actors (Acharya, 2004).
If the global norm set was in fact the most appropriate standard to be emulated
in water agreements at lower levels of scale, and applicable to all contexts, then there
would be evidence of easy and exact diffusion of the entire norm set at regional, basin,
sub-basin and national levels. The fact that several norms found in the global norm set
of transboundary cooperation are at times inappropriate or inapplicable to particular
(and specifically developing country) contexts is reflected in the ineffectiveness of many
international environmental agreements, as a result of powerful actors who impose
foreign norms onto local contexts, for instance, as lip service rhetoric to external
donors or other international institutions. At best, these norms are manipulated
and transformed into a context-specific code of conduct, but may also become
institutionalised in their globally relevant but locally inapplicable form. In essence,
“bad” (or inapplicable) norms become institutionalized too. Similarly, that which is
considered to be best practice is in most cases, context specific. There is therefore, not
one set of criteria for normatively assessing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practice in transboundary
water governance.
Cooperation versus environmental multilateralism
It is also important to emphasize that cooperation and environmental multilateralism
are not one and the same. Additionally, they are often regarded as the ideal despite
producing sub-optimal outcomes that is vacuous institutions. Indeed, policymakers
have used these terms interchangeably as if referring to one concept. It should be
emphasized at the onset that multilateral institutions have increased in the past three
decades(Meyeretal.,1997)butthishasnotnecessarilyledtoidealcooperationbetween
states or effective regimes that are intended to provide governance (Dimitrov, 2005).
Riparian cooperation is celebrated for its potential to produce benefits to the river,
from the river, because of the river and beyond the river (Sadoff and Grey, 2002, 2005).
However, the extent to which riparian interactions actually produce such benefits has
been widely overlooked by the international water community. The persistence of
such oversights contributes to a growing stream of well-intentioned but misinformed
policy. Moreover, norms, institutions and governance are not conterminous despite
being treated as such in existing scholarship (Dimitrov, 2005). This neo-institutionalist
assumption stems from the premise that institutions are instruments for providing
governance, and norms serve as the basis for both (ibid.).
The conflict-cooperation problematique
Research and evidence has proven that while there is an unlikely probability of
interstate water wars (conventional warfare) erupting in the future, the lack of
cooperation does carry security implications and sub-optimal water management
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20
strategies. Yet even this focus is misleading, for there is a danger in interpreting it
to imply a normative appropriateness towards unprecedented cooperation and the
sharing of international freshwater supplies. Framing the debate in this way places the
concepts of cooperation and conflict on a continuum, as an all-or-nothing outcome,
with cooperation existing as an extreme in direct opposition to war as depicted in
Figure 1.1 (Sadoff and Grey, 2005).
Although not explicitly indicated in most analyses, most literary contributions to
the hydropolitical discourse subscribe to the neo-realist notion of an anarchical or
‘governless’ international system, in which state behaviour is not only the product
of state attributes themselves, but also of the structure of the international system
within which these interactions take place (Du Plessis, 2000). But it is also believed,
under a neo-liberal institutionalist perspective, that cooperation and collaboration are
possible (and necessary or even inevitable) under conditions of anarchy through the
establishment of formal cooperative regimes/institutions. This problematique between
peace, stability and progress is a fragile and very important one, because the emphasis
is on the potential for ‘water wars’ based on the threat water-related contingencies pose
to security (Du Plessis, 2000). These approaches prioritize the inevitability of either
water conflict or water cooperation (in the form of ideal multilateral collaborations).
As such, a linear continuum between conflict and cooperation is often
conceptualized and the formation of institutions and regimes ranging from informal
to formal are the rungs by which to measure success, that is cooperation (see
5 Water union
Cooperation
Conflict
4 Functional Organizations
3 Regimes
2 Agreements, protocols, commissions, etc.
1 Unwritten agreements
–1 Non-compliance to international law and agreements
–2 Non-violent responses
–3 Sanctions
–4 Military response
–5 Taking of a portion of the basin using violent means
Figure 1.1 The conventional cooperation-conflict continuum of cater (adapted from
Meissner, 2000a)
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Figure 1.1). Similarly, a linear transition from ‘water wars’ to ‘water peace’ is implied
in several scholarly works (Allan, 2001; Ohlsson and Turton, 1999). In this regard,
scholars have argued that Africa’s transboundary rivers could become either drivers
of peace and economic integration or sources of endemic conflict (Turton, 2003a).
Cooperative management of shared watercourses has therefore been trumpeted as
the ideal, since it can optimize regional benefits, mitigate water-related disasters and
minimize tensions.
But as Warner (2012) argues, the water wars thesis painted too gloomy a picture, but
in parallel, the water cooperation thesis was overly optimistic to resonate with context-
specific realities. In practice, cooperation and conflict coexist. Or as Brouma (2003)
explains, water issues are highly politicized and securitized, but also simultaneously
constitute an element of cooperation. Indeed, the logic argued here is that the conflict-
cooperation problematique is one in which degrees of conflict and cooperation
regarding transboundary waters can occur simultaneously. The type of cooperative
strategy negotiated should therefore be unique to a particular context.
Best practice from the North?
Additionally, current studies focus on the need to develop appropriate scientific/
economic methodologies that can explain and predict future patterns of conflict and
cooperation(Turton,2003a,2003b,2003c,2003d).TechnocratictemplatesfromEurope
and North America, such as the concept of integrated water resources management
(IWRM),3
have also been suggested as best practice. However, not enough attention has
been placed on factoring in local configurations, domestic policy, political identities
and social and cultural institutions, particularly in the African context.
Developing a community of interest
What is lacking in hydropolitics literature is how we get to this state of cooperative
management (the practicalities thereof), and which types of cooperative strategies
are best for each region and river basin. Indeed, transboundary river basins and the
management thereof occur within coexisting conflictive and cooperative dimensions,
with actors cooperating on a particular aspect (e.g. information exchange for instance)
and not cooperating or ‘fighting’ over another (e.g. the volumetric allocation of water).
The normative frameworks within which regions and transboundary river basin
management exist are therefore critical to understanding the conflict-cooperation
problematique. A central question in this regard relates to the convergence and/or
resistanceofnormsandvaluesaroundissuesofgovernance,andparticularlycooperative
management in these shared ecosystems (Conca, 2006). Recently too, cooperation has
begun to be viewed more broadly than just an outcome of the sharing of volumetric
allocations of water. Policymakers have now begun to see transboundary cooperation
as the way to jointly identify development options and socioeconomic benefits that can
be achieved in a transboundary and multilateral context.
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22
This benefit-sharing4
paradigm instigated by cooperative management strategies
has implications for normative frameworks and vice versa. Can norms on water-
sharing5
evolve into a benefit-sharing normative framework6
where actors begin to
believe that the benefits of cooperating transcend merely sharing volumetric allocation
of water but include benefits of regional integration, such as economic development
and sociopolitical benefits? To what degree does norm resistance affect this dynamic?
One way of addressing these questions is through an analysis of the way in which states
perceive themselves. Sadoff and Grey (2005) refer to this as the movement away from
national agendas that are unilateral, to national agendas that incorporate significant
cooperation and that converge on a shared cooperative agenda. Essentially, this refers
to notions of sovereignty, and the evolution in the perception of sovereign interests.
Indeed, the degree to which riparians share a common ‘water ethos’ or a regional
culture of managing shared rivers is a major determinant of the level, types and
effectiveness of cooperative strategies (Hogan, 2005). But given the multiplicity of
meanings that water has for various stakeholders, how possible is it to create a shared
water ‘ethos’ at the international level that is able to cascade down successfully to the
regional and local levels? Alternatively still, can a shared water ‘ethos’ be constructed at
the regional level within a hydropolitical complex, where similar interests converge on
a normative trajectory in ways that are unique to specific basins?
An overview of the hydropolitical discourse and
its theoretical foci
Also, conceptions of security after the Cold War have acquired wider meanings than
protection from a military threat and have broadened to include a greater focus on
natural resources. Hydropolitics has therefore emerged as an issue of practical and
scholarly concern that extends beyond issues of water use, to economics, development,
security, human rights and joint cooperation. Thus the hydropolitical discourse covers
a diverse spectrum of issues. It is therefore important to review past discourse and
its theoretical foci and examine how this relates to the broader realm of IR theory
before attempting to demarcate this study along more specific lines. Anton Du Plessis
describes several theoretical foci, which are relevant in this study (Du Plessis, 2000).
The first theoretical tenet is a focus on the environment, ecology and related ideas
that humanity is fast depleting its natural resources, and this premise dates back to the
nineteenth century (ibid.). In more recent times, however, there has been a resurgence
of ecocentrism and ecocentric issues. As a result, green politics, environmentalism
and environmental multilateralism have emerged as three very important political
forces internationally (ibid.). The second focus includes the emphasis on global
ecology as it relates to development. This theoretical focus rests on the claim that
development is inherently anti-ecological since it undermines sustainable practices
(ibid.). Furthermore, the main argument here involves the danger of development and
specifically, entrenching the power of the powerful (ibid.).
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The third theoretical focus exists within the realm of security studies, that is the
concern of security (ibid.). This concern extends more broadly to environmental
security, and more specifically, to water security (ibid.). This focus, and its theoretical
conceptualizations, is inextricably linked to the war-peace and conflict-cooperation
problematique if one considers water to be a potential source or cause of (violent)
conflict. The underlying logic, although not new, has become more prevalent since
the Cold War, resulting in the emergence of a new strategic imperative labelled as
‘environmental security’ (ibid.: 13). This concept addresses the environmental factors
that underlie potentially violent conflicts, and the impact of global environmental
degradation on the well-being of societies and economies (Porter, 1998). Additionally,
this development is in part borne from the ‘new’ security paradigm that has expanded
the security agenda to include non-military (‘low politics’) threats, and also non-
state, security stakeholders at all levels of society (Du Plessis, 2000). It is therefore also
linked to common security or a shared interest in survival (Butfoy, 1997). It is with
this theoretical foundation in mind that this study attempts to elevate water resource
management out of a strict water conflict versus water cooperation analysis overly
consumed with whether or not water conflict will erupt, but rather how behaviour and
policy is determined, that is how it is that agents (both state and non-state actors) get
to be positioned, which normative frameworks are created and how.
Arguments about global dangers are however understood very differently by the
South and particularly Africa, which is often regarded as a main source of these ‘new
threats’ (Dalby, 1998: 183). In part, this concern originates from the environmental
security debate, which also involves sustainable development as a formulation that can
allow injustice and environmental degradation to continue as part of the ideologically
renewed process of development (Du Plessis, 2000). Thus, from the South’s perspective,
the ‘discourses of danger’ that define the environmental security discourse are often
perceived as hegemonic or imperialist attempts to reassert domination of the South by
northern superpowers, albeit in the name of protecting the planet (Dalby, 1998).
As a logical extension of (in)security, the fourth theoretical focus rests on the
relationship between environmental change, scarce natural resources and conflict
(Du Plessis, 2000). Relevant here is the notion that scarcities of critical environmental
resources such as water are powerfully contributing to widespread violence in
certain areas of the world (ibid.). More specifically, Homer-Dixon (1994) who is
regarded as the intellectual founding father of this theoretical focus, argues that
resource depletion, resource degradation and resource scarcity (induced by issues
of supply and demand, as well as structural scarcity) contribute to mass violence.
Additionally however, the focus here is not solely on a preoccupation with conflict
but also includes the preconditions for peace. Therefore, as Du Plessis (2000) argues,
it involves conflict termination, containment, management and resolution, as well as
strategic approaches to peace. Scholars have therefore debated whether growing water
stresses create cooperative or conflictual incentives (Homer-Dixon, 1991, 1994; Postel
and Wolf, 2001) and whether existing agreements are effective mechanisms of shared
governance (Bernauer, 1997, 2002).
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24
The fifth theoretical focus in the discourse comprises of normative dimensions
and it involves value-based issues such as settled norms (e.g. sovereignty); nascent
norms (e.g. intervention and political space); ethical concerns (e.g. the distribution of
and access to scarce resources); as well as human rights (Du Plessis, 2000). According
to Conca, Wu and Mei (2006), no systematic analysis has been undertaken of the
principles underpinning shared river cooperation. Moreover, scholars have paid
less attention to the principled content of cooperation or the direction in which
principles are trending (Conca et al., 2006). In other words, not enough attention
has been placed on the influence of norms in influencing behaviour; socialization
processes of global, regional and domestic norms; norm contestation; describing and
analysing whether socialization processes are top-down or bottom-up, or whether
they even exist at all. Conca et al. (2006) posit that shared rivers provide a useful
domain in which to examine precisely this: the evolution of principled cooperation.
‘Theoretically, the often-asymmetric bargaining context between upstream and
downstream states offers strong tests of claims about norm diffusion and progressive
legalisation. Empirically, shared river governance provides an unusual opportunity
to link previously separate levels of analysis: the effort to cultivate a body of global
principles and the many basin-specific cooperative agreements among smaller
groups of countries’ (ibid.: 264).
The sixth theoretical focus, international and domestic water law, also forms part
of the ‘principled’ discourse as a basis for order, justice, cooperation and governance
(Du Plessis, 2000). Scholarship on the law of international rivers, however, has
treated global, basin-specific and local levels as conceptually disconnected and
analytically distinct (Conca et al., 2006). IR scholars are on the one end of the
spectrum, concentrating on the basin-specific level, and producing a large body
of research on cooperation and conflict among co-riparian states (Beach et al.,
2000). The central focus for IR scholars is therefore to predict the possibility or
the inevitability of international cooperation or conflict rather than the principled
content of cooperation (Conca et al., 2006). In terms of the variables shaping
cooperation-conflict, Conca et al. (2006) ascertain that IR research could easily be
divided into two main categories: the basin-level distribution of power (Bernauer,
1997; Frey, 1993; Turton, 2001a, 2008b; Turton and Ashton, 2008; Wolf, 1997); and
the effects of specific state characteristics, for example, regime type (Hamner, 2002),
the level of international economic interdependence (Durth, 1996) or the level of
domestic water scarcity (Frey, 1993; Gleditsch and Hamner, 2001; Lowi, 1993; Wolf,
1997). According to Conca et al. (2006), this bargaining-driven research contains an
inherent assumption that the principled content of cooperation could result from
existing patterns of power and interest, making the presence/absence of cooperation
(rather than normative orientation) a dependent variable. Legal scholarship, on
the other side of the spectrum, has placed more emphasis on the evolution of legal
principles for shared river basins, analysing decisions of the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) and other precedent-setting treaties or globally articulated frameworks
of legal principles such as SADC’s 2000 Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses,
and the 1997 UN Convention (Conca et al., 2006). This polarization articulates a need
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to merge both IR and legal scholarship to investigate how principled content – both
hard and soft law – affect the conflict-cooperation problematique of transboundary
water governance.
Swimming upstream and downstream
the hydropolitical discourse
Within its varied theoretical foci, the hydropolitical discourse has rarely consciously
adopted non-realist theorizing, but rather, many scholars of hydropolitics have written
from a-theoretical or deliberately non-theoretical perspectives (Allan, 1999b; Gleick,
1993; Homer-Dixon, 1994; Ohlsson, 1995; Payne, 1996). However, as Du Plessis (2000)
argues, the hydropolitical discourse does seem to have charted itself subliminally
through two main theoretical traditions of IR, that is the dominant tradition of
rationalism and the marginal tradition of reflectivism albeit concealed under policy
analysis and issues of security. These two rival overarching traditions can subsequently
be divided into sub-divisions; rationalist theories comprising of realism (and neo-
realism) and institutionalist theories (liberal and neo-liberal); while reflectivist theories
comprise of feminist theory, critical theory and postmodernism (Du Plessis, 2000).
The great debate between rationalism (neo-realist/neo-liberal synthesis) and
reflectivism rests on incommensurability. For instance, processes and institutions are
given a behavioural conception by rationalism, whereas reflectivism explains interests
and identities. According to Du Plessis, there is an absence of repressive tolerance in
the form of a similar self-understanding of the relationship among positions. There is
also a reciprocal lack of recognition with regard to legitimate parallel enterprises, since
these are believed to be linked to contending social agendas and projects. Rationalists
and reflectivists see each other as harmful, and at times, almost ‘evil’. According to
reflectivists, mainstream theories are co-responsible for upholding a repressive order
(Du Plessis, 2000).
IR and subsequently, the hydropolitical discourse, have therefore, accepted an
unchallenged set of positivist assumptions (Meissner, 2004) despite a slow and
incremental increase in the use of alternative theoretical perspectives. In many respects,
the absolute acceptance of this positivist epistemology has suffocated debate over the
characteristics of the world and how it can be explained.
Therefore, the temporal progression of IR (from one great debate to another) has
a tendency to organize itself through ‘a constant oscillation between grand debates
and periods in-between where the previous contestants meet’ (Waever, 1996: 175).
The discipline of IR has long awaited the arrival of a new rival perspective, since
reflectivism has become de-radicalized and re-conceptualized; indicating a move
towards linkage principles (Waever, 1997). Du Plessis and Meissner argue that in
fact, reflectivism is now no longer the dissident perspective, nor is it the ‘other’
perspective (Du Plessis, 2000; Meissner, 2004). Meissner (2004) has attempted to do
exactly this by theoretically merging the two theoretical approaches through social
constructivism.
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26
This study aims to elaborate on Meissner’s social constructivist approach, with
a focus on the impact of norms and norm development on transboundary water
governance. Waever reiterates this perspective arguing that the culmination of these
principles is the increasing marginalization of extreme rationalism (formal rational
choice) and anti-IR approaches (de-constructivists), as well as the emergence of a
middle ground where neo-institutionalists from the rationalist side come together
with the constructivists from the reflectivist side (Waever, 1997).
Indeed it might be argued that the rise of constructivism has propelled IR theory
development forward due to its bridge-building capabilities. On the IR theory
spectrum, Smith reiterates that certain forms of constructivism fall ‘. . . between both
rationalist and reflectivist approaches’ because ‘. . . it deals with the same features of
world politics that are central to both the neo-realist and the neo-liberal components
of rationalism, and yet is centrally concerned with both the meanings actors give to
their actions and the identity of these actors’ (Smith, 1997: 183). In this regard, it
represents a ‘synthesis’ between rationalism and reflectivism (Kubálková et al., 1998;
Smith, 1997).
Mainstream theories
Rationalism includes a spectrum of similar and also vastly different theories. However,
they do share a number of generic characteristics. They are first ‘scientific’ (or positivist)
and offer rational and explanatory renditions of international relations (Du Plessis,
2000). According to Meissner (2004) and Du Plessis (2000), explanatory theories are
those that view the world as ‘external’ (and existing objectively) to the theories that
explain world politics. In other words, subject and object must be separated in order to
theorize properly. Furthermore, since rationalism ‘assumes that images in the human
mind can represent reality through observation’, it also assumes that theorists are
able to separate themselves from the world ‘in order to “see” it clearly and formulate
statements that correspond to the world as it truly is’ (Du Plessis, 2000: 19). Therefore,
some feature of the world, that is war, peace, political boundaries are judged to be
either true or false. There is no attempt to explain how these concepts came into being
(how they were constructed) but merely why they exist (if they do) and how valid they
are in explaining something. They are therefore positivist, rational, foundationalist and
explanatory as well as what Cox refers to as problem-solving: theory that takes the world
as it finds it, including the prevailing social and power relationships and institutions,
and uses them as a basis or foundation for further action (Cox and Sinclair, 1996).
Realism and neo-realism explain the inevitability of conflict and competition
between states since these theories emphasize the insecure and anarchical nature of the
international environment. It is however also assumed that there can be cooperation
under anarchy, and that states can minimize international anarchy by constructing
rules and institutions for their coexistence (Burchill, 1996). Liberal institutionalism, for
example, emphasizes the benefits of transnational cooperation. Akin to neo-realism,
neo-liberal institutionalists also regard the state as a legitimate representation of
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society. They too accept the structural conditions of anarchy, but emphasize the gains
to be realized from cooperation between states (Dunne, 1997a).
To summarize therefore, rationalism takes the identities and interests of actors
as a ‘given’ (Du Plessis, 2000). It furthermore ignores major features of a globalized
political world system, and argues that the state is the primary actor in world politics.
Cooperation and conflict are prioritized, and actors are viewed as rational, value
maximizers (Smith, 1997).
Having briefly outlined the rational course, it is therefore no wonder that the
hydropolitical discourse is charted predominantly via this route. If one is to consider
conflict and security issues as primary components of war, it seems logical that
the securitization of water resources be state-centric. Sovereignty and territorial
integrity, as collaterals, are also emphasized in rationalist undertakings (Du Plessis,
2000). And while pluralism is not excluded, since non-state actors are regarded as
key stakeholders in the hydropolitical discourse, most contributions speak from the
vantage-point of state actors and none explicitly represent the alternative non-state
view (ibid.).
Tributary theories
According to Du Plessis, if rational choice theories such as neo-realism and neo-
liberalism are mainstream, then reflectivist theories are tributaries (in keeping with
the water theme) of contemporary theorizing along which the hydropolitical discourse
is charted (Du Plessis, 2000). While the reflectivist spectrum is vast, these theories are
united by their rejection of state-centric realist and neo-realist conceptions of war and
peace, neo-liberal institutional approaches to cooperation in anarchy, as well as the
positivist assumptions that have dominated the study of IR (ibid.).
Tributary theories have a self-reflective nature and are an assemblage of post-
positivist theories. These include normative theory, feminist theory, critical theory,
postmodernism and historical sociology (Linklater, 2000; Meissner, 2004; Smith, 1997).
Critical conceptions are based on the assumption that theory is always created for
someone and for some purpose, and that theory cannot be divorced from a standpoint
in time and space (Cox and Sinclair, 1996). Tributary theories therefore question the
apolitical nature of positivist theorizing, and are concerned with hidden aspects such
as the social and political purposes of knowledge and the dissemination thereof, the
interests and agendas of the observer/researcher – and how all of this affects the images
that actors construct of the world (Burchill, 1996).
Now while post-positivist theories do not add up to one theory of reflectivism,
several commonalities are noteworthy to be mentioned. As Du Plessis (2000) argues,
the meta-theoretical stance of reflexivity in IR involves three core elements: ‘a self-
awareness regarding the underlying premises of “own” theorizing; the recognition of
the inherently politico-normative dimension of paradigms and the normal science
traditions they generate; and that reasoned judgements can be made about the merits
of contending paradigms in the absence of objective standards’ (Du Plessis, 2000).
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28
Essentially, this outlines the most fundamental difference between post-positivist
theories and positivist theories – those for whom knowledge is socially constructed,
and those for whom it is not (Cox and Sjolander, 1994; Du Plessis, 2000).
With the exception of a few hydropolitics scholars, reflectivist discourse is,
to a significant extent, marginalized and at times silent on water governance
conceptualizations. Swatuk and Vale do however, go against the grain when they
question the water capture effect of the Homer-Dixon thesis. They persuasively do
this by deconstructing the discourse by identifying critical problems within it as
well as the policy decisions that it advocates (which they claim are racist, modernist,
statist, capitalist, liberalist, technicist/militarist, exclusive and supportive of the status
quo). As such, they propose a strategy for subverting this discourse as a prerequisite
for reconstructing it, which entails a paradigm shift of thinking, language, focus
and practice (Du Plessis, 2000; Swatuk and Vale, 2000). The significance of their
argumentation is twofold. First, it is implicitly argued that the water domain is
essentially a product of the theoretical foci of the prevailing hydropolitical discourse
itself, and that consequently, ‘water-theory’ is in fact constitutive of the reality it aims
to explain (Du Plessis, 2000). Secondly, it is explicitly argued that the discursive elite,
that is those who are in dominant policy-making positions, and who determine the
nature, form and content of the prevailing hydropolitical discourse, act as gatekeepers
in order to dominate, legitimize and sanction the prevailing discourse (ibid.). This in
turn leads to the creation of a dominant paradigm for the hydropolitical discourse.
IR theory’s application to the hydropolitical discourse
In the following section, a selection of theoretical traditions and theories will be
outlined and the degree to which they are state-centric and concerned with normative
issues will be reviewed. These theories are (1) Realism (or more specifically, regional
security complex theory (RSCT) and the HPC); (2) Conventional liberal-pluralist
perspectives such as neo-liberal institutionalism and (neo)-functionalist regime
theory and; (3) Political ecology. Following a discussion of each theory’s basic tenets
and relevance to the impact of norms and norm development on joint management of
water resources, constructivism will be outlined as the most appropriate in terms of its
ability to conceptualize the complexity of transboundary water governance.
The realist perspective
Realism is added to the discussion because it still is one of the dominant theoretical
perspectives in international relations today and is therefore regarded as the
orthodoxy (Halliday, 1994; Nye, 1993). While, for the purpose of this discussion,
realism is described as a singular theoretical perspective (because they share several
basic assumptions), on the contrary, it contains an array of competing theories that
disagree on core issues (Meissner, 2004; Walt, 1997). Moreover, realism is reviewed not
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to refute it as a viable theoretical framework, but rather to show its complimentary if
incomplete nature to norm development and hydropolitics.
The shared assumptions that realist theories hold include statism, self-help and
survival (Meissner, 2004). First, the state is regarded as the primary actor and unit
of analysis. It is rational and unitary, and therefore interstate relations become the
focus of realist analyses (Du Plessis, 2000; Dunne, 1997b). According to Viotti and
Kauppi (1999) non-state entities are secondary because governments representing
states are the only institutions that can formulate, implement and enforce laws. Realist
analyses are therefore overly state-centric and do not directly include non-state actors
or normative issues (Lynn-Jones, 1999).
Secondly, realists assume that sovereignty takes precedence and that it must first be
established before civil society can function (Meissner, 2004). Power therefore flows
in a one-dimensional path from state to civil society (ibid.). This is problematic for
an analysis of regional and transboundary water resource management, particularly
because of the contentious nature of managing transboundary rivers. As previously
mentioned, the overarching tension between the compartmentalization of states
who claim sovereign rights over resources in their territory versus the indivisible/
uninterrupted continuum of water, complicates the realm of hydropolitics. Moreover,
the fact that realists divorce the domestic sphere from the international realm is also
problematic for an analysis of global norm development moving from the international
domain into regional, national and sub-national spheres.
Thirdly, realists contend that power is used by states to further national interests
(which are viewed as fixed and static variables) and achieve goals (Brown, 1997). Akin
to arguments made by Finnemore (1996), I argue not that norms matter and interests
do not, nor is it that norms are more important than interests. The argument here
is that norms shape interests, which are by nature socially constructed. Additionally,
while realist assumptions of states pursuing national interests are not disputed, what is
ignored is how other non-state actors also pursue their interests. In other words, norm
entrepreneurs use organizational platforms to convince a critical mass of state leaders
to embrace new norms.
Fourthly, realists believe that the international system is inherently anarchical
and that states seek to maximize their power in order to provide security within this
anarchical system (Brown, 1997; Lynn-Jones, 1999; Meissner, 2004). Each state is
therefore obligated to protect its physical, political and cultural identity from other
states (Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff, 1990; Meissner, 2004; Morgenthau, 1974). Due to
realism’s state centric approach to IR, the theoretical framework is too narrow to solely
explain the phenomena of international norm development in hydropolitics.
Security Complex Theory (SCT)/Regional Security
Complex Theory (RSCT): A neo-realist-constructivist hybrid
The securitization of water resources, particularly in water scarce regions of the
world has led several scholars (Buzan and Waever, 2003; Schulz, 1995; Turton, 2003a,
2003b, 2003c, 2003d, 2008a, 2008b) to analyse hydropolitics within a SCT framework.
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30
A leading contributor to this body of literature, Barry Buzan (1991), first introduced
the idea of SCT in his early work entitled ‘People, States and Fear’. Here, Buzan argued
that since security is a relational phenomenon, it became clear that the national
security of any given state is embedded within an international pattern of security
interdependence (ibid.). Therefore, comprehensive security analysis necessitated
more attention to how the regional level of political interaction mediates the interplay
between states and the international system as a whole (ibid.). By concentrating
on regional sub-systems, two important levels of analysis between system and the
state are possible (ibid.). The first is the sub-system itself, whereas the second is the
pattern of relationships among the various units. Consequently, Buzan, Waever and
de Wilde (1998: 201) define a security complex as ‘a set of units whose processes of
securitisation, desecuritisation, or both, are so interlinked that their security problems
cannot reasonably be analysed or resolved apart from one another.’ Some scholars
argue that while securitization of water is not necessarily a desirable outcome of water
resource management (Turton, 2001a, 2001b; Wester and Warner, 2002), the concept
does help to understand political linkages between states in shared international river
basins (Turton, 2001a).
Security complexes thus emphasize the interdependence of both rivalries and
shared interests, threats and vulnerabilities, which are inherently greater over shorter
distances thus assuming greater priority (ibid.). In short, security complexes are
generated by the interaction of anarchy and geography, where the political structure of
anarchy confronts all states with a security dilemma, but this is almost always mediated
by the effects of geography (Buzan, 1991).
In a later work by Buzan and Waever entitled ‘Regions and Powers’ the authors
advance their earlier analysis of RSC into a RSCT, arguing that regionalization has
been the result of particular global dynamics and that the operational autonomy
of regions has been triggered by the advent of ‘non-military actors’, thereby
emphasizing the centrality of territoriality in the study of security dynamics (Buzan
and Waever, 2003). Here, the authors attempt to advance the neo-realist framework
by problematizing its ideational grid and incorporating into it elements of Wendtian
constructivism, for example, a conceptualization of power; particularly, the agents
of power (ibid.). They try to combine this, in their neo-realist framework, with their
re-evaluation of the notion of polarity. The authors make the interesting observation
that while regions do not display an actor quality (with the exception of the EU), it is
the projection of power and the extent of its reach (both materially and ideationally),
which defines polarization in international interactions (ibid.).
In this regard, Buzan and Waever unpack the main elements of their RSCT. First,
regions are the appropriate levels of analysis of security studies. Secondly, regions
provide a useful organization of and structure for empirical studies. And finally,
regions provide analytical scenarios for testing possible developments in the future.
Therefore, RSCT sketches a global map of RSC, whose patterns of amity and enmity
are dependent upon both proximity and specific roles (enemy, rival and friend).
Most critiques of RSCT find the marriage between constructivism and neo-realism
problematic. On the one hand RSCT acknowledges that security should be defined
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from the bottom-up by local (i.e. regional) actors and that ‘security is what states
make of it’ (Buzan and Waever, 2003: 49). Yet on the other hand, the fact that the
state is still the central unit of analysis makes analysing non-state-centric situations
superfluous.
Additionally, in a typically state-centric neo-realist vein, the RSCT tends not to
stray from traditional security issues, that is territoriality and territorial proximity as
defining features of regions (Hoogensen, 2005). Thus, deterritorialized security issues
such as economic security, which are often times raised from globalist perspectives,
cannot override territorial security considerations when speaking of regions (ibid.).
Furthermore, even in a supposedly weak regional security complex, or proto-
complex such as southern Africa, as defined by Buzan and Waever, South Africa, the
regional power, has projected its security interests further than the boundaries of
southern Africa by becoming involved in peacekeeping and mediation in Burundi,
Liberia, Sao Tome and Haiti (Hammerstad, 2005). While this is not necessarily a
problem for RSCT, since it does allow for great powers to act outside of their region,
the combination, however, of the introspective nature of threat perceptions in
the region and the regional power’s interest beyond the region, results in a weak
complex, where the domestic level of analysis is dominant (ibid.). And finally, the
focus of state behaviour and interests undermines the important role that norms
play in influencing behaviour, redefining interests and contributing to a normative
community of interests. There is therefore, a need to reflect on the increasingly
important constitutive role that non-state actors, ideas, norms and values play within
security complexes.
Buzan and Waever’s analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa as a weak security complex is
yet another contested area of their research. RSCT tends to rely on strong institutions
present in states and according to the authors, this region has never obtained a strong
foothold, and the dynamics of sub-state entities are strongly pronounced (Buzan and
Waever, 2003). Non-state security threats such as HIV/AIDS and population growth
are brushed over and presented as a set of state interactions with external power
penetration or overlay (Hoogensen, 2005). According to Hoogensen, the African
example suffers as a result (ibid.). For example, Buzan and Waever state that ‘with
such a poorly developed political apparatus, and with such fragmented civil societies,
Africa is incapable of giving adequate voice to its own security agenda’ (Buzan and
Waever, 2003: 252). Thus, Africa’s security needs should be expressed by ‘others’
given that Africa is incapable, as a region, of expressing those needs itself. In short,
it has no ability to express security needs from the bottom-up. Hoogensen raises two
pertinent questions; is it not likely that a security agenda is expressed in Africa, but
that this agenda is not ‘heard’ by the dominant security discourses? And is it not also
possible that, if we remove the preoccupation with state boundaries, a wide variety of
‘unheard’ security articulations within a variety of regions (from Africa to the Arctic)
will become audible? (Hoogensen, 2005). Development of these kinds of points would
have better helped RSCT establish the importance of the region as a unit of analysis
beyond the state.
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32
The Hydropolitical Complex (HPC)
Using the work by Buzan (1991), Buzan et al. (Buzan and Waever, 2003; Buzan et al.,
1998) and Schulz (1995) as a point of departure, a conceptual model was developed
that factors in the hydropolitical dimension of international relations, particularly as
it pertains to the southern African region (Turton, 2003a, 2003d; Turton, 2005a). The
rationale for this, according to Turton (2005), is based on the fact that international riv-
ers provide permanent linkages between different states within the Southern African
Regional Security Complex as originally defined by Buzan (1991). These linkages are
so interconnected that they cannot be understood only in terms of geography, and a
study that focuses purely on the river basin level misses this complex reality. However,
while Turton’s HPC and Schultz’s Hydropolitical Security Complex, particularly that of
the Tigris-Euphrates Security Complex, are both deviants of Buzan’s Regional Security
Complex, Turton’s HPC is where interstate relations around water converge on a nor-
mativetrajectorythatmovestowardsamity.Incontrast,Shultz’sHydropoliticalSecurity
Complex is when norms diverge and the trajectory is one of enmity instead.
In addressing some of the shortcomings of realist theories, a variety of liberalist
perspectives have been offered. Conventional liberal-pluralism is a theoretical
umbrella term in international relations that is theoretically discernible from, and
contrasted to, realism (Stone, 1994). Moreover, it comprises of a number of theories
including: regime theory, liberal internationalism, idealism, liberal institutionalism,
neo-liberal internationalism, neo-idealism, functionalism, neo-functionalism, to
mention but a few. It therefore does not constitute a unified theoretical approach and
can most justifiably be referred to as a paradigm (Dunne, 1997a; Viotti and Kauppi,
1999). Generally speaking the liberal-pluralist perspective of world politics rests on the
foundation of liberal ideas and values outlined below.
The liberal-pluralist perspective
First, the liberal-pluralist perspective postulates that states are not the only or the most
important actors in international relations. Instead, non-state actors such as interest
groups and individuals can also exhibit varying degrees of autonomy (Meissner, 2004;
Stone, 1994). These non-state actors, it is argued, play increasingly prominent roles in
influencing governments on the determination of national interests (Viotti and Kauppi,
1999: 199). Secondly, liberal-pluralists contend that a highly complex, interdependent
and interconnected system exists between actors (Heywood, 1997).
Thirdly, liberal-pluralists prioritize autonomy over sovereignty as a settled norm, to
accommodate a range of non-state actors (Meissner, 2004). Fourthly, they argue that
states are permeable and not solid, unitary actors (Heywood, 1997; Meissner, 2004).
Each state is composed differently in terms of types of government, constituencies
etc., and these characteristics can change over time (Meissner, 2004; Stone, 1994).
States therefore consist of citizens, interest groups, local authorities and government
departments, all of whom constantly compete with one another (Meissner, 2004). In
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this regard, if states are viewed as unitary actors, then there can be no variety or analysis
of sub-national and transnational actors who are able to influence the state (Viotti
and Kauppi, 1999). Fifthly, liberal-pluralists believe that domestic and international
politics cannot be separated in reality or in analyses thereof, since the realms are
interdependent (Meissner, 2004). And finally, they assume that cooperation in the
international system is natural because the current international system is perceived as
liberal (Meissner, 2004; Stone, 1994).
Liberal-pluralism in the broader context, offers a more useful explanation of the
effect of global environmental multilateralism and state sovereignty on regional water
resource management than does realism because it acknowledges the plurality of the
state. But while it increases the scope of international water politics by attributing
agency to non-state actors (by arguing that institutions can change state behaviour),
very few liberal-pluralist perspectives attempt to link non-state actors with identity
and interest creation (Smith, 1997). Additionally, liberal-pluralists hold international
institutions as benevolent forces, when in fact, they may act in pursuit of rational
self-interest which may be at odds with those for peace and/or cooperation.
Alternatively (and arguably, particular to environmental institutions), they may be
hollow, ostentatious institutions created merely as lip service to the environmental
problematique that is to be seen as global good citizens conforming to the norm set of
transboundary cooperation, with no desire to reform domestic policy. Additionally,
realists argue that liberalist arguments can be grounded in realism – and raw economic
and military power still trumps sociocultural and other broader notions of power.
In reviewing several liberal-pluralist theories in terms of their applicability
to norm development of regional water resource management, what is evident is
the utility and indeed, necessity of accommodating non-state actors, prioritizing
intersubjectivity, and understanding behaviour as being driven by both material and
ideational factors.
Neo-liberal institutionalism
Neo-liberal institutionalism in IR comprises of those theories that regard international
institutions as the primary actors in coordinating and fostering international
cooperation. Neo-liberal institutionalists begin on a very similar theoretical starting
block as realists, except, where realists assume that states focus on relative gains and
the potential for conflict, neo-liberal institutionalists assume that states concentrate
on absolute gains and the prospects for cooperation. These scholars argue that the
potential for conflict is overstated by realists and suggest that there are countervailing
forces, such as repeated interactions, that propel states towards cooperation.
Regarding cooperative or collaborative responses to water-related (in)security and
water-induced conflict, neo-liberal institutionalism seems to be a strong candidate
for theoretical frameworks. It emphasizes the notion of regime development, which
is based on stakeholder decision-making and has a discrete legalistic-institutional
foundation (Du Plessis, 2000). The concept of ‘good governance’ is therefore priori-
tized, again highlighting the centrality of the state, but also adding liberal-democratic
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34
capitalistic values as collateral (Mochebelele, 2000 cited in Du Plessis, 2000). The key
participants in this respect are mostly collectivities representing the state as a political
entity, as well as epistemic communities governed by technical experts in the water
field (Du Plessis, 2000) which are in turn funded by governments.
Additionally, neo-liberal institutionalism, as previously mentioned of all liberal-
pluralist perspectives, regards international institutions as benevolent forces created
by morally good principles. In other words, neo-liberal institutionalism assumes away
too much regarding the make-up of institutions and multilateralism than this study
can afford.
(Neo-)functionalist regime theory
While regime theory will also not form part of this study’s theoretical framework, it
is worth briefly describing its importance to the water discourse, as well as to offer
a justification for why its utility as a theoretical framework for this study is limited.
While literature in the area of regime theory is not focused on transboundary water
governance, Turton argues that there is plenty that can be applied to hydropolitics
in international river basins. According to Turton (2003d), who uses regime theory
extensively in his research, the role of regimes in building confidence between
riparian states and thereby reducing insecurity in the face of increasing water deficit
is a significant contribution to explaining successful water resource management
and cooperation. The significant role of crisis is particularly pertinent here, with the
avoidance of crisis becoming a major security concern, potentially leading to regime
creation (Alcamo, 2000). Thus, Turton uses regime theory to analyse desecuritization
processes (and thereby cooperation) to the same degree that he uses SCT and RSCT to
analyse securitization (and thereby conflict).
One basic tenet of regime theory is that regimes (defined as a set of implicit and
explicit principles, norms, rules and procedures around which actors’ expectations
converge in a particular issue-area such as human rights, nuclear non-proliferation,
environmental concerns) provide for transparent state behaviour and a degree of
stability in an anarchical international system (Krasner, 1983). Another central principle
of regime theory is that the chances of successful regime formation are higher the more
limited and well defined the issue is (Gupta et al., 1993). Now while Turton argues
that this makes it very relevant to the international dimension of the SADC water
sector (Turton, 2003d) due to the alignment of riparian states’ interests, that is water
management as an issue-area due to the interdependence of Orange-Senqu River basin
states on each other for economic development, this does not prove to be as relevant
to the Nile River basin. Advancing the collective action characteristic of what Elinor
Ostrom (1991) terms ‘common property resources’ (CPRs), Waterbury (2002) presents
the case that non-cooperation is perhaps more likely than cooperation, due to disparate
national interests and rivalry. Waterbury clarifies that rivalry is asymmetrical. In other
words, transboundary watercourses ‘. . . do not constitute common pool resources
that can be exploited jointly and simultaneously by the riparians in the basin’ (ibid.:
23). He goes on to argue that this is not a doomsday (water war) prediction due to
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the regional dynamics characterized by chronic instability and ‘political ineptitude’
of major stakeholders Ethiopia, the Sudan and Uganda to engage in this manner.
When combining this logic with the intrinsic hydraulic difficulty of permanently
excluding Egypt from access to water and compelling it to secure its Nile water uses
by a multilateral legal framework, it becomes evident how easy it is to achieve non-
cooperation! (ibid.). Waterbury further argues that non-cooperation or perhaps, non-
multilateral action poses no ‘tragedy of the commons’ problem requiring emergency
resuscitation because no crisis of that degree exists (Waterbury, 2002). This argument
of regime formation differs to that presented by Young (1994), that is the view that a
crisis or shock might precipitate a formation of regimes. Yet another explanation to
the formation of regimes, however, is the one offered by Haas (1994) and Adler and
Haas (1992). They are not overly concerned with interests and dramatic events but
argue instead, that a regime can originate out of communities of shared knowledge or
epistemic communities. The emphasis is on how these experts play an important role
in the articulation of complex problems, such as water management issues or pollution
control.
While this investigation does not aim to refute the role regimes play or undermine
its importance in acting as socializing agents, regime theory says little about how norms
become legitimized and internalized within regimes. Moreover, a moral judgement
that regimes foster cooperation does not add to the depth of this study since it lays
out a unidirectional path with cooperation as the ideal like all other liberal-pluralist
perspectives. Since norms are dynamic variables, so too would socializing agents such
as regimes have to change. Such a theory that regards regimes as static, monolithic
entities, proves insufficient as an overarching theoretical framework. Also, although
norms do feature in a secondary capacity, this theory is too narrow to explain how
actors go about lobbying and advocating for the embracing of new norms. In other
words, the agential nature of norms is not discussed in great detail nor how they can in
fact, affect the identities of states.
Political ecology
Political ecology is the only reflectivist theory reviewed in this study, due to the
under-representation of reflectivist applications to transboundary water governance.
As espoused by Atkinson (1991), political ecology is a normative theory that offers
an alternative perspective to neo-liberalism (Atkinson, 1991; Toke, 2000). Simply put,
political ecology, as a normative approach, looks at what ought to be rather than at
what is (Viotti and Kauppi, 1999), and is therefore, evaluative and prescriptive in nature
(Meissner, 2004).
Additionally, political ecology has several basic assumptions that make it depart
from mainstream positivist theories. First, theorists of political ecology reject the
notion that only the state-system or other global political structures can respond
effectively to environmental problems (Meissner, 2004). Furthermore, they expand
this view by arguing for global-scale political transformation rather than institutional
7/20/2001 6:39:45 AM

36
tinkering, such as the establishment of regimes (Paterson, 2001). Secondly, it is assumed
that increased economic development through industrialization is detrimental to the
natural environment (Heywood, 1997).
Thirdly, political ecology theorizing states that ‘limits to growth’ run parallel to
rapid economic and population expansion. ‘These aspects are straining the earth’s
resources and carrying capacity that will soon reach its limits’ (Meissner, 2004: 38). In
this regard, there is a definite limit to the amount of growth a society can experience
(Paterson, 2001). Fourthly, political ecologists argue that development is essentially
‘anti-ecological’ as it destabilizes sustainable practices. These practices create inequality
by turning common spaces into private property (Paterson, 2001). Fifthly, theorists
of political ecology reject sustainable development since it is yet another way for the
‘ruling elite to co-opt environmentalism’ (ibid.: 282–5). Sixthly, political ecologists
also assume that humans have become separated and indeed alienated from nature,
through economic processes such as capitalist consumerism and a division of labour
(Atkinson, 1991; Turton, 1999a). They therefore advocate for a change in political and
social institutions in order to diffuse the social tensions that result from the currently
existing inegalitarian social relations (Atkinson, 1991; Meissner, 2004).
Seventhly, political ecologists are anti-anthropocentric, meaning that they
reject anthropocentrism, which contends that the well-being and needs of humans
have precedence over nature’s interests and needs (Heywood, 1997). Being anti-
anthropocentric is therefore a type of ecocentrism, which places nature first in ethical
and philosophical considerations of human activity. Eighthly, ecocentrism counteracts
the anthropocentrism of state action (Meissner, 2004). It acknowledges human as
well as non-human interests (Toke, 2000), and assumes a holistic approach (Meissner,
2004). Ninthly, it is also argued that political power should not be centralized at the
state level, but rather decentralized within the state and centralized at the regional and
global levels (ibid.). Lastly, political ecologists emphasize the important role of non-
state actors, and regard interest groups, such as NGOs with an environmental agenda,
as critically important in affecting a reversal of the ecological crisis facing humanity
(Meissner, 2004; Turton, 1999a).
The relationship between political ecology theory and hydropolitics is relevant for
this study because it recommends that societies become self-regulating (Atkinson,
1991; Meissner, 2004; Turton, 1999a). A self-regulating society can only be realized if
it is ‘simpler’ in its functions and the relationship between humans and nature more
transparent (Atkinson, 1991). This could be achieved if the population of a given
political entity are allowed to question the decisions that are made by political decision-
makers (Turton, 1999a). Political ecology is, however, a very narrow explanatory tool
since (a) It does not say much about how norm entrepreneurs convince policymakers
to embrace new norms or how norms develop and affect behaviour and interests (b)
It does not explain the importance of global norms as entities that may or may not
determine interests in environmental issues and (c) It does not propose an alternative
to the state system it renounces (Meissner, 2004). Most importantly, it prescribes a
normative judgement on that which it analyses, with a bias towards environmentalism.
This links back to the applicability of the global norms set. Political ecologists may be
7/20/2001 6:39:45 AM

able to provide us with a normative framework to assess the suitability of contending
norms, but the criteria used to determine ‘good’ norms from ‘bad’ norms is in itself
normative, and may mask or prejudge the existing landscape of norms and their
interaction in time and space.
A constructivist lens
In order to bridge the divide between mainstream and tributary perspectives and to
accommodate the complexities of ideational contents such as norm development in
transboundary water governance, constructivism is used as the umbrella theoretical
framework to analyse what Keck and Sikkink have described as ‘[s]ociological
traditions that focus on complex interactions among actors, on the intersubjective
construction of frames of meaning’ (Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 4). According to
FinnemoreandSikkink,‘constructivistsfocusontheroleofideas,norms,knowledge,
culture and argument in politics, stressing in particular the role of collectively held
or “intersubjective” ideas and understandings on social life’ (Finnemore and Sikkink,
2001: 392). According to Bernstein, the reflectivist/constructivist agenda in IR arose
from the dissatisfaction that mainstream views ‘seemed to forget that international
institutions are not simply a vehicle through which states cooperate, but that the
cooperation they enable is for some purpose or goal’ (Bernstein, 2001: x). Since
I focus on the international ideational contents of regional water policy, this is
an important theoretical pillar, that is, how water governance has been socially
constructed in a specific political process over time and why it has been constructed
the way it has.
It is however noteworthy to reiterate that due to constructivism’s difficulty in
explaining change, I will draw from other theoretical perspectives, and where necessary,
fill in the gaps where current theory fails to do so. In spite of this shortcoming,
constructivism does attempt to understand social relations by explaining the
construction of the sociopolitical world by human practice (Meissner, 2004). In this
regard it is successful in its bridge-building properties. Simply put, the constructivist
approach applied here emphasizes the importance of normative as well as material
structures (indeed the impact of the ideational on the material), the role of identity in
shaping political action and also the complementary constitutive relationship between
agents and structures.
It is also imperative to mention that constructivism comprises a wide range of
perspectivesthatdifferinmanyways.Indeed,somescholarsarguethatconstructivism
as a single theoretical approach does not exist (Teti and Hynek, 2006). Other
authors have categorized constructivism into different classifications including
conventional/classical, neo-classical, naturalist, postmodernist etc. This study draws
on Meissner’s three-pronged classification system adapted from Reus-Smit’s analysis
that is systemic, unit-level and holistic constructivism (Meissner, 2004; Reus-Smit,
2001). While systemic constructivism follows a neo-realist path of adopting a ‘third
7/20/2001 6:39:45 AM

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Edith leaned fondly on his bosom, and whispered, "And write that
this has been one happy day, my father."
Alas, alas! that the brightest sunshine and the softest sky should
so often precede the day of storms! Alas, that the dark tempest-
clouds should be so frequently gathering beneath the horizon all
around us, when the sky above seems full of hope and promise! But
so it is too often in this life. The old geographers' fancied figure of
the earth was very like the earth on which human hopes are raised--
a fair and even plain, with a yawning precipice all round it.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The day went by; night fell; and Walter Prevost did not appear in
his father's house. No alarm, however, was entertained; for, out of
the wide range of chances, there were many events which might
have occurred to detain him. A shade of anxiety, perhaps, came over
Edith's mind; but it passed away the next morning, when she heard
from the negro Chando, or Alexander (who, having been brought up
amongst the Indians from his infancy, was better acquainted with
their habits than any person in the house), that not a single red man
had been in the neighbourhood since the preceding morning at eight
o'clock.
"All gone west, missy," he said; "the last to go were old chief
Black Eagle. I hear of him coming to help you, and I go out to see."
Edith asked no questions in regard to the sources of his
information; for he was famous for finding out all that was going on

in the neighbourhood, and, with a childlike vanity, making somewhat
of a secret of the means by which he obtained intelligence; but she
argued reasonably, though wrongly, that, as Walter was not to set
out from Albany till about the same hour that the Indians left, he
could not have fallen in with any of their parties.
Thus passed the morning, till about three o'clock; but then, when
the lad did not appear, anxiety rose up, and became strong, as hour
after hour went by, and he came mot. Each tried to sustain the
hopes of the others; each argued against the apprehensions he
himself entertained. Lord H---- pointed out that the Commander-in-
Chief, to whom Walter had been sent, might be absent from Albany.
Mr. Prevost suggested that the young man might have found no boat
coming up the river; and Edith remembered that very often the
boatmen were frightfully exorbitant in their charge for bringing any
one on the way who seemed eager to proceed. Knowing her
brother's character well, she thought it very likely that he would
resist an attempt at imposition, even at the risk of delay. But still she
was very, very anxious; and as night again fell, and the hour of
repose arrived without his presence, tears gathered in her eyes, and
trembled on the silken lashes.
The following morning dawned in heavy rain; a perfect deluge
seemed descending from the sky. Still Lord H---- ordered his horse
at an early hour, telling Edith and Mr. Prevost, in as quiet and easy a
tone as he could assume, that he was going to Albany.
"Although I trust and believe," he said, "that my young friend
Walter has been detained by some accidental circumstance, yet it
will be satisfactory to us all to know what has become of him; and,
moreover, it is absolutely necessary that I should have some
communication as speedily as possible with the Commander-in-Chief.
I think it likely that Walter may have followed him down the river, as
he knows my anxiety for an immediate answer. I must do so too, if I
find him still absent; but you shall hear from me when I reach
Albany; and I will be back myself as soon as possible."

Edith gazed at him with a melancholy look, for she felt how much
she needed, and how much more she might still need, the comfort
of his presence; but she would not say a word to prevent his going.
The breakfast that day was a sad and gloomy meal. The lowering
sky, the pouring rain, the thoughts that were in the hearts of all,
banished everything like cheerfulness. Various orders were given for
one of the servants to be ready to guide Lord H---- on his way, for
ascertaining whether the little river were in flood, and other matters;
and the course which Walter was likely to take on his return, was
considered and discussed, in order that the nobleman might take the
same road, and meet him, if possible; but this was the only
conversation which took place.
Just as they were about to rise from table, however, a bustle was
heard without, amongst the servants; and Mr. Prevost started up,
exclaiming,--
"Here he is, I do believe!"
But the hope was dispelled the next instant; for a young man, in
full military costume, but drenched with rain, was ushered into the
room, and advanced towards Lord H----, saying, in a quiet,
commonplace tone,--
"We arrived last night, my lord, and I thought it better to come up
and report myself immediately, as the quarters are very insufficient,
and we may expect a great deal of stormy weather, I am told."
Lord H---- looked at him gravely, as if he expected to hear
something more; and then said, after a moment's pause,--
"I do not exactly understand you, Captain Hammond. You have
arrived where?"
"Why, at the boatman's village on the point, my lord," replied the
young officer, with a look of some surprise; "have you not received

Lord Loudon's dispatch, in answer to your lordship's own letters?"
"No, sir," replied Lord H----; "but you had better come and confer
with me in another room."
"Oh, George, let us hear all," exclaimed Edith, laying her hand
upon his arm, and divining his motives at once; "if there be no
professional reason for secrecy, let us hear all."
"Well," said Lord H----, gravely, "pray, Captain Hammond, when
were his lordship's letters dispatched, and by whom?"
"By the young gentleman you sent, my lord," replied Captain
Hammond; "and he left Albany two days ago, early in the morning.
He was a fine gentlemanly young fellow, who won us all, and I went
down to the boat with him myself."
Edith turned very pale, and Mr. Prevost inquired--
"Pray, has anything been heard of the boat since?"
"Yes, sir," answered the young officer, beginning to perceive the
state of the case; "she returned to Albany the same night, and we
came up in her yesterday, as far as we could. I made no inquiries
after young Mr. Prevost, for I took it for granted he had arrived with
the dispatches."
Lord H---- turned his eyes towards the face of Edith, and saw
quite sufficient there to make him instantly draw a chair towards her,
and seat her in it.
"Do not give way to apprehension," he said, "before we know
more. The case is strange, undoubtedly, dear Edith; still the enigma
may be solved in a happier way than you think."
Edith shook her head sadly, saying, in a low tone,--

"You do not know all, dear George--at least, I believe not. The
Indians have received an offence they never forgive. They were
wandering about here on the night we were caught by the fire,
disappearing the next morning; and, some time during that night,
my poor brother must have been--"
Tears broke off the sentence; but her lover eagerly caught at a
few of her words to find some ground of hope for her--whatever he
might fear himself.
"He may have been turned from his course by the burning forest,"
he said, "and have found a difficulty in retracing his way. The woods
were still burning yesterday, and we cannot tell how far the fire may
have extended. At all events, dearest Edith, we have gained some
information to guide us. We can now trace poor Walter to the place
where he disembarked, and that will narrow the ground we have to
search. Take courage, love, and let us all trust in God."
"He says that Walter intended to disembark four miles south of
the King's road," said Mr. Prevost, who had been talking earnestly to
Captain Hammond. "Let us set out at once, and examine the ground
between this place and that."
"I think not," remarked Lord H----, after a moment's thought. "I
will ride down, as fast as possible, to the house, and gain what
information I can there. Then, spreading a body of men to the
westward, we will sweep all the trails up to this spot. You, and as
many of your people as can be spared from the house, may come on
to meet us, setting out in an hour; but, for Heaven's sake, do not
leave this dear girl alone."
"I fear not--I fear not for myself," replied Edith; "only seek for
Walter; obtain some news of him, and let us try to save him, if there
be yet time to do so."
Covering her eyes with her handkerchief, which was wetted with
her tears, Edith took no more part in what was going on, but gave

herself up to bitter thought; and many and complex were the trains
which it followed. Now a gleam of hope would rise up and cheer her
for an instant into a belief that her lover's supposition might be
correct, and that Walter might, indeed, have been cut off by the fire,
and, not knowing which way it extended, might have taken a course
leading far away from the house. With the hope, as ever, came the
fear; and she asked herself,--
"Might he not have perished in the woods--perished of hunger--
perished by the flame? But he was prompt, resolute, and
accustomed, for some years, to the life of the woods. He had his
rifle with him too, and was not likely to want food when that was in
his hand."
But, prominent over all in darkness and dread, was the fear of
Indian vengeance; and the more she thought of the probability of
her brother having been entrapped by some party of the Oneidas,
the more terrible grew her apprehensions, the more completely her
hopes dwindled away. There were certainly Indians in the forest, she
thought, at a time when Walter must have been there. With their
quick sight and hearing, and their tenacity of pursuit, he was not
likely to escape them; and, if once he fell into their hands, his fate
seemed to her sealed. The protection promised to herself by the old
chief, but not extended to her family, alarmed rather than re-assured
her; and she saw nothing in Black Eagle's unwillingness to give any
assurances of their safety, but a determination to take vengeance,
even on those who were dear to him. As she recalled, too, all the
particulars of the old chief's visit to that lonely farmhouse, and her
interviews with him, an impression, at first faint, but growing
stronger and stronger, took possession of her mind, that the chief
knew of her brother's capture before he parted from her.
These thoughts did not indeed present themselves in regular
succession, but came all confused and whirling through her mind;
while the only thing in the gloomy crowd of fancies and
considerations to which she could fix a hope, was the cool

deliberation with which the Indians pursued any scheme of
vengeance, and the slow and systematic manner with which they
carried their purposes into execution.
While Edith remained plunged in these gloomy reveries, an active
but not less sad consultation was going on at the other side of the
room, which ended in the adoption of the plan proposed by Lord H--
--, very slightly modified by the suggestions of Mr. Prevost. An
orderly, whom Captain Hammond had brought with him, was left at
the house, as a sort of guard to Edith, it being believed that the
sight of his red coat would act as an intimation to any Indians who
might be in the woods that the family was under the protection of
the British government.
Lord H----and the young officer set off together for the boatmen's
village, whence Walter had departed for Albany, and where a small
party of English soldiers were now posted, intending to obtain all the
aid they could, and sweep along the forest till they came to the
verge of the recent fire, leaving sentinels on the different trails,
which, the reader must understand, were so numerous throughout
the whole of what the Iroquois called their Long House, as often to
be within hail of each other.
Advancing steadily along these small pathways, Lord H----
calculated that he could reconnoitre the whole distance between the
greater river and the fire with sufficient closeness to prevent any
numerous party of Indians passing unseen, at least till he met with
the advancing party of Mr. Prevost, who were to search the country
thoroughly for some distance round the house, and then to proceed
steadily forward in a reverse course to that of the nobleman and his
men.
No time was lost by Lord H---- and Captain Hammond on the
road, the path they took being, for a considerable distance, the
same by which Lord H---- had first arrived at Mr. Prevost's house,
and, for its whole length, the same which the captain had followed

in the morning. It was somewhat longer, it is true, than the Indian
trail by which Woodchuck had led them on his ill-starred expedition;
but its width and better construction more than made up for the
difference in distance; and the rain had not been falling long enough
to affect its solidity to any great extent.
Thus, little more than an hour sufficed to bring the two officers to
the spot where a company of Lord H----'s regiment was posted. The
primary task--that of seeking some intelligence of Walter's first
movements after landing--was more successful than might have
been expected. A settler, who supplied the boatmen with meal and
flour, was even then in the village; and he averred truly that he had
seen young Mr. Prevost, and spoken with him, just as he was
quitting the cultivated ground on the bank of the river, and entering
the forest ground beyond. Thus, his course was traced up to a
quarter before three o'clock on the Thursday preceding, and to the
entrance of a government road, which all the boatmen knew well.
The distance between that spot and Mr. Prevost's house was about
fourteen miles, and from the boatmen's village to the mouth of the
road through the forest some six or seven.
Besides the company of soldiers, numbering between seventy and
eighty men, there were at least forty or fifty stout, able-bodied
fellows amongst the boatmen, well acquainted with all the intricacies
of the woods round about, and fearless and daring, from the
constant perils and exertions of their mode of life. These were soon
gathered round Lord H----, whose rank and military station they now
learned for the first time; and he found that the tidings of the
disappearance of Walter Prevost, whom most of them knew and
loved, excited a spirit in them which he had little expected.
Addressing a few words to them at once, he offered a
considerable reward to each man who would join in searching
thoroughly the whole of that part of the forest which lay between
the spot where the young man was last seen and his father's house.

But one tall, stout man, about forty years of age, stepped forward,
and spoke for the rest, saying--
"We want no reward for such work as that, my lord. I guess
there's not a man of us who will not turn out to search for young
Master Walter, if you'll but leave red coats enough with the old men
to protect our wives and children in case of need."
"I cannot venture, for anything not exactly connected with the
service," replied Lord H----, "to weaken the post by more than one
quarter its number. Still we shall make up a sufficient party to search
the woods adequately, if you will all go with me."
"That we will, that we will!" exclaimed a dozen voices.
Everything was soon arranged. Signals and modes of
communication and co-operation were speedily agreed upon; and
the practical knowledge of the boatmen proved fully as serviceable
as the military science of Lord H----, who was far too wise not to
avail himself of it to the fullest extent.
With about twenty regular soldiers, thirty-seven or thirty-eight
men from the village, each armed with his invariable rifle and
hatchet, and a number of good, big, active boys, who volunteered to
act as a sort of runners, and keep up the communications between
the different parts of the line, the nobleman set out upon his way
along the edge of the forest, and reached the end of the
government road, near which Walter had been last seen, about one
o'clock in the day.
Here the men dispersed, the soldiers guided by the boatmen; and
the forest ground was entered at about fourteen different places,
wherever an old or a new trail could be discovered. Whenever an
opportunity presented itself, by the absence of brushwood, or the
old trees being wide or far apart, the boys ran across from one party
to another, carrying information or directions; and, though each little
group was often hidden from the other, as they advanced steadily

onwards, still it rarely happened that many minutes elapsed without
their catching a sight of some friendly party, on the right or left,
while whoop and hallo marked their progress to each other. Once or
twice, the trails crossing, brought two parties to the same spot; but
then, separating again immediately, they sought each a new path,
and proceeded as before.
Few traces of any kind could be discovered on the ground; for the
rain, though it had now ceased, had so completely washed the face
of the earth, that every print of shoe or moccassin was obliterated.
The tracks of cart-wheels, indeed, seemingly recent, and the foot-
marks of a horse and some men were discovered along the
government road; but nothing more, till at a spot where a large and
deeply-indented trail left the highway, the ground appeared a good
deal trampled by hoof-marks, as if a horse had been standing there
for some little time; and under a thick hemlock-tree, at the corner of
the trail, sheltering the ground beneath from the rain, the print of a
well-made shoe was visible. The step had evidently been turned in
the direction of Mr. Prevost's house; and up that trail Lord H----
himself proceeded, with a soldier and two of the boatmen. No
further step could be traced, however; but the boatman, who had
been the spokesman a little while before, insisted upon it that they
must be on young Master Walter's track.
"A New York shoe," he said, "made that print, I'm sure; and
depend upon it we are right where he went. Keep a sharp look
under all the thick trees at the side, my lord. You may catch another
track. Keep behind, boys--you'll brush 'em out."
Nothing more was found, however, though the man afterwards
thought he had discovered the print of a moccassin in the sand,
where it had been partly protected. But some rain had reached it,
and there was no certainty.
The trail they were then following was, I have said, large and
deeply worn, so that the little party of Lord H---- soon got somewhat

in advance of all the others, except that which had continued on the
government road.
"Stay a bit, my lord," said the boatman, at length; "we are too far
ahead, and might chance to get a shot, if there be any of them red
devils in the wood. I know them well, and all their ways, I guess,
having been among them, man and boy, this thirty years; and it was
much worse when I first came. They'll lie as close to you as that
bush, and the first thing you'll know of it will be a ball whizzing into
you. If, however, we all go on in line, they can't keep back, but will
creep away like mice. What I can't understand is, why they should
try to hurt young Master Walter; for they were all as fond of him as
if he were one of themselves."
"The fact is, my good friend," replied Lord H----, in a low tone,
"the day I came down to your landing last, one of the Oneidas was
unfortunately killed, and we are told that they will have some white
man's life in retaliation."
"To be sure they will!" rejoined the man, with a look of
consternation. "They'll have blood for blood, if all of 'em die for't.
But did Master Walter kill him?"
"No," replied Lord H----; "it was our friend the Woodchuck; but he
did it entirely in self-defence."
"What, Brooks?" exclaimed the boatman, in much surprise. "Do
let's hear about it, and I guess I can tell you how it will all go, better
than any other man between this and Boston." And he seated
himself on the slump of a tree, in an attitude of attention.
Very briefly, but with perfect clearness, Lord H---- related all that
occurred on the occasion referred to. The boatman listened with
evident anxiety, and then sat for a moment in silence, with the air of
a judge pondering over the merits of a case just pleaded before him.

"I'll tell you how it is, my lord," he said at length, in an oracular
tone; "they've got him, depend on't. They've caught him here in the
forest. But, you see, they'll not kill him yet--no, no; they'll wait.
They've heard that Woodchuck has got away, and they've kidnapped
young Walter to make sure of some one. But they'll stay to see if
they can't get Brooks into their clutches somehow. They'll go
dodgering about all manner o' ways, and try every trick you can
think of to lure him back. Very like you may hear that they've killed
the lad; but don't you believe it for a good many months to come. I
guess it's likely they'll set that story afloat just to get Brooks to come
back; for then he'll think that they've had all they wanted, and will
know that he's safe from all but the father, or the brother, or the son
of the man he killed. But they'll wait and see. Oh, they're the most
cunningest set of critturs that ever dived, and no doubt of it! But
let's get on, for the others are up--there's a red-coat through the
trees there--and they may perhaps have scalped the boy, though I
don't think it's nohow likely."
Thus saying, he rose, and led the way again through the dark
glades of the wood, till the clearer light of day, shining amidst the
trunks and branches on before, showed that the party was
approaching the spot where the late conflagration had laid the shady
monarchs of the forest low. Suddenly, at a spot where another trail
crossed, the soldier who was with them stooped down and picked
something up off the ground, saying--
"Here's a good large knife, anyhow."
"Let me see--let me see!" cried the boatman; "that's his knife, for
a score of dollars. Ay! 'Warner, London,' that's the maker; it's
Walter's knife. But that shows nothing--he might have dropped it;
but he's come precious near the fire, he surely would never try to
break through and get himself burnt to death. If the Ingians had got
him, I should have thought they'd have caught him farther back.
Hallo! what are they all a-doing on there? They've found the corpse,
I guess."

The eyes of Lord H---- were bent forward in the same direction;
and, though his lips uttered no sound, his mind had asked the same
question and come to the same conclusion. Three negroes were
standing gathered together round some object lying on the ground;
and the figure of Mr. Prevost himself, partly seen, partly hidden by
the slaves, appeared sitting on a fallen tree, with his head resting on
his hand, contemplating fixedly the same object which seemed to
engage all the attention of the negroes.
Lord H---- hurried his pace, and reached the spot in a few
moments. He was somewhat relieved by what he saw when he came
nearer; for the object at which Mr. Prevost was gazing so earnestly
was Walter's knapsack, and not the dead body of his son. The straps
which had fastened it to the lad's shoulders had been cut, not
unbuckled; and it was, therefore, clear that it was not by his own
voluntary act that it had been cast off. It did not appear, however, to
have been opened; and the boatman, looking down on it, muttered--
"No, no! They would not steal anything--not they. That was not
what they wanted. It's no use looking any farther. The case is clear
enough."
"Too clear!" ejaculated Mr. Prevost, in a dull, stern tone. "That
man, Brooks, has saved his own life, and sacrificed my poor boy."
The tears gushed into his eyes as he spoke; and he rose and
turned away to hide them. Lord H---- motioned to the negroes to
take up the knapsack, and carry it home; and then advancing to Mr.
Prevost's side, he took his hand, saying, in a low tone--
"There may yet be hope, my dear sir. Let us not give way to
despair; but exert ourselves instantly and strenuously to trace out
the poor lad, and save him. Much may yet be done--the Government
may interfere--Walter may be rescued by a sudden effort."
Mr. Prevost shook his head heavily, and murmuring, "Are all my
family destined to perish by Indians?" took his way slowly back

towards his house.
Nothing more was said till he was within a quarter of a mile of his
own door; but then, just before emerging from the cover of the
wood, the unhappy father stopped, and took the hand of Lord H----.
"Break it to her gently," he said, in a low tone: "I am unfit.
Misfortunes, disappointments, and sorrows have broken the spirit
which was once strong, and cast down the energies which used
never to fail. It is in such moments as these that I feel how much I
am weakened. Prepare her to leave this place, too. My pleasant
solitude has become abhorrent to me, and I cannot live here without
a dread and a memory always upon me. Go forward, my good lord: I
will follow you soon."
CHAPTER XIX.
With great pain Lord H---- contemplated the task before him; but
his was a firm and resolute heart; and he strode forward quickly to
accomplish it as soon as possible. Fancy painted, as he went, all the
grief and anguish he was about to inflict upon Edith; but Fancy
hardly did her justice--for it left out of the picture many of the
stronger traits of her character.
The beautiful girl was watching from the window, and at once
recognized her lover as he issued from the wood alone. Her heart
sank with apprehension, it is true; nevertheless, she ran out along
the little path to meet him, in order to know the worst at once.

Before they met, her father came forth from the wood, slowly and
heavily, with a crowd of boatmen and soldiers following in groups of
six or seven at a time. With wonderful accuracy she divined the
greater part of what had occurred. She instantly stopped till Lord H--
-- came up, and then inquired, in a low and tremulous voice,--
"Have you found him? Is he dead or living?"
"We have not found him, dear Edith," said Lord H----, taking her
hand, and leading her towards the house; "but your father conceives
there is great cause for apprehension of the very worst kind, from
what we have found. I trust, however, that his fears go beyond the
reality, and that there is still----"
"Oh, dear George, do not keep me in suspense!" ejaculated Edith.
"Let me hear all at once. My mind is sufficiently prepared by long
hours of painful thought. I will show none of the weakness I
displayed this morning. What is it you have found?"
"His knife and his knapsack," replied Lord H----.
"He may have cast his knapsack off from weariness," said Edith,
still catching at a hope.
"I fear not," replied her lover, unwilling to encourage expectations
to be disappointed. "The straps of the knapsack were cut, not
unbuckled; and your father has given himself up entirely to despair,
although we found no traces of strife or bloodshed."
"Poor Walter!" exclaimed Edith, with a deep sigh. But she shed no
tears; and walked on in silence, till they had reached the little
verandah of the house. Then suddenly she stopped, roused herself
from her fit of thought, and said, raising her beautiful and tender
eyes to her lover's face, "I have now two tasks before me, to which I
must give myself up entirely--to console my poor father, and to try to
save my brother's life. Forgive me, George, if, in executing these,
especially the latter, I do not seem to give so much of my thoughts

to you as you have a right to expect. You would not, I know, have
me neglect either."
"God forbid!" exclaimed Lord H----, warmly; "but let me share in
them, Edith. There is nothing within the scope of honour and of right
that I will not do to save your brother. I sent him on this ill-starred
errand: to gratify me was that unfortunate expedition made through
the wood; but it is enough that he is your brother, and your father's
son; and I will do anything--undertake anything--if there be still a
hope. Go to your father first, my love, and then let us consult
together. I will see these men attended to, for they want rest and
food; and I must take liberties with your father's house to provide
for them."
"Do, do," she answered; "use it as your own."
And, leaving him in the verandah, she turned to meet her father.
Edith well knew that, for a time, Mr. Prevost's mind was not likely
to receive either hope or consolation. All she could give him was
tenderness; and Lord H----, who followed her to speak with the
soldiers and boatmen, soon saw her disappear into the house with
Mr. Prevost.
When he returned to the little sitting-room, Edith was not there,
but he heard a murmur of voices from the room above; and, in
about half an hour, she rejoined him. She was much more agitated
than when she had left him; and her face showed marks of tears:
not that her fears were greater, or that she had heard anything to
alarm her more; but her father's deep despair had overpowered her
own firmness. All the weaker affections of human nature are
infectious; fear, despondency, and sorrow, peculiarly so.
Edith still felt, however, the importance of decision and action;
and, putting her hand to her head with a look of bewilderment, she
stood, for an instant, in silence, with her eyes fixed on the ground,

seemingly striving to collect her scattered thoughts, in order to
judge and act with precision.
"One of the boatmen, Edith," said Lord H----, leading her to a
seat, "has led me to believe that we shall have ample time for any
efforts to save your brother, if he have, as there is too much reason
to fear, fallen into the hands of these revengeful Indians. The man
seems to know what he talks of well, and boasts that he has been
accustomed to the ways and manners of the savages from
boyhood."
"Is he a tall, handsome man, with two children?" asked Edith.
"He is a tall, good-looking man," answered Lord H----; "but his
children I did not see."
"If he be the man I mean," answered Edith, "he can be fully
depended upon; and it may be well to ask his opinion and advice
before he goes. But, for the present, George, let us consult alone.
Perhaps, I can judge better than you of poor Walter's present
situation. That is first to be considered; and then what are the
chances, what the means, of saving him. He is certainly in the hands
of the Indians,--of that I have no doubt; and I think Black Eagle
knew it when he guided us through the forest. Yet I do not think he
will willingly lift the tomahawk against my brother--it will only be at
the last extremity, when all means have failed of entrapping that
unhappy man, Brooks. We shall have time--yes, we shall certainly
have time."
"Then the first step to be taken," said Lord H----, "will be to
induce the Government to make a formal and imperative demand for
his release. I will undertake that part of the matter; it shall be done
at once."
Edith shook her head sadly.

"You know them not," she said: "it would only hurry his fate."
Then, dropping her voice to a very low tone, she added--"They
would negotiate and hold councils; and Walter would be slain while
they were treating."
She pressed her hands upon her eyes as she spoke, as if to shut
out the fearful image her own words called up; and then there was a
moment or two of silence, at the end of which Lord H---- inquired if
it would not be better for him to see Sir William Johnson, and
consult with him.
"That may be done," replied Edith. "No man in the province
knows them so well as he does; and his advice may be relied upon.
But we must take other measures too. Otaitsa must be told of
Walter's danger, and consulted. Do you know, George," she added,
with a melancholy smile, "I have lately been inclined to think, at
times, that there is no small love between Walter and the Blossom--
something more than friendship, at all events."
"But, of course, she will hear of his capture, and do her best to
save him," rejoined the young nobleman.
Edith shook her head, answering, "Save him she will, if any
human power can do it: but that she knows of his capture, I much
doubt. These Indians are wise, George, in their own opinion; and
never trust their acts, their thoughts, or their resolutions, to a
woman. They will keep the secret from Otaitsa, just as Black Eagle
kept it from me; but she must be informed, consulted, and perhaps
acted with. Then I think, too, that poor man Woodchuck should have
tidings of what his act has brought upon us."
"I see not well," said Lord H----, "what result that can produce."
"Nor I," answered Edith; "yet it ought to be done, in justice to
ourselves and to him. He is bold, skilful, resolute; and we must not
judge of any matter in this country as we should judge in Europe. He
may undertake and execute something for my brother's rescue,

which you and I would never dream of. He is just the man to do so,
and to succeed. He knows every path of the forest, every lodge of
the Indians, and is friendly with many of them; has saved the lives
of some, I have heard him say, and conferred great obligations upon
many; and I believe he will never rest till he has delivered Walter."
"Then I will find him out, and let him know the facts directly," said
Lord H----. "Perhaps he and Otaitsa may act together, if we can open
any communication with her."
"She will act by herself, and for herself, I am sure," replied Edith;
"and some communication must be opened at any risk, and all risks.
But let us see the boatman, George. Perhaps he may know some
one going into the Indian territory, who may carry a letter to her. 'Tis
a great blessing she can read and write; for we must have our
secrets too, if we would frustrate theirs."
Lord H---- rose, and proceeded to the hall, where the men whom
he had brought with him were busily engaged despatching such
provisions as Mr. Prevost's house could afford on the spur of the
moment. The boatman he sought was soon found. Following the
young nobleman into the lesser room, he entered into full
conference with Edith and her lover, and again expressed the opinion
that no harm would happen to young Walter Prevost for several
months at the least. "They have caught some one," he said, "to
make sure of their revenge; and that is all they want for the present.
Now they will look for the man himself who did it, and catch him, if
they can."
"Can you tell where he is to be found?" asked Lord H---- in a quiet
tone.
"Why, you would not give him up to them?" asked the man,
sharply.
"Certainly not," replied Lord H----; "he is in safety, and of that
safety I have no right to deprive him--it would make me an

accessory to the act of the savages. But I wish to see him to tell him
what has occurred, and to consult him as to what is to be done."
"That's a different case," observed the man, gravely; "and if that's
all you want, I don't mind telling you that he is in Albany, at the
public-house called 'The Three Boatmen.' Our people who rowed him
down said he did not intend to leave Albany for a week or more."
"And now, Robert," said Edith, "can you tell me where I can get a
messenger to the Oneidas? I know you loved my brother Walter
well; and I think, if we can get somebody to go for me, we may save
him."
"I did indeed love him well, Miss Prevost," replied the man, with
his firm, hard eye moistened, "and I'd do anything in reason to save
him. It's a sad pity we did not know of this yesterday; for a half-
breed Onondagua runner passed by and got some milk from us; and
I gave him the panther's skin which you, my lord, told some of our
people to send in the poor lad's name to the daughter of the old
chief, Black Eagle."
Edith turned her eyes to her lover's face, and Lord H---- replied to
their inquiring look, saying--
"It is true, Edith, Walter shot a panther in the wood, and wished
to send the skin to Otaitsa. We had no time to lose at the moment;
but, as we came back, I induced the guides to skin it, and made
them promise to dry and send it forward by the first occasion."
"I strapped it on the runner's back myself," said the man whom
Edith called Robert, "and also gave him the money you sent for him,
my lord. He would have taken any message readily enough, and one
could have trusted him. But it may be months before such another
chance offers, I guess. Look here, Miss Edith," he continued, turning
towards her with a face full of earnest expression, "I would go
myself, but what would come of it? They would only kill me instead
of your brother; for one man's as good as another to them in such

cases, and perhaps he might not get off either. But I've a wife and
two young children, ma'am, and it makes me not quite so ready to
risk my life as I was a few years ago."
"It is not to be thought of," said Edith, calmly. "I could ask no one
to go; except one partly of their own race; for I know it must be the
blood of a white man they spill. All I can desire you to do, for
Walter's sake and mine, is to seek for one of the Indian runners,
who are often about Albany, and about the army, and send him on
to me."
"You see, Miss Prevost," replied the man, "there are not so many
about as there used to be, for it is coming on winter; and, as to the
army, when Lord Loudon took it to Halifax, almost all the runners
and scouts were discharged. Some of them remained with Webb, it
is true; but a number of those were killed and scalped by Montcalm's
Hurons. However, I will make it my business to seek one, night and
day, and send him up."
"Let it be some one on whom we can depend," said Edith; "some
one whom you have tried and can trust."
"That makes it harder still," said the man; "for, though I have
tried many of them, I can trust few of them. However, I will see, and
not be long about it either. But it would be quite nonsense to send
you a man who might either never do your errand at all, or go and
tell your message to those you don't want to hear it."
"It would indeed," said Edith, sadly, as all the difficulties and risks
which lay in the way of success were suggested to her by the man's
words. "Well, do your best, Robert," she said, at length, after some
thought; "and, as you will have to pay the man, here is money for---
-"
"You can pay him yourself, ma'am," replied the boatman, bluntly.
"As for taking any myself for helping poor Master Walter, that's what
I won't do. When I have got to take an oar in hand, or anything of

that kind, I make the people pay fast enough what my work's worth-
-perhaps a little more sometimes," he added, with a laugh. "But not
for such work as this--no, no, not for such work as this. So good-
bye, Miss Prevost--good-bye, my lord. I won't let the grass grow
under my feet in looking for a messenger."
Thus saying, he quitted the room; and Edith and Lord H---- were
once more left alone together. Sad and gloomy was their
conversation, unchequered by any of those bright beams of love and
joy which Edith had fondly fancied were to light her future hours. All
was dim and obscure in the distance; and the point upon which both
their eyes were fixed most intently in the dark shadowy curtain of
the coming time, was the murkiest and most obscure of all.
Whatever plan was suggested, whatever course of action was
thought of, difficulties rose up to surround it and perils presented
themselves on all sides.
Nor did the presence of Mr. Prevost, who joined them soon after,
tend, in any degree, to support or to direct. He had lost all hope, at
least for the time; and the only thing which seemed to afford him a
faint gleam of light was the thought of communicating immediately
with Brooks.
"I fear Sir William Johnson will do nothing," he said. "He is so
devoted even to the smallest interest of the Government, his whole
mind is so occupied with this one purpose of cementing the alliance
between Britain and the Five Nations, that, on my life, I believe he
would suffer any man's son to be butchered, rather than risk
offending an Indian tribe."
"In his position, it may be very difficult for him to act," said Lord
H----; "but it might be as well to ascertain his feelings and his views,
by asking his advice as to how you should act yourself. Counsel he
will be very willing to give, I am sure; and, in the course of
conversation, you might discover how much or how little you have to
expect from his assistance."

"But you said, my dear lord, that you were yourself going to
Albany to-morrow, to see poor Brooks," observed Mr. Prevost. "I
cannot leave Edith here alone."
All three mused for a moment or two, and Edith, perhaps,
deepest of all. At length, however, she said--
"I am quite safe, my father: of that I am certain; and you will be
certain too, I am sure, when you remember what I told you of Black
Eagle's conduct to me on that fatal night. He threw his blanket
round me, and called me his daughter. Depend upon it, long ere this,
the news that I am his adopted child has spread through all the
tribes; and no one would dare to lift his hand against me."
"Still, some precaution," said Lord H----.
But Edith interrupted him gently, saying, "Stay, George, one
moment. Let my father answer. Do you not think, dear father, that I
am quite safe? In a word, do you not believe that I could go from
lodge to lodge, as the adopted daughter of Black Eagle, throughout
the whole length of the Long House of the Five Nations without the
slightest risk or danger? and, if so, why should you fear?"
"I do indeed believe you could," replied Mr. Prevost. "Oh that we
could have extracted such an act from the chief towards poor Walter.
What Edith says is right, my lord: we must judge of these Indians as
we know them; and my only fear in leaving her here now, arises
from the risk of incursions from the other side of the Hudson."
Lord H---- mused a little. It struck him there was something
strange in Edith's way of putting the question to her father--
something too precise, too minute, to be called for by any of the
words which had been spoken. It excited nothing like suspicion in his
mind; for it was hardly possible to look into the face, or hear the
tones, of Edith Prevost, and entertain distrust. But it made him
doubt whether she had not some object, high and noble he was

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