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Fluid Identities: Toward a Critical Security of Water Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 9-27-2013 12:00 AM Fluid Identities: Toward a Critical Security of Water Cameron Harrington The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Erika Simpson The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Political Science A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Cameron Harrington 2013 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Harrington, Cameron, "Fluid Identities: Toward a Critical Security of Water" (2013). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 1716. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/1716 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLUID IDENTITIES: TOWARD A CRITICAL SECURITY OF WATER MONOGRAPH by Cameron Harrington Graduate Program in Political Science A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Cameron Harrington 2013 Abstract Water wars are coming! Water is the defining security threat of the 21st century! The future belongs to the water-rich! These types of warnings are frequently proclaimed, urging attention to looming water conflict, which will occur as stores of freshwater diminish in both quality and quantity. Yet the issue of water security is far more complex than as an inevitable source of future violent conflict. Water is a central component to all aspects of life and planetary health and thus it contains within it a multiplicity of social and political meanings, pivotal to our understandings of security. This dissertation begins with an acknowledgment that conceptions of security are conditioned by larger understandings of being and reality, and that water security in particular is emblematic of traditional allegiances within the subject of international relations that are resistant to change. At its core, it is designed to answer the question: What are the relationships between water and security? It adopts a critical security approach to excavate traditional security narratives and then construct and identify emancipatory visions immanent within relationships over water. It argues that an emancipatory vision of water security that is inclusive, communicative, and cosmopolitan is desirable and possible in human water relations. It concludes by identifying various contemporary water relationships that offer potential emancipatory appellations of water security. Keywords Critical Security Studies, Emancipation, Environmental Security, Hydrosolidarity, Securitization, Water ii Acknowledgments I extend my sincerest gratitude to the many people who have contributed in one way or another to this monograph. Specifically, I would like to thank my Supervisor, Professor Erika Simpson, who has been a dedicated and thoughtful mentor for many years. It was she who first brought me to the puzzles of water and security. The Department of Political Science at Western University has been my home now for many years, and it has been a constant site of intellectual vibrancy. In particular, I would like to thank Professor Radoslav Dimitrov for his contributions as a member of my Ph.D Committee. His comments and suggestions have led me to actively consider the practical implications of my work. My colleagues, particularly Asim Ali, Mike Dietrich, David Hoogenboom, Rob Maciel, Nigmendra Narain, Laszlo Sarkany, and Peter Scapillato, are all crucial sources of inspiration and stress relief as we make our way through the gauntlet of early-career academia. I also acknowledge the support of the administrative staff in the Department, including Teresa McLauchlan, Bibi Pettypiece, and Kim Baxter. I have benefited from the insights and support of many outside of Western. I would like to thank Dr. Karin Fierke, who was kind enough to facilitate my visiting readership position at the University of St. Andrews, which allowed me to engage the many fine critical minds of UK scholarship in a beautifully isolated locale. Dr. Matt McDonald at the University of Queensland, and various anonymous peer-reviewers as well as discussants at conferences in Canada, the US, and Europe have improved and corrected many of the ideas and errors. Finally, my most profound inspiration comes from Emma Lecavalier, who compels me to follow Thoreau’s aphorism and, “read not the times, read the eternities.” This thesis is dedicated to my parents, David and Nancy Harrington. iii Table of Contents Title Page ............................................................................................................................. i Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. iiv List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... v List of Figures .................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1 – Introduction: Water, Security, and Emancipation ........................................... 1 Chapter 2 – Historical Paradigms in International Security ........................................... 289 Chapter 3 – Water Wars and Environmental Security ...................................................... 62 Chapter 4 – Water Securitization in the Anthropocene .................................................. 104 Chapter 5 – Toward an Emancipatory Security of Water – Inclusion, Communication, and Cosmopolitanism ................................................................................................. 148 Chapter 6 – Hydrosolidarity: The Ethics of Water Security ........................................... 203 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 247 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 258 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................ 297 iv List of Tables Table 1: IWRM in Agenda 21 .............................................................................................. 221 v List of Figures Figure 1: The Nile Basin ....................................................................................................... 115 vi 1 1 CHAPTER ONE : Introduction: Water, security, and emancipation 1.1 Introduction Water wars are coming! Water is the defining security threat of the 21st century! The future belongs to the water-rich! These types of warnings are frequently proclaimed, urging attention to looming water conflict, which will occur as stores of freshwater diminish in both quality and quantity. For the past three decades, the story often told has been one of a “coming anarchy,” where a host of environmental problems, in which water factors significantly, inevitably erodes the state’s capacity to govern. 1 According to this type of interpretation, this will eventually lead to an upswing of violence as states and groups fight over access to and control of dwindling natural resources, while at the same time experiencing their effects as conflict multipliers, coalescing with simmering ethnic and historical tensions. The persistence of this type of thinking has led to the conclusion that water will drive conflict in the future, and is likely to lead to instability, state failure, and increase regional 1 Robert Kaplan. “The Coming Anarchy,” The Atlantic Monthly 273.2 (1994): 44-77; Michael T. Klare. Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, ( New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001); Thomas Homer-Dixon. “Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence From Cases.” International Security , 19.1 (1994): 5–40; Thomas Homer-Dixon. Environment, Scarcity, and Violence . (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999); Thomas Homer-Dixon. “Terror in the Weather Forecast” New York Times 24 April 2007 Online. 14 February 2013. < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/opinion/24homer- dixon.html >; Gwynne Dyer. Climate Wars (Toronto: Random House, 2007); CNA, 2007. National Security and the Threat of Climate Change. Report from a panel of retired senior US military officers . Alexandria, VA: CNA Corporation, April 2007. Online. 14 February 2013 <http://www.cna.org/reports/climate>; Defence Intelligence Agency of the United States (DIA). Global Water Security: Intelligence Community Assessment . ICA 2012-08. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 2012. 2 tensions. 2 However, the continued reliance on familiar tropes of water scarcity leading to war and conflict is problematic in a number of ways. First, it ignores the historical record, which displays a distinct absence of water wars. 3 Secondly, freshwater scarcity and ecosystem degradation hold far more
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