Browsing by Author "Fox, Coleen"

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Flood Pulses, International Watercourse Law, and Common Property Resources: A Case Study of the Mekong Lowlands
(2004) Fox, Coleen
"In river basins around the world, formal agreements based on international watercourse law are seen as important mechanisms for promoting sustainability and cooperation. While such agreements have been effective in avoiding conflict between states in the short term, success at the international scale can, paradoxically, undermine the foundations of ecological and social sustainability at the local scale, thereby threatening long-term stability. To investigate reasons for this problematic, cross-scale institutional interplay, the paper draws on a case study from the Mekong lowlands, a common pool resource upon which millions of people depend for their livelihoods."
River-Basin Politics and the Rise of Ecological and Transnational Democracy in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa
(2008) Sneddon, Chris; Fox, Coleen
"In recent years, debates over 'deliberative', 'transnational' and 'ecological' democracy have proliferated, largely among scholars engaged in discussions of modernisation, globalisation and political identity. Within this broad context, scholars and practitioners of environmental governance have advanced the argument that a democratic society will produce a more environmentally conscious society. We want to make a volte-face of this argument and ask: to what extent does engagement with environmental politics and, specifically, water politics, contribute to processes of democratisation? After reviewing some of the contributions to debates over 'ecological' and 'transnational' democracy, we explore this question within the context of conflicts over river-basin development in Southeast Asia and southern Africa. We argue that there are multiple pathways to democratisation and that, in some cases, the environment as a political issue does constitute a significant element of democratisation. But notions of 'ecological' and 'transnational' democracy must embody how both 'environment' and 'the transnational', as mobilised by specific social movements in specific historical and geographical circumstances, are politically constructed."