Buck, Susan J., Gleason, Gregory W., and Mitchel S Jofuku. 1993. "The Institutional Imperative: Resolving Transboundary Water Conflict in Arid Agricultural Regions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Independent States." Presented at "Inequality and the Commons," the third annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Washington, DC, September 17-20, 1992.

Abstract

"International transboundary water disputes engender more conflict than disputes within a single country. Yet the theory of transboundary resource management offers no simple explanation for this phenomenon. Water management involves two interacting sets of variables: 1) the physical river system (including manmade structures) which determines the distribution logic; and 2) economic, social, legal and political relationships which determine the institutional logic. Disjunction between the distribution logic and institutional logic is the source of most conflict. To answer the question why international water disputes are more conflictual than intranational ones, this paper surveys water management systems in arid agricultural regions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The study hypothesizes that conflict created by disjunction in intranational contexts is resolved through multi-level institutional interaction. In transboundary disputes, appropriators turn to the state for conflict resolution; this strengthens the state internally, but diminishes the ability of lower level institutions to resolve disputes. This phenomena suggests an 'institutional imperative' of maintaining the vitality of subnational and supranational institutions to resolve international transboundary water conflict."