Of River Linkage and Issue Linkage: Transboundary Conflict and Cooperation on the River Meuse

Abstract

It is a truism in mainstream International Relations that issue linkage promotes regime formation and integration. The present article applies this idea to the transboundary lower river Meuse and finds its history of integration to be a tortuous one. Contextual political factors have at times promoted integration, at times fragmentation. The path towards regional integration, then, has not been not linear, but has consisted of conflict and cooperation, of (Meuse–Scheldt) river linkage and issue linkage, but also counterlinkage and non-linkage. Clearly linkage is not necessarily positive. I will argue that this does not need to be problematic, but suggest accepting more complexity in the analysis of river integration. I propose a way to create some order in the many available concepts of linkage to map out the role of linkage in integration.     

The hydropolitical challenges of domestic water conservation. Palestine and Tunisia case studies

Southern Mediterranean area, particularly the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), has been facing social, economic, environmental and political challenges related to the water scarcity and quality. Within the European SWMED project, a socio-economic survey was conducted in Palestine and Tunisia, in order to explore the water conditions, and the social and economic situations of local families. The article illustrates the research design and implementation, as well as the main results that were used to select the appropriate sustainable water management solutions to respond to the hydropolitical issues. Due to the huge use of water in agriculture and the difficulty of reducing the water consumption in this sector, fostering tools for domestic water saving may be a winning strategy for facing water scarcity in MENA region.