The Nile development game : tug-of-war or benefits for all?
Mina Michel Samaan (Author)
This book introduces an analytic framework constructed upon the iterated Prisoners' Dilemma game to model and analyze transboundary water interactions along the Nile River. It presents a thorough and in-depth analysis of the historical path through which conflict and cooperation have been generated among the Nile riparians over large-scale developmental schemes. This is done through modeling water interactions in the basin as an iterated Prisoners' Dilemma game and employing process-tracing method to compare four distinguishable rounds of the game: the colonial round, the Cold War round, the post-Cold War round, and the post-2011 round. The book examines the influences of the changing political contexts at the domestic, regional, and global levels on the game outcomes. This framework is initially applied on several cases of international rivers worldwide, while the rest of the book is devoted to the Nile case. The book's central argument is that the riparians' interests, capabilities, and beliefs are heterogeneous in varying degrees and that the changing multilevel political contexts influence the level of such heterogeneities among the riparians, which ultimately drive the equilibrium dynamics in the Nile game to generate different conflictive and cooperative outcomes over time. Although the book's main conclusion indicates that the absence of economic interdependence and regional integration will transfer the game into tug-of-war, which will impose harsh punishment on the basin communities and ecosystems on the long term, the final chapter lists a group of recommendations addressed to the riparian states and international donors, exploring the way for boosting cooperation and preventing conflicts in the basin. Presenting clear theoretical, methodological, and policy implications, this book is appropriate for students and scholars of international relations, hydrology, and development studies.-- Provided by publisher
1 online resource
9783030026653, 3030026655
1080520579
Intro; Foreword; Acknowledgment; Abstract; Zusammenfassung (Abstract in German); Contents; Abbreviations and Short Names; List of Figures; List of Tables; Chapter 1: Introduction: The Nile Development Game; 1.1 Background; 1.2 Aim and Question; 1.3 Theoretical Foundations; 1.4 Research Design; 1.5 Methodology; 1.6 Resources and Limitations; 1.7 Book Structure; Chapter 2: The Analytic Framework: Modeling the Dilemma of Transboundary River Basins as an Iterated PD Game; 2.1 Conceptualizing the Puzzle of Transboundary Water Management 2.1.1 Governing the Freshwater Commons Under International Anarchy2.1.2 Asymmetric Interdependence; 2.1.3 Vitality, Variability and Vulnerability of Freshwater Resources; 2.2 Setting the Game of Development on Transboundary River Basins; 2.2.1 Mixed Motives over Transboundary Waters; 2.2.2 Choices and Preferences in the Hydropolitical Realm; 2.2.3 Scenarios of Utilizing the River and the Generated Payoffs; 2.2.4 Not a One-Move Game But an Iterated Game; 2.2.5 Bilateral Relations Between Riparians and the Formation of Clusters; 2.2.6 The Hydropolitical Game Running Under Anarchy 2.3 The Game Equilibrium2.3.1 Strategy of Reciprocity; 2.3.2 Heterogeneities Over Interests, Capabilities and Beliefs; 2.3.3 Symmetric Balance of Power; 2.3.4 Asymmetric Balance of Power; 2.3.5 How Does the Context Influence the Game Outcomes?; 2.4 Concluding Remarks; Chapter 3: The Colonial Round: The Opening Scene of Utilizing the Nile Waters Outside Egypt; 3.1 The Contexts of the Colonial Round; 3.2 The Second Half of the Nineteenth Century; 3.2.1 The Nile Before the British Occupation of Egypt; 3.2.2 Opening the Suez Canal and the British Occupation of Egypt 3.2.3 The Fashoda Incident and the Nile Colonial Treaties3.3 The First Half of the Twentieth Century; 3.3.1 The British Vision on the Nile; 3.3.2 The Gezira Scheme and the 1929 Nile Waters Agreement; 3.3.3 The Tana Concession; 3.3.4 The Century Storage Scheme and the Owen Falls Dam; 3.4 Analysis and Discussion; 3.4.1 Sole Utilization (T-S and S-T); 3.4.2 Cooperation (R-R); 3.4.3 Contention (P-P); 3.5 Concluding Remarks; Chapter 4: The Cold War Round: Large-Scale National Water Schemes in a Polarized World; 4.1 The Contexts of the Cold War Round; 4.2 From the 1950s to the 1960s 4.2.1 The Transition from the Colonial Age to the Cold War Age4.2.2 The Aswan High Dam, the Roseires Dam, and the 1959 Agreement; 4.2.3 The Adoption of Conflicting Political Agendas; 4.2.4 The Blue Nile Study by the Bureau of Reclamation; 4.2.5 The Finchaa Dam; 4.2.6 The 1961-1964 Great Rains and the Hydromet Survey; 4.3 From the 1970s to the 1980s; 4.3.1 Shifting Camps of the Cold War; 4.3.2 The Soviet Survey on the Blue Nile and the 1977 UN Water Conference; 4.3.3 The Peace Canal; 4.3.4 The Jonglei Canal; 4.3.5 The 1983-1985 Famine in Ethiopia and the 1988 Flood in Sudan