Environmental peacebuilding: Towards a theoretical framework

Abstract

Environmental peacebuilding represents a paradigm shift from a nexus of environmental scarcity to one of environmental peace. It rests on the assumption that the biophysical environment’s inherent characteristics can act as incentives for cooperation and peace, rather than violence and competition. Based on this, environmental peacebuilding presents cooperation as a win-win solution and escape from the zero-sum logic of conflict. However, there is a lack of coherent environmental peacebuilding framework and evidence corroborating the existence of this environment-peace nexus. Building on a multidisciplinary literature review, this article examines the evolution of environmental peacebuilding into an emerging framework. It unpacks the concept and explains its main building blocks (conditions, mechanisms and outcomes) to develop our understanding of when, how and why environmental cooperation can serve as a peacebuilding tool. It assembles these building blocks into three generic trajectories (technical, restorative and sustainable environmental peacebuilding), each characterised according to their own causality, drivers and prerequisites, and illustrated with concrete examples. Finally, this article draws attention to the remaining theoretical gaps in the environmental peacebuilding literature, and lays the foundations for an environmental peacebuilding research agenda that clarifies if and how environmental cooperation can spill over across borders, sectors and scales towards sustainable peace.

Keywords

Environmental cooperation environmental peacebuilding sustainable development violent conflict

Introduction

Environmental issues were first identified as a potential cause of violent conflict by the 1987 United Nations (UN) report “Our Common Future” (Brundtland Report). Since then, a growing body of academic literature has examined the causal links between a conflict’s onset, duration and intensity on one side, and resource scarcity – or abundance – on the other (Baechler, 1999; Collier and Hoeffler, 2012; De Soysa, 2006; Homer-Dixon, 1999). From the early 2000s on, interdisciplinary literature challenging the environment-conflict nexus has shifted focus from resource scarcity to interdependence and sustainable development, viewing environmental challenges as an incentive for trans-boundary cooperation rather than a cause for violent conflict (Brauch, 2009; Hagmann, 2005; Harari, 2008; Wolf, 2007). Initially termed “environmental peacemaking” (Conca and Dabelko, 2002), this approach focusing on shared natural resources as a conflict resolution tool has since developed into a transformative framework that encompasses conflict prevention and post-conflict peacebuilding (Dresse et al., 2016).

Considering the multiplicity of actors and the coexistence of conflict and cooperation at different scales, the environmental peacebuilding literature highlights the transformative potential of environmental cooperation, but also its contextualised nature (Giordano et al., 2005; SIde, 2016; Selby, 2013a; Wessels, 2015). Environmental peacebuilding is based on the hypothesis that the mutual benefits of cooperation outgrow the self-interested rationale of conflicts and can contribute to the pacification of coupled human–natural systems in a durable and multifaceted way (Dalton, 2011; Dombrowsky, 2009). This hypothesis is supported by most non-orthodox economic approaches, nuancing rational choice as a primary motivation for human action, viewing conflict as not purely determined by competition but resulting from many factors (Dupuy et al., 2015). International organisations and policy-makers are also increasingly turning to environmental cooperation as a potential peacebuilding tool to address resource-driven conflicts and beyond. Environmental peacebuilding is now part of an emerging global research agenda and a priority area for several international organisations (e.g. Matthew et al., 2009; United Nations Development Group (UNDG), 2014), representing important funding opportunities channelled through bilateral agencies or multilateral funds such as the UN Peacebuilding Fund, the UN-EU Partnership on Natural Resources, Conflict and Peacebuilding or the United Nations Environment Programme’s Environmental Cooperation for Peacebuilding Programme.

In spite of a growing interest of researchers and practitioners, demonstrating the causal linkages between environmental cooperation and peace remains challenging (Conca, 2001; Dresse et al., 2016; Krampe, 2016b; Waisová, 2015). Several authors highlight the lack of harmonised framework and empiric data to assess the existence of an environment-peace nexus (Carius, 2006; Dabelko, 2006; Ide, 2018). The environmental peacebuilding literature is mainly composed of isolated case studies (Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Matthew et al., 2009), small-N cross-country comparisons (Carius, 2006; Waisová, 2015), and fewer attempts at large-N studies which mostly focus on water-related issues (Grech-Madin et al., 2018; Ide, 2018). Comparative studies are complicated by the multiplicity of contexts and actors involved, as well as the multi-causal mechanisms that impact environmental peacebuilding (Waisová, 2015). In addition, terms such as “environment” and “peace” have multifaceted meanings grounded within a wide array of disciplines such as peace and conflict studies, political ecology, hydropolitics and institutional and ecological economics (Costanza et al., 2001; Hardin, 2004; Ostrom, 1990, 1992). As a result, environmental peacebuilding failed to evolve into “a concrete and distinct set of practical activities” nor a “coherent theoretical school” grounded on solid epistemological assumptions and empirical evidence, but instead grew into “an umbrella term that covers a wide range of aspects on the relationships between environment, conflict, and peace” (Maas et al., 2013: 103). This bears the risks of turning environmental peacebuilding into a buzzword used to attract international funds (Aggestam, 2015; Mac Ginty, 2015).

To fill in this theoretical gap, this article provides a critical review of the key concepts extracted from the dispersed and fragmented environmental peacebuilding literature that has emerged since Conca and Dabelko’s (2002) landmark book Environmental Peacemaking. Based on the theoretical contributions from different disciplines as well as qualitative data from a selection of case studies and policy documents, the concept of environmental peacebuilding is deconstructed into three main building blocks, namely its initial conditions, mechanisms and outcomes, respectively corresponding to when, how and why conflict parties can engage in environmental cooperation and peacebuilding (Carius, 2006; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Dabelko, 2006). This article also draws on qualitative systematic review, as it establishes causal linkages between each building block to assemble them into a framework synthesis made of three generic – non-exhaustive – trajectories: technical, restorative and sustainable environmental peacebuilding. The main contribution of this article is thus to define and reorganise the key concepts related to environmental peacebuilding into a more systematic framework. This will enable comparative analysis between case studies to build up evidence on the environment-peace nexus, while leaving room for the complexity and contextual specificities of environmental peacebuilding.

The next section retraces the evolution of the concept of peacebuilding, which paves the way to define environmental peacebuilding in the third section. In the fourth section, we define the constitutive building blocks of environmental peacebuilding, laying the basis for the proposed framework. The three generic trajectories emanating from this are then outlined and illustrated using examples from the literature in the fifth section. Finally, the last section discusses the remaining gaps to bridge in theory and practice, focusing on the potential spillovers of environmental cooperation across borders, sectors and scales, and concluding by setting a future research agenda on environmental peacebuilding.

The roots of peacebuilding

Violence can be direct – whether physical or verbal – or structural (Galtung, 1996), while peace ranges from negative peace – the absence of violence – to positive peace, defined as the ability to solve conflicts non-violently within a harmonious, equitable society (Galtung, 1996; Ide, 2018). Peacebuilding originated as one of three different approaches to peace, along with peacemaking and peacekeeping, and aims at overcoming the roots of direct and structural violence (Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Galtung, 1976). As such, it refers to a broad set of actions aimed at shifting the relationships between former conflict parties towards sustainable reconciliation. It contrasts with peacemaking, which in some instances corresponds to conflict resolution through diplomatic negotiations and peace agreements (Lederach, 1997). Originally focused on state actors and organisations, peacebuilding evolved towards a more inclusive, long-term approach to peace, understood as a dynamic social construct involving decision-makers at all levels, from high-level to grassroots leadership (Lederach, 1997). No longer limited to post-conflict stabilisation (Boutros-Ghali, 1992), peacebuilding can be implemented before, during and after conflicts to prevent latent violence, de-escalate violent conflicts and build lasting peace in the post-conflict stage (Dabelko, 2006).

The concept was mainstreamed in the early nineties with an essentially top-down approach guided by the ideals of liberalism, democracy and the market economy (Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013; Newman, 2011; Selby, 2013a). It focused on building state capacities, developing security systems and political processes (Conca, 2001; UN, 2009), as well as trade and deriving peace dividends (Barbieri, 2002; UN, 2009). State- and organisation-centric approaches to peacebuilding, however, showed limited results and a low return on investment in the long-term (Krampe, 2016a; Mac Ginty, 2015; Richmond, 2009). In response, attempts to involve local and mid-range actors were initiated to stimulate local ownership and legitimacy, but remained superficial (Büscher, 2013; Krampe, 2013; Mac Ginty, 2011). Critics attribute the poor results of this “liberal” approach to peacebuilding to the emphasis placed on economic triggers of cooperation and the lack of consideration of local agency, instead considering the local as an empty space where the international agenda could be deployed (Aggestam, 2015; Björkdahl and Höglund, 2013; Mac Ginty, 2015).

Critical peace studies reoriented the peacebuilding debate towards a more inclusive, contextualised system accounting for local agency as a heterogeneous space of activity and decision-making (Mac Ginty, 2015). This approach conceptualises peacebuilding as a hybrid process derived from global–local interplays (Björkdahl and Höglund, 2013; Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013; Richmond, 2009). The local focus has resulted in bottom-up approaches to peacebuilding processes, leaving room for the comprehension of changing identities and perceptions across space, culture and time (Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013; Richmond, 2009; Wessels, 2015). Such issues can materialise within everyday interaction and empathy, but also in local resistance to international peacebuilding efforts and externally imposed norms and institutions (Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013; Richmond, 2009). However, a dichotomic approach to international and local peacebuilding and a simplified view of “the local” as rural, living in harmony with nature, and endowed with an inherent ecological conscience have been pointed out as some of the shortcomings of this focus (Björkdahl and Höglund, 2013; Mac Ginty, 2015). Similarly, the narrative of nature as a given which remains unchanged across space and time still dominates the environmental peacebuilding literature, as detailed below (Scoones, 1999).

Defining environmental peacebuilding

Five years after the Brundtland Report, the 1992 Agenda for Peace, another milestone UN document on peacemaking and peacekeeping, established the link between the environment, sustainable development and peace (Boutros-Ghali, 1992). Envisioning shared environmental challenges as a source of potential cooperation (Conca and Dabelko, 2002) represents a paradigm shift away from resource scarcity as a cause of conflict (Baechler, 1999; Homer-Dixon, 1999). Resource scarcity can be demand- or supply-induced, and is here understood as a social construction determined primarily by allocation processes that regulate its access and consumption (Vatn, 2005; Zikos et al., 2015).

A central premise of environmental peacebuilding is that trans-boundary environmental issues represent an opportunity to move from rivalry to partnership by switching from administrative, politico-territorial borders to ecosystem borders (Boutros-Ghali, 1992; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Ide and Scheffran, 2013). Environmental cooperation is expected to derive mutual gains, and promote reconciliation by stimulating trans-boundary dialogue and trust between state and non-state actors (Carius, 2006; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Maas et al., 2013). Although research at the intra-state level has recently been developed (Grech-Madin et al., 2018; Krampe, 2016a, 2016b), the bulk of the literature focuses on inter-state environmental peacebuilding.

Focusing on inter-state environmental cooperation as high politics, existing environmental peacebuilding models tend to simplify the heterogeneity and internal dissensions that may exist within local communities, and impose a top-down definition of the local (Mac Ginty, 2015). The fields of hydropolitics and negotiation theory highlight the impact of power and human behaviour on decision-making, and further our understanding of how the conditions, mechanisms and outcomes of environmental peacebuilding can be perceived differently by all parties (Aggestam and Sundell-Eklund, 2014; Mac Ginty, 2015; Wessels, 2015; Zeitoun and Warner, 2006).

Considering the diverse biophysical, political and social settings of environmental cooperation, the variety of interests and values underlying human–environment interactions should be taken into account to fully grasp what motivates environmental cooperation and to what extent it effectively contributes to peacebuilding (Ide, 2016; Waisová, 2015; Wessels, 2009). Conflicting interests may emerge at different governance levels regarding the use or protection of natural resources, and local interest groups may have concurring perceptions of a conflict situation and the potential pathways to peace (Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013; Wessels, 2015). In this frame, contending interests may preclude deliberation and reason giving, vital social processes to avoid conflicts (Hiedanpää and Bromley, 2016). From this perspective, environmental governance comes forward as a framework for creating, validating or changing institutions in order to resolve conflicts over natural resources (Bromley, 1991).

In sum, despite the increasing focus on environmental cooperation as a peacebuilding tool, incorporating such diverse factors increases the challenge of fully envisaging how this environment-peace nexus might unfold in practice (Carius, 2006; Ide and Scheffran, 2013; Kramer et al., 2013). Environmental peacebuilding encompasses a broad range of initiatives, but remains largely dominated by rational choice and neoliberal conceptions of the biophysical environment and peacebuilding, on the premise that parties will prefer to engage in mutually beneficial cooperation rather than zero-sum conflict based on a cost–benefit calculation (Conca and Dabelko, 2002). Accordingly, many environmental peacebuilding initiatives focus on the market value of environmental resources and seek to derive win-win solutions though economic recovery and the creation of livelihoods (Bruch et al., 2016; Büscher, 2013; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Green, 2015). Such initiatives are not necessarily sustainable in the long run because they might not correspond to local capacities and priorities (Collier and Hoeffler, 2012; Newman, 2010; Swain and Krampe, 2011). They might also fail to account for the multifaceted, long-term nature of environmental problems and the social, cultural and political identities that are vested in the immaterial values of natural resources (Green, 2015; Wessels, 2015).

Table 1 summarises the main terms related to environmental peacebuilding, and details its timeframe, mechanisms, outcomes and actors according to key authors.

Table 1.

From peacebuilding to environmental peacebuilding.

Terminology	Timeframe	Mechanisms	Outcomes	Actors involved	Key authors
Peacebuilding	Can be initiated at any time	Stimulate and institutionalise exchanges between parties	Non-violent conflict resolution and transformation	Interdepen-dent states and non-state actors	Galtung, (1996)
Transformative peacebuilding	Long timeframe before and after peace accords	Build relationships and develop infrastructures	Sustainable reconciliation by changing relations at all levels	Top, middle-range and grassroots leadership	Lederach (1997)
Post-conflict peacebuilding	During the first two years following conflict resolution	Build capacities, security and political processes	Stability through state-building and peace dividends	States, humanitarian and development agencies	Boutros-Ghali (1992); UN (2009)
Environmental peacemaking	Can be initiated at any time	Mutual gains and institutional change	Equitable resource distribution and improved transnational relations	States and non-state actors	Conca and Dabelko (2002)
Hybrid peacebuilding	Local agency pre-exists and responds to externally driven peacebuilding	Everyday interaction, empathy and local resistance	Hybrid peace governance tailored to the local context and norms	Dichotomy between international and local actors	Mac Ginty and Richmond (2013)
Environmental peacebuilding	During periods of low conflict intensity	Technical cooperation, shared spaces, joint management	Alleviate scarcity, dialogue and sustainable development	Engage policy-makers	Maas et al. (2013)

We have seen that environmental peacebuilding is neither governed by a coherent set of theories nor limited by strict disciplinary boundaries. Instead, it encompasses a multitude of conceptions and epistemological assumptions concerning the links between the environment, conflict, cooperation and peace, sometimes concluding in contradictory propositions. Based on this critical review, we define environmental peacebuilding as the process through which environmental challenges shared by the (former) parties to a violent conflict are turned into opportunities to build lasting cooperation and peace.

Several “pathways” or “categories” of environmental peacebuilding are identified in the literature, such as preventing environmental conflicts, promoting dialogue and trust, and sustainable development (Carius, 2006; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Maas et al., 2013). Furthermore, the literature stresses the importance of the context in which environmental peacebuilding originates, and identifies different mechanisms through which it operates and potential benefits of environmental cooperation (Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Ide, 2018; Maas et al., 2013; Matthew et al., 2009). However, there is neither consensus on, nor comprehensive understanding of how these constitutive elements of environmental cooperation build up towards lasting peacebuilding (Waisová, 2015).

Towards an environmental peacebuilding framework

Based on the assumptions and dispersed findings of previous studies, this section deconstructs environmental peacebuilding into three core building blocks, addressing the following questions:

1. Initial conditions: when do conflict parties resort to cooperation instead of competition over natural resources?

2. Mechanisms: how do parties address shared environmental challenges?

3. Outcomes: why do they do so and what are the expected v. actual benefits?

This section then reassembles these building blocks into three generic trajectories of environmental peacebuilding. This systematic approach paves the way towards the establishment of a theoretical framework allowing empirical assessment, in a conceptually informed manner, of the environment-peace nexus. These trajectories are not comprehensive, but can overlap, creating other and hybrid trajectories, or emerge concurrently on different scales (Carius, 2006; Ide, 2016). The building blocks and trajectories of environmental peacebuilding are summarised in Figure 1 and defined below.

Figure 1.

Environmental peacebuilding trajectories.

Initial conditions

The first building block corresponds to the initial conditions under which environmental peacebuilding initiatives unfold. The environment designates both biophysical aspects and the socio-political context. Accordingly, two types of contextual conditions are singled out within this first building block: the environmental challenges which cooperation aims to tackle and the pre-existing relations between conflict parties.

The first set of conditions refers to the overarching features of the biophysical environment and natural resources that act as cooperative triggers – such as actual or perceived resource scarcity or abundance, environmental interdependence across political borders, and the lack of sustainability. The second set of conditions relates to the socio-political environment in which conflict parties evolve, and consists of their mutual interests, shared values and level of power symmetry. Mutual interests refer to the concomitant needs of conflict parties, which can lead to mutually beneficial agreements instead of unilateral actions to address trans-boundary environmental challenges. Fragmenting ecosystem management along socio-political lines is indeed often less cost-effective than cooperation, which allows for economies of scale (United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office (UNPSO), 2012). In addition to the intrinsic benefits of environmental protection for human life and the environment itself, political or financial gain – so-called peace dividends – can thus motivate environmental cooperation. Shared ecological or political values can also trigger positive interactions through a common language and objective. Power asymmetries, defined as “disparities in wealth, power and negotiating capacity” can, on the contrary, decrease the willingness and ability to negotiate and share equal benefits (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2006: 223). Although asymmetric power relations do not exclude cooperation, they might severely hinder it, depending on the degree of inequality and associated costs that disadvantaged actors are willing to tolerate (Fischhendler et al., 2011; Janssen et al., 2011), and leading to an inefficient outcome of negotiations (Kasymov and Zikos, 2017; Knight, 1992). Therefore, the level of power symmetry between conflict parties is a third element to consider within the initial conditions of environmental peacebuilding.

Finally, external actors and interests also play a role in the socio-political environment. Donor agencies, international and non-governmental organisations play a central role in funding environmental peacebuilding projects, and can act as neutral intermediaries (Mac Ginty, 2015; Selby, 2013a).

A comprehensive approach to the biophysical and socio-political environment of conflict transformation is thus key to understanding how different parties perceive and shape conflicts and cooperation, and how social identities and power distribution affect their involvement in environmental peacebuilding (Aggestam and Sundell-Eklund, 2014; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Wessels, 2015).

Mechanisms

The second building block of environmental peacebuilding comprises its mechanisms, which are divided into two elements: the type of activities and their implementation modalities. The first type of activity is technical cooperation, which falls under the authority of trans-boundary epistemic communities under the pretext of neutrality and efficiency (Haas, 1992; Mac Ginty, 2012; Stetter et al., 2011). A second type of activities aims at creating neutral spaces of interaction where conflict parties can exchange freely. Finally, environmental peacebuilding can take the shape of common-pool resource management, where resource users are moving gradually away from competition and towards cooperation (Ostrom, 1990).

These activities are implemented through different modalities, which range from coordinated action, to dialogue and negotiation, and finally collective action understood as cooperative behaviour to produce collective benefits. If the level of violence is high, the cost of cooperation increases and conflict parties are more likely to engage in limited cooperation modalities requiring no or little direct interaction, such as coordination on technical issues (Carius, 2006). When conditions enable direct contact between parties, dialogue and negotiation can contribute to the diffusion of tensions and foster mutual understanding and recognition between conflict parties (Barbieri, 2002). Finally, environmental peacebuilding can redefine the relationships between parties by shifting the emphasis from political borders to socio-ecological systems, and thereby towards collective action for common-pool resource management (Ide, 2016).

The tailored environmental governance structures which often exist in the case of common-pool resources present certain advantages over more inclusive and generalised approaches (“one-size-fits-all” solutions), as they seek to account for the complexity of social-ecological systems and can enable the creation, validation or change of institutions to peacefully resolve conflicts over natural resources (Bromley, 1991; Zikos and Hagedorn, 2017). Institutions can take the shape of conventions, norms or formally sanctioned rules, and can be defined as stable patterns of human behaviour, shared norms and rules that provide meaning and stability to society (Crawford and Ostrom, 1995; Vatn, 2005). Norms are here understood as socially created and internalised rules – whether formal or not – that “define and support values in a situation with conflict potential” (Baerlein et al., 2015). In this frame, institutionalisation occurs when formal rules are set in place, increasing predictability in the other’s behaviour and decreasing uncertainty (Bromley, 2006; Fischhendler et al., 2011). As such, institutionalisation constitutes another, transversal mechanism of environmental peacebuilding which provides a shared normative framework to cooperating parties (Bruch et al., 2016; Kramer, 2008; Vatn, 2005).

Outcomes

The third and last building block of environmental peacebuilding is constituted by its direct and indirect outcomes, and their related costs. The potential direct benefits of environmental peacebuilding are the reduction of environmental problems, uncertainty or resource inequality. The first benefit expected from environmental cooperation is indeed to reduce shared environmental problems linked to resource scarcity and environmental degradation, as well as their associated costs. The second expected benefit assumes that repeated interaction between conflict parties can foster a habit of cooperation and build trust (Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Hardin, 2004; Ostrom, 1998). In times of violent conflict, the relation between parties is often characterised by mistrust, defined as uncertainty about the future actions of opponents. The relationship between cooperation (whether of a bilateral or multilateral, regional or sub-regional nature) and trust holds a prominent place in key interdisciplinary literature (cf. Hardin, 2004; Ostrom, 1998), highlighting the role of trust in facilitating cooperation and thus implicitly affecting various behavioural outcomes. However, while contacts between individuals can foster interpersonal trust, it does not necessarily transform into general trust at the collective level (Alon and Bar-Tal, 2016; Sztompka, 1999). Finally, environmental cooperation can reduce perceived inequalities related to natural resource access and distribution, thereby laying the roots of sustainable peace (Harwell, 2016; Kashwan, 2017). Indeed, durable peacebuilding cannot be externally imposed, but should result from collective action sanctioned by all participants and resource allocation perceived as fair by all parties involved (Büscher, 2013; Jägerskog, 2003; Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013).

These direct benefits of environmental cooperation can contribute to improving the relationships between conflict parties through a virtuous cycle of cooperation. The indirect benefits of environmental cooperation are difficult to grasp due to the many external factors with which they interact over time, but are vital to determine how environmental peacebuilding can contribute to broader peace. Firstly, the limited interactions needed for technical coordination can initiate trans-boundary and/or inter-community dialogue, based on the ‘contact hypothesis’ (Barbieri, 2002). Secondly, and as introduced in the ‘mechanisms’ section, collective trust, if achieved, is expected to facilitate the scaling-up of social identities from political to ecological boundaries, thereby paving the way for collective action (Carius, 2006; Harari, 2008; Ide, 2016). Indeed, evidence acquired from research within institutional economics and beyond demonstrates the impact of “social norms prescribing cooperative or trustworthy behaviour“ on societies’ ability to overcome obstacles related to collective action through expected reciprocity, while reducing associated risks (Keefer and Knack, 2005; Ostrom, 1990, 1992). Finally, by fostering a more equitable distribution of natural resources, environmental peacebuilding promotes social and environmental justice (Harwell, 2016; Kashwan, 2017), ultimately contributing to sustainable development.

The direct and indirect benefits of environmental peacebuilding however come with potential financial, environmental and political costs, even though donor agencies often bear most of the financial costs. In fact, initiatives labelled as environmental peacebuilding are not always the most cost-effective solutions and are not necessarily environmentally friendly, as illustrated by the Red Sea–Dead Sea Conveyance project. With a total financial cost estimated to be around US$10 billion, the project is presented as a symbol of peace and cooperation between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (World Bank, 2014). Concerns have however been voiced over its potential ecological damages, and alternatives have been identified by environmental organisations (JIIS, 2011). Besides unbalanced cost sharing, the results of environmental cooperation can create “unintended negative by-products” and constitute a public bad for those excluded from decision-making processes (Cowen and Sutter, 1999: 164). In deeply divided societies, one interest group’s advantage can come at the expense of the other, and lead to another group’s marginalisation and exclusion (Cowen and Sutter, 1999; Ide, 2016; Mac Ginty, 2015).

Assembling the elements from these three building blocks, three main trajectories of environmental peacebuilding are outlined and described in the next section.

Three trajectories of environmental peacebuilding

The first trajectory – technical environmental peacebuilding – aims to reduce environmental scarcity and degradation, using technical solutions implemented through coordinated action. Technical coordination can involve an agreed-upon division of labour between conflict parties, minimising trans-boundary contacts and dialogue. By reducing environmental problems and associated costs, this first strand of environmental peacebuilding potentially contributes to resolving the environmental causes of conflicts. Hence, technical cooperation tends to have less impact on broader peacebuilding, but is also more flexible and viable while violent conflict is ongoing in other domains.

Although this first trajectory of environmental peacebuilding involves limited contacts between conflict parties, coordinated action can impact broader peacebuilding by highlighting the mutual benefits of environmental cooperation and coordinated responses to common environmental challenges. While different actors might engage in environmental cooperation with diverging interpretations of the situation and to protect their own interests (Ide, 2016; Kramer, 2008), successful cooperation can lead to increased trans-boundary interactions. This in turn can foster trans-boundary interdependence, leading parties to identify shared values and develop future paths for cooperation. However, large-scale technological projects also bear higher financial and political costs. Balancing the interests of all parties – as well as their internal divergences – is a complex process, the outcome of which is not necessarily equitably distributed among all parties (Carius, 2006). When designed in a top-down fashion without involving local authorities and communities, such initiatives risk missing the priorities and needs on the ground and fail to reconcile actors at different levels, as illustrated by the case of service provision by the Nepali government (Krampe, 2016a).

The second trajectory of environmental peacebuilding is grounded on peacebuilding’s restorative dimension, as it provides shared spaces to acknowledge past injustices and recognise the other as a legitimate interlocutor (Barnett et al., 2007; Harwell, 2016). Acknowledging the interdependency created by the biophysical environment, environmental issues represent an opportunity to stimulate positive interactions by creating alternative, neutral spaces where conflict parties can exchange on shared values and break down mutual stereotypes (Carius, 2006; Ide, 2016; Maas et al., 2013). In the long term, environmental dialogue can change behaviours and perceptions, fostering socio-political transformations and policy alignment. Ecopeace’s “Good Water Neighbours” project, which promotes sustainable water management between Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian communities since 2001, has resulted in multiple trans-boundary capacity-building workshops and field visits, with the aim of creating a shared identity based on regional water interdependence (Harari, 2008; Ide, 2016).

The third trajectory of environmental peacebuilding – sustainable environmental peacebuilding – addresses the root causes of potential conflicts by focusing on equitable resource distribution as a pre-requisite for sustainable development and peace (Carius, 2006). Based on symmetrical power relations, joint management systems can be established when parties accept the transfer of a part of their influence to the collective in view of achieving a public good. While common-pool resource management relies on collective action and is generally based on a higher level of institutionalisation than the two previous trajectories, it can however be limited by collective action problems arising from conflicting interests (Ostrom, 1990). The case of bi-communal water management in Cyprus gives an insight on how such mechanisms can advance regional integration and environmental governance (Zikos et al., 2015), provided they include both high-level and grassroots leadership in decision-making processes. The need to address power asymmetries to ensure sustainable cooperation was identified in a variety of other cases, such as the Israeli–Palestinian Joint Water Committee (Selby, 2013b; Zeitoun and Warner, 2006) and wastewater treatment across the US–Mexico border, where the most effective burden of cost arrangements were found to be the ones addressing underlying asymmetries (Fischhendler, 2007). Although largely overlooked by the environmental peacebuilding literature, common-pool resource management systems, if reached through an inclusive and fair process, thus constitute a key step towards sustainable development and peace.

Based on the proposed framework, the three generic trajectories presented above can trickle down from technical to sustainable environmental peacebuilding through a “feedback loop”. However, over time, the conditions, mechanisms and outcomes of environmental peacebuilding interact with environmental and political changes, which can cause parties to deviate from planned strategies and constitute an additional transversal building block. While environmental change may trigger resource conflicts and downscale cooperative efforts (Homer-Dixon, 1999), in other instances environmental crises may bring conflict parties to cooperate more closely, for instance when increased donor funding diminishes the cost of cooperation (Fischhendler et al., 2011). To reconcile the static nature of the proposed environmental peacebuilding framework with the dynamic and contextual nature of conflicts and peacebuilding, the notion of spillover is discussed in the following section.

Discussion: From theory to practice, a critical perspective

Environmental peacebuilding is based on certain assumptions about how its constitutive elements build on each other, a phenomenon called spillover effects (Carius, 2006; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Ide, 2018). Far from being automatic or politically neutral, these spillover effects are little discussed or demonstrated in the existing literature (Maas et al., 2013). The proposed framework connects each building block through a horizontal but also vertical spillover, moving from more limited forms of technical cooperation based on mutual interests, towards dialogue around shared values, and finally collective action for common-pool resource management. However, environmental peacebuilding rarely follows a linear trajectory and several trajectories can overlap or be combined, resulting in hybrid trajectories whose actual outcomes do not necessarily match those expected (Carius, 2006; Ide, 2016). Instead of spilling over to broader peace, environmental peacebuilding initiatives that follow such “hybrid” trajectories can reinforce underlying inequities and conflicts, for instance when they are based on asymmetric relations or fail to acknowledge the local actors and evolving context. The following section takes a critical perspective on these spillover effects and how environmental cooperation is expected to grow across borders, sectors and governance levels to contribute to durable peace, if at all.

Spillover across political borders

The first expected spillover of environmental collaboration is based on the claim that “the environment knows no boundaries”, presenting issues such as water pollution or climate change as regional or global challenges (Akçalı and Antonsich, 2009; Harari, 2008; Ide, 2016). When it comes to trans-boundary environmental issues, we have seen that environmental peacebuilding relies on the assumption that self-interested, win-win cooperation will develop into broader forms of peacebuilding based on rational choice (Carius, 2006; Conca and Dabelko, 2002). This underestimates the global–local power interplays and socio-political constructs that can either facilitate or hinder the spillover of environmental cooperation towards peacebuilding (Björkdahl and Höglund, 2013; Maas et al., 2013; Wessels, 2015).

Moreover, for this spillover to take place, the difficult process of switching from socio-political to ecological boundaries within environmental peacebuilding is required (Hagedorn, 2008, 2013). With reference to the concept of fit (Young, 2002), it has been observed that institutions for collective action might work differently than expected in conflictual settings. An analysis of divided Cyprus for instance distinguishes two seemingly contradicting, yet co-existing perspectives on fit: “island fit” supporting institutions that address the Cypriot social ecological system as a whole, and “patronage fit” which embodies institutions linking Cypriots to their respective patrons – Turkey and Greece – and legitimises the artificial breakup of the system into two parts, explaining misfits in water resource institutions (Zikos and Roggero, 2012).

Here, a central challenge (but also opportunity) is that social identities and perceptions are constantly being reconstructed along political, economic, social and/or environmental lines and through collective action (Green, 2015; Stetter et al., 2011; Wessels, 2015). Environmental peacebuilding initiatives therefore need to account for the fluid interrelations between the local, national, regional and international political spaces and scales, and identify and/or establish common ecological zones capable of breaking down these political scalar divisions (Harari, 2008; Ide, 2016; Mac Ginty and Richmond, 2013).

Spillover across sectors

The second expected spillover of environmental cooperation rests on the interconnectedness of the biophysical environment with all aspects of human life, such as the economy, justice and health (World Health Organization (WHO), 2016). This complicates the attribution of causal explanations, but also represents an opportunity for environmental peacebuilding.

We have seen that environmental peacebuilding is interlinked with environmental and political change, which can affect environmental cooperation positively or negatively. The fact that cooperation and conflict can coexist also affects how peacebuilding unfolds over time (Zeitoun and Mirumachi, 2008; Zeitoun and Warner, 2006), although the expected spillovers are limited in the case of ongoing conflicts (Carius, 2006). Environmental peacebuilding can indeed be impacted by a resurgence of violence limiting the willingness to cooperate to technical necessities, but also be expanded in the event of an environmental crisis that, coupled to sanitation issues, would create a sense of urgency and need to increase the scope of cooperation (Van Wijk and Fischhendler, 2017).

When the actual benefits of environmental cooperation exceed its expected outcomes, parties can also decide to expand trans-boundary exchanges to other sectors to maximise peace dividends, and, on the contrary, reduce cooperation when its expected benefits are not met, causing frustration and a decreased trust. The impact of such changes is problematic for isolating the actual effects of environmental cooperation on peacebuilding, but reconciling the multiplicity of internal and external factors with a systematic approach to environmental peacebuilding is needed to further substantiate the existence of an environment-peace nexus with empirical evidence.

Spillover across scales

The third and final expected spillover pertains to the effects of environmental peacebuilding across scales. The scarcity school envisioned environmental issues and shared natural resources as high politics and a potential source of conflict. With the rise of environmental security, environmental challenges have become closely associated with state security and human survival, calling for a top-down approach to cooperation (Bruch et al., 2016; Conca and Dabelko, 2002; Matthew et al., 2009). Environmental cooperation on issues of high politics is however difficult to initiate in fragile conflict and post-conflict environments. A central aspect in such settings is therefore to downscale environmental cooperation to low politics.

Environmental peacebuilding can be envisioned as a discursive construct in which the biophysical environmental is conceived in terms of scientific definitions and human needs, rather than in terms of state security. The first (technical) trajectory enables this framing of environmental cooperation in apolitical terms to stimulate dialogue among experts across conflict borders and increase acceptance of cooperation among a wider set of actors by staying below the radar of high politics (Aggestam, 2015; Conca, 2001). Similarly, the second (restorative) trajectory can be framed as low politics when revolving for instance around ecologic values and people-to-people interactions. Finally, the third (sustainable) trajectory of environmental peacebuilding requires the involvement of local communities and high-level leadership to ensure collective action. Such initiatives can be imposed through a top-down approach as part of an international peacebuilding agenda, and are then expected to trickle down to local actors (Mac Ginty, 2015), or be the result of pre-existing informal types of cooperation at the local level in a bottom-up process. Yet, low and high politics are not by definition competing rationales, but should be combined and adapted within each context to foster a multilevel governance system of natural resources if sustainable peace is to be achieved (Bruch et al., 2016).

Envisioning environmental cooperation as an entry point for peacebuilding thus rests on the assumption of a potential spillover from low to high politics, but also between grassroots, intermediate, and top-level leadership (Lederach, 1997). Acknowledging the need for socio-political transformation at different levels of governance should not conceal the obstacle constituted by pre-existing asymmetries. Widespread mechanisms of cooperation such as technocratic strategies, used for instance to facilitate water cooperation in Cyprus, can also reinforce existing asymmetries if they are not the result of equitable decision-making processes (Mac Ginty, 2015; Zikos et al., 2015). The case of Israeli–Palestinian water cooperation further illustrates the difficulty to reconcile different approaches to environmental issues as low politics for Israel – corresponding to a needs-based approach – and high politics for the Palestinian rights-based approach (Aggestam and Sundell-Eklund, 2014; Carius, 2006; Harari, 2008).

Conflict parties might enter environmental cooperation based on a self-interested agenda, but change their perception over time through repeated cooperation and the spillover effects of environmental peacebuilding across borders, sectors and scales. When used as a peacebuilding tool, environmental cooperation should thus be approached as a dynamic, “mutually constituting process“ (Jägerskog, 2013: 38) which is shaped by the biophysical environment and social identities, but also redefines the social and biophysical environment.

Conclusion

Over the past two decades, environmental peacebuilding has gained considerable importance among both researchers and practitioners, and the expectation that environmental cooperation will foster regional peace and stability has led to increases in the allocation of international funding to such initiatives. Peacebuilding traditionally focused on the costs and benefits of cooperation as a trigger for peace based on rational choice theory. More recently, an emerging strand of critical peacebuilding studies led to a local turn in peacebuilding. Several other disciplines such as political ecology, hydropolitics and institutional and ecological economics also contributed to advancing our understanding of why and how environmental cooperation can advance peacebuilding.

Drawing on a review of these different strands of the literature, this article deconstructed environmental peacebuilding to its constitutive building blocks – its initial conditions, mechanisms and expected outcomes. These building blocks were then reassembled into three generic trajectories: technical, restorative and sustainable environmental peacebuilding. Although these trajectories are not comprehensive and can be “hybridised” into new trajectories, they provide an analytical framework for comparing how environmental peacebuilding initiatives are theoretically constructed and practically applied. Nonetheless, several theoretical gaps remain to be bridged before assessing if and how environmental cooperation can contribute to sustainable development and peacebuilding. In particular, we discussed the potential spillovers of environmental peacebuilding across political borders, sectors and scales.

Organising the constitutive elements of environmental peacebuilding into a systematic framework is constrained by the multi-causal mechanisms and fluid environmental and political processes by which they are affected. The proposed framework is therefore not conceived as a comprehensive tool for designing or evaluating environmental peacebuilding initiatives. Instead, it aims at defining key terms based on a multidisciplinary dialogue, providing a matrix for analysis, and outlining a future research agenda on environmental peacebuilding. The causal linkages between the building blocks of environmental peacebuilding and the occurrence of spillover effects should be empirically assessed and completed through in-depth and comparative case studies. This will lead researchers and policy makers to consider the full scope of physical, socio-political and cultural dimensions impacting the conditions, mechanisms and outcomes of environmental peacebuilding, and further substantiate this emerging theoretical framework.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Hebrew University-Humboldt University Joint Call for Cooperation Proposals.

Author biographies

Anaïs Dresse, after graduating from Marburg University in 2010 with a Master’s Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, specialised in Human Rights Law, obtaining a LL.M. in European and International Public Law from Tilburg University, the Netherlands. She then gained practical experience in the field of development cooperation, working in Africa and the Middle East for organisations such as the Belgian Development Agency, the European Union and the United Nations. In October 2014, Anaïs joined the IRI THESys Junior Research Group “Changing rural-urban linkages in the Global South”, led by Prof. Dr Jonas Østergaard Nielsen. Moving beyond natural resources as a source of conflict, her research project questions the conditions under which natural resources can act as peace-builder rather than conflict creator using an interdisciplinary approach, thereby contributing to the emerging field of environmental peacebuilding.

Itay Fischhendler is Associate Professor at the Hebrew University’s Department of Geography. His research interests focus on environmental conflict resolution, natural resources management and governance, and decision making under conditions of political and environmental uncertainties. He is a leading scholar on transboundary water institutions and Middle East water issues, with numerous articles published in public policy, conflict resolution, peace studies, geography, ecological economics and environmental journals.

Jonas Østergaard Nielsen is Junior Professor and research group leader at Humboldt-Universität’s Department of Geography since 2013. He studied social anthropology at Auckland University, New Zealand, and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and obtained his doctorate in Human Geography in 2010 at the University of Copenhagen. From 2010 to 2013, he worked as a Post-Doctoral fellow at the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. Jonas’ research is concerned with human dimensions of global climate change and land-use change, and urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Jonas has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Burkina Faso since 2007. He has published widely, with over 50 articles in peer reviewed journals and books.

Dimitrios Zikos is a lecturer and researcher at Humboldt-Universität’s Resource Economics Group and also affiliated with IRITHESys. He graduated from the University of Piraeus, Department of Statistics. Following, he completed an MBA on Environmental Management at the University of Liverpool, and then a PhD at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences. Dimitrios’ recent research and publications focus on the implicit study of conflict and cooperation on natural resources from an institutionalist perspective.

References

Aggestam

(2015) Desecuritisation of water and the technocratic turn in peacebuilding. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 15(3): 327–340.

Aggestam

Sundell-Eklund

(2014) Situating water in peacebuilding: Revisiting the Middle East peace process. Water International 39(1): 10–22.

Akçalı

Antonsich

(2009) ‘Nature knows no boundaries’: A critical reading of UNDP environmental peacemaking in Cyprus. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 99(5): 940–947.

Alon

Bar-Tal

(eds) (2016) The Role of Trust in Conflict Resolution: The Israeli-Palestinian Case and beyond. Cham: Springer.

Baechler

(1999) Environmental degradation in the south as a cause of armed conflict. In: Carius

Lietzmann

(eds) Environmental Change and Security: A European perspective. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 107–130.

Baerlein

Kasymov

Zikos

(2015) Self-governance and sustainable common pool resource management in Kyrgyzstan. Sustainability 7(1): 496–521.

Barbieri

(2002) The Liberal Illusion: Does trade promote peace? Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Barnett

Kim

O’Donnell

et al . (2007) Peacebuilding: What is in a name? Global Governance: A review of multilateralism and international organizations 13(1): 35–58.

Björkdahl

Höglund

(2013) Precarious peacebuilding: Friction in global–local encounters. Peacebuilding 1(3): 289–299.

10.

Boutros-Ghali

(1992) An agenda for peace: Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping. International Relations 11(3): 201–218.

11.

Brauch

(2009) Introduction: Facing global environmental change and sectorialization of security. In: Brauch

Behera

Chourou

et al . (eds) Facing Global Environmental Change: Environmental, human, energy, food, health and water security concepts. Berlin: Springer, pp. 21–42.

12.

Bromley

(1991) Environment and Economy: Property rights and public policy. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

13.

Bromley

(2006) Sufficient Reason: Volitional pragmatism and the meaning of economic institutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

14.

Bruch

Muffet

Nichols

(eds) (2016) Governance, Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Abingdon: Routledge.

15.

Büscher

(2013) Transforming the Frontier: Peace parks and the politics of neoliberal conservation in southern Africa. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

16.

Carius

(2006) Environmental Peacemaking: Environmental cooperation as an instrument of crisis prevention and peacebuilding: condition for success and constraints. Berlin: Adelphi.

17.

Collier

Hoeffler

(2012) High-value natural resources, development, and conflict: Channels of causation. In: Lujala

Rustad

(eds) High-Value Natural Resources and Peacebuilding. London: Earthscan, pp. 297–312.

18.

Conca

(2001) Environmental cooperation and international peace. In: Diehl

Gleditsch

(eds) Environmental Conflict: An anthology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 225–247.

19.

Conca

Dabelko

(2002) Environmental Peacemaking. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

20.

Costanza

Ostrom

Low

et al . (eds) (2001) Institutions, Ecosystems, and Sustainability. Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers.

21.

Cowen

Sutter

(1999) The costs of cooperation. The Review of Austrian Economics 12(2): 161–173.

22.

Crawford

SES

Ostrom

(1995) A grammar of institutions. American Political Science Review 89: 582–600.

23.

Dabelko

(2006) From Threat to Opportunity: Exploiting environmental pathways to peace. Prepared for: ‘Environment, peace and the dialogue among civilizations and cultures’, Tehran, Iran, 9–10 May. Available at: www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/pathways.pdf

24.

Dalton

(2011) Application of the human ecosystem model in warfare ecology. In: Machlis

Hanson

Špirić

et al . (eds) Warfare Ecology. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 33–40.

25.

De Soysa

(2006) Ecoviolence: Shrinking pie, or honey pot? Global Environmental Politics 2(4): 1–34.

26.

Dombrowsky

(2009) Revisiting the potential for benefit sharing in the management of trans-boundary rivers. Water Policy 11(2): 125–140.

27.

Dresse

Nielsen

JØ

Zikos

(2016) Moving beyond natural resources as a source of conflict: Exploring the human-environment nexus of environmental peacebuilding. THESys Discussion Paper 2. April 2016. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

28.

Dupuy

Roman

Mougenot

(2015) Analyzing socio-environmental conflicts with a commonsian transactional framework: Application to a mining conflict in Peru. Journal of Economic Issues 49(4): 895–921.

29.

Fischhendler

(2007) Escaping the ‘polluter pays’ trap: Financing wastewater treatment on the Tijuana–San Diego border. Ecological Economics 63(2–3): 485–498.

30.

Fischhendler

Dinar

Katz

(2011) The politics of unilateral environmentalism: Cooperation and conflict over water management along the Israeli-Palestinian border. Global Environmental Politics 11(1): 36–61.

31.

Galtung

(1976) Peace, War and Defense: Essays in peace research. Copenhagen: Ejlers.

32.

Galtung

(1996) Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. London: SAGE.

33.

Giordano

Wolf

(2005) International resource conflict and mitigation. Journal of Peace Research 42(1): 47–65.

34.

Grech-Madin

Döring

Kim

et al . (2018) Negotiating water across levels: A peace and conflict ‘Toolbox’ for water diplomacy. Journal of Hydrology 559: 100–109.

35.

Green

(2015) Social identity, natural resources, and peacebuilding. In: Young

Goldman

(eds) Livelihoods, Natural Resources, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 19–40.

36.

Haas

(1992) Introduction: Epistemic communities and international policy coordination. International Organization 46(1): 01–35.

37.

Hagedorn

(2008) Particular requirements for institutional analysis in nature-related sectors. European Review of Agricultural Economics 35(3): 357–384.

38.

Hagedorn

(2013) Natural resource management: The role of cooperative institutions and governance. Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity 2(1): 101–121.

39.

Hagmann

(2005) Confronting the concept of environmentally induced conflict. Peace, Conflict and Development 6: 1–22.

40.

Harari

(2008) Environmental Peacebuilding: Theory and Practice – A Case-Study of the Good Water Neighbours Project. Amman; Bethlehem; Tel Aviv: Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).

41.

Hardin

(2004) Trust and Trustworthiness. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

42.

Harwell

(2016) Building momentum and constituencies for peace: The role of natural resources in transitional justice and peacebuilding. In: Bruch

Muffett

Nichols

(eds) Governance, Natural Resources, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. London: Earthscan, pp. 633–664.

43.

Hiedanpää

Bromley

(2016) Environmental Heresies. The quest for reasonable. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

44.

Homer-Dixon

(1999) Environment, Scarcity, and Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

45.

Ide

(2016) Space, discourse and environmental peacebuilding. Third World Quarterly 38(3): 1–19.

46.

Ide

(2018) The impact of environmental cooperation on peacemaking: Definitions, mechanisms, and empirical evidence. International Studies Review. Epub ahead of print 23 March. DOI: 10.1093/isr/viy014.

47.

Ide

Scheffran

(2013) Climate change: Source of conflict or promoter of cooperation? Submitted Working paper CLISEC–26. Research Group Climate Change and Security. University of Hamburg.

48.

Jägerskog

(2013) Water-sharing among Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians. A World of Science 11(1): 8.

49.

Janssen

Anderies

Cardenas

(2011) Head-enders as stationary bandits in asymmetric commons: Comparing irrigation experiments in the laboratory and the field. Ecological Economics 70: 1590–1598.

50.

Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS) (2011) Altering the water balance as a means to addressing the problems of the Dead Sea. An independent assessment of alternatives for a ‘water conduit’ and the achievement of its objectives. The JIIS Series no. 417. The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.

51.

Kashwan

(2017) Democracy in the Woods: Environmental conservation and social justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

52.

Kasymov

Zikos

(2017) Understanding human actions and institutional change: What are the impacts of power asymmetries on efficiency in pasture use? Resources 6(4): 71.

53.

Keefer

Knack

(2005) Social capital, social norms and the New Institutional Economics. In: Menard

Shirley

(eds) Handbook of New Institutional Economics. Berlin: Springer, pp. 700–725.

54.

Knight

(1992) Institutions and Social Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

55.

Kramer

(2008) Regional Water Cooperation and Peacebuilding in the Middle East. Brussels: Initiative for Peacebuilding. Adelphi Research.

56.

Kramer

Wolf

Carius

et al . (2013) The key to managing conflict and cooperation over water. A World of Science 11(1): 4–12.

57.

Krampe

(2013) The liberal trap: Peacemaking and peacebuilding in Afghanistan after 9/11. In: Eriksson

Kostić

(eds) Mediation and Liberal Peacebuilding: Peace from the ashes of war? Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 57–75.

58.

Krampe

(2016a) Empowering peace: Service provision and state legitimacy in Nepal’s peace-building process. Conflict, Security & Development 16(1): 53–73.

59.

Krampe

(2016b) Water for peace? Post-conflict water resource management in Kosovo. Cooperation and Conflict 52(2): 147–165.

60.

Lederach

(1997) Building Peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. Washington, DC: Institute of Peace Press.

61.

Maas

Carius

Wittich

(2013) From conflict to cooperation: Environmental cooperation as a tool for peace-building. In: Floyd

Matthew

(eds) Environmental Security: Approaches and issues. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 102–120.

62.

Mac Ginty

(2011) International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance: Hybrid forms of peace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

63.

Mac Ginty

(2012) Routine peace: Technocracy and peacebuilding. Cooperation and Conflict 47(3): 287–308.

64.

Mac Ginty

(2015) Where is the local? Critical localism and peacebuilding. Third World Quarterly 36(5): 840–856.

65.

Mac Ginty

Richmond

(2013) The local turn in peace building: A critical agenda for peace. Third World Quarterly 34(5): 763–783.

66.

Matthew

Brown

Jensen

(2009) From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The role of natural resources and the environment. Nairobi: UNEP/Earthprint.

67.

Newman

(2010) Peacebuilding as security in ‘failing’ and conflict-prone states. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 4(3): 305–322.

68.

Newman

(2011) A human security peace-building agenda. Third World Quarterly 32(10): 1737–1756.

69.

Ostrom

(1990) Governing the Commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

70.

Ostrom

(1992) Crafting Institutions for Self-Governing Irrigation Systems. San Francisco, CA: ICS Press.

71.

Ostrom

(1998) A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of collective action. American Political Science Review 92(1): 1–22.

72.

Richmond (2009) Becoming liberal, unbecoming liberalism: Liberal-local hybridity via the everyday as a response to the paradoxes of liberal peacebuilding. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 3(3): 324–344.

73.

Scoones

(1999) New ecology and the social sciences: What prospects for a fruitful engagement? Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 479–507.

74.

Selby

(2013a) The myth of liberal peace-building. Conflict, Security & Development 13(1): 57–86.

75.

Selby

(2013b) Cooperation, domination and colonisation: The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee. Water Alternatives 6(1): 1–24.

76.

Stetter

Herschinger

Teichler

et al . (2011) Conflicts about water: Securitizations in a global context. Cooperation and Conflict 46(4): 441–459.

77.

Swain

Krampe

(2011) Stability and sustainability in peace building: Priority area for warfare ecology. In: Machlis

Hanson

Špirić

et al . (eds) Warfare Ecology. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 199–210.

78.

Sztompka

(1999) Trust: A Sociological Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

79.

United Nations (UN) (2009) Report of the Secretary-General on peacebuilding in the immediate aftermath of conflict. Sixty-third session of the General Assembly, A/63/881-S/2009/304. Available at: http://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/pbf_090611_sg.pdf

80.

United Nations Development Group (UNDG) (2014) Land, natural resources and conflict: From curse to opportunity. An EU-UN Partnership in Action. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/land-natural-resources-conflict/

81.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2006) Human Development Report 2006. Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis. New York. Available at: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/HDR/2006%20Global%20HDR/HDR-2006-Beyond%20scarcity-Power-poverty-and-the-global-water-crisis.pdf

82.

United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office (UNPSO) (2012) Peace Dividends and Beyond. Contributions of Administrative and Social Services to Peacebuilding. New York. Available at: www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/pbso/pdf/peace_dividends.pdf

83.

Van Wijk

Fischhendler

(2017) The construction of urgency discourse around mega-projects: The Israeli case. Policy Science 50(3): 469–494.

84.

Vatn

(2005) Rationality, institutions and environmental policy. Ecological Economics 55(2): 203–217.

85.

Waisová

(2015) Environmental cooperation as instrument of conflict transformation in conflict-prone areas: Where does it start, how deep it can be and what effects it can have? Politické Vedy 2: 105.

86.

Wessels

(2009) Water crisis in the Middle East: An opportunity for new forms of water governance and peace. The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 10: 131.

87.

Wessels

(2015) ‘Playing the game’, identity and perception-of-the-other in water cooperation in the Jordan River Basin. Hydrological Sciences Journal 61(7): 1323–1337.

88.

Wolf

(2007) Shared waters: Conflict and cooperation. Annual Review of Environmental Resources 32: 241–269.

89.

World Bank (2014) Final feasibility study report. Report 12, 147RP05. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTREDSEADEADSEA/Resources/5174616-1416839444345/RSDS-Summary_of_Final_FS_Report.pdf

90.

World Health Organization (WHO) (2016) Preventing Disease through Healthy Environments: A Global Assessment of the Burden of Disease from Environmental Risks. Geneva. Available at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/204585/1/9789241565196_eng.pdf

91.

Young

(2002) The Institutional Dimension of Environmental Change: Fit, interplay, and scale. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

92.

Zeitoun

Mirumachi

(2008) Transboundary water interaction I: Reconsidering conflict and cooperation. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, law and economics 8(4): 297.

93.

Zeitoun

Warner

(2006) Hydro-hegemony: A framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts. Water Policy 8(5): 435–460.

94.

Zikos

Hagedorn

(2017) Competition for water resources from the European perspective. In: Ziolkowska

Peterson

(eds) Competition for Water Resources: Experiences and management approaches in the US and Europe. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier, pp. 19–35.

95.

Zikos

Roggero

(2012) The patronage of thirst: Exploring institutional fit on a divided Cyprus. Ecology & Society 18(2): 25.

96.

Zikos

Sorman

Lau

(2015) Beyond water security: Asecuritisation and identity in Cyprus. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, law and economics 15(3): 309–326.