Water for peace? Post-conflict water resource management in Kosovo

Abstract

Water resource management (WRM) has increasingly come to be considered within the realm of peacebuilding. Through investigating the case of water resource management in Kosovo after 1999, this study argues that the international community has treated post-conflict water resource management as a primarily technical issue, to the neglect of its complex political nature. This has impeded the peacebuilding process in three ways. First, it consolidated the physical separation of actors through allowing separate water governance structures. Second, it avoided conflictive issues instead of actively engaging in conflict resolution. Third, it incapacitated locals by placing ownership in the hands of external actors. To redress this tripartite dilemma, this study stresses the need for research that provides deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the political mechanisms that connect WRM to post-conflict reconstruction efforts.