Abstract
This contribution to the IDGEC Synthesis Conference focuses on the role of formal and informal institutions in adaptation processes to environmental change. Water scarcity and soil degradation as a result of environmental change and increasing demand are frequent triggering factors of environmental conflicts (Homer-Dixon and Parcival 1998; Bächler 2001; de Soysa 2002; UNEP 2004). While the analysis on these conflicts from a game-theoretical point of view as a matter of common pool resource management as well as the international relations perspective are quite well developed, less research has been conducted at the level where national policies meet institutions of local governance and where the lack of common strategies regarding the use of the resource often lead to conflicts. Beyond the physical evolution of the supply, social and political factors determine to a large degree the conflictive or cooperative evolution of environmental degradation processes and need a systematic assessment. Water scarcity as a highly relevant topic of environmental security research provides a useful entry point into this perspective. This contribution proposes a conceptual framework linking the research on institutional arrangements from a perspective of sociological institutionalism (DiMaggio and Powell 1997) with the relevant theoretical debates in the field of conflict management and transformation (Lederach 1995; Paffenholz 2004). Vertical and horizontal institutional arrangements, be it at the formal level of organisations and laws, or at the informal level of norms and values, are analysed in a given context of southern Morocco, a region highly affected by water scarcity problems. The contribution will insist on the possibilities and limits of this theoretical approach and exemplify its methodological implementation in empirical studies. Furthermore, it formulates policy relevant conclusions for dealing with water conflict potential. The work is based on case studies conducted for a PhD project of the author, which is part of the French-Maghrebien research project “SIRMA” dealing with the effects of water scarcity in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
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