Suchergebnisse

Building on the findings from the International Negotiation's 2000 issue on negotiations in international watercourses and the major advances in the field during the past nine years, this issue seeks to advance our knowledge about the management of international river disputes. Collectively, the articles in this issue move beyond the simple dichotomy of conflict and cooperation to suggest the possibility that both are often simultaneously present within a basin and should be studied as such. Using a diversity of methodological approaches from comparative case studies to single case studies to quantitative analysis, the articles also illustrate the growth of institutionalization within river basins and their contribution to conflict management. Moreover, the articles advance our knowledge of the role of the relative distribution of power within the basin on the resolution of water disputes and management of resources. Some scholars find power asymmetry important for treaty formation, while others suggest that issue linkages and side payments can provide weaker riparians with the means to gain from cooperation. Adapted from the source document.

Collaborative institutions, which involve the collective decision-making by multiple political agencies, communities, and stakeholders, are becoming increasingly important for addressing policy dilemmas that are not bound within a single jurisdiction. This is especially true in the environmental arena (Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000; Karkkainen 2002; Koontz et al. 2004; Lubell 2004; McKinney and Harmon 2004; Brick et al. 2001; Sabel et al. 2000). In the water management field, for instance, Sabatier, Weible, and Ficker (2005) have argued that the growth of collaborative efforts among small watersheds is so widespread that it has become a new paradigm of management. A considerable body of policy research, particularly on watershed management, has begun to examine the factors that support the emergence of collaborative environmental governance (Lubell et al. 2002; Blomquist 1992; Ostrom 1990). Understanding what factors affect the performance of collaborative institutions has also become an emerging theme in this scholarship (Sabatier, Leach, Lubell, and Pelkey 2005; Leach, Pelkey, and Sabatier 2002; Conley and Moote 2003; Innes and Booher 1999). Empirically and methodologically however, what is often missing from research on collaborative institutions is a clearer picture of what factors support the endurance of collaborative institutions over time.

Despite international calls for data and information sharing in transboundary waters and basin-specific evidence of its importance to cooperative management, no systematic research has been undertaken to answer questions of where, how frequently, and which water resources data and information are exchanged. This paper examines all available transboundary water agreements signed between 1900 and 2007 to determine the degree to which water resources data and information is exchanged in the world's regions, how the level of exchange has developed over time, and the different ways in which data and information sharing has been codified in practice. In doing so, we reveal important trends regarding the mechanisms, types, and frequencies of water resources data and information sharing-as well as differences across temporal and spatial scales, by treaty type and function, and regime type. The results indicate that data and information exchange as already practiced is more nuanced and, in some senses, widespread than may commonly be recognized. Further, the results reveal key linkages between democracy and data and information exchange and provide a basis to test analogous linkages related to data sharing and other variables in transboundary water settings. Adapted from the source document.