Who Engages in Water Scarcity Conflicts? A Field Experiment with Irrigators in Semi-arid Africa

D'Exelle, Ben ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9332-5223, Lecoutere, Els and Van Campenhout, Bjorn (2010) Who Engages in Water Scarcity Conflicts? A Field Experiment with Irrigators in Semi-arid Africa. Working Paper. Microcon.

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Abstract

Does water scarcity induce conflict? And who would engage in a water scarcity conflict? In this paper we look for evidence of the relation between water scarcity and conflictive behavior. With a framed field experiment conducted with smallholder irrigators from semi-arid Tanzania that replicates appropriation from an occasionally scarce common water flow we assess what type of water users is more inclined to react in conflictive way to scarcity. On average, water scarcity induces selfish appropriation behavior in the experiment which is regarded as conflictive in the Tanzanian irrigator communities where strong noncompetition norms regulate irrigation water distribution. But not all react to water scarcity in the same way. Poor, marginalized, dissocialized irrigators with low human capital and with higher stakes are most likely to react with conflictive appropriation behavior to water scarcity. Viewed from a political ecology perspective we conclude that circumstances in Tanzania are conducive to resource scarcity conflicts. Water scarcity and water values are increasing, and water governance institutions entail exclusionary elements. Moreover, a higher likelihood to react in a conflictive way to water scarcity coincides with real economic and political inequalities which could form a basis for mobilization for more violent ways of competing for scarce resources.

Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 6 - clean water and sanitation ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/clean_water_and_sanitation
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of International Development
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Experimental Economics (former - to 2017)
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics
Depositing User: Ben D'Exelle
Date Deposited: 29 Mar 2011 10:42
Last Modified: 26 Jul 2023 09:36
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/27374
DOI:

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