The struggle over Turkey’s Ilısu Dam: domestic and international security linkages

Jeroen Warner ()

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 2012, vol. 12, issue 3, 250 pages

Abstract: While on the surface the Turkish state appears to have asymmetrical power vis-à-vis downstreamers and local societal opponents, and therefore, the ability to shape basin politics, domestic, basin and international protest over the ‘securitised’ Ilısu Dam in Turkey proved more decisive in that respect. A cornerstone of the GAP (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, Southeast Anatolia Project) multi-dam project to harness the water from the Euphrates and Tigris, the dam project elicited successful resistance from Turkey’s downstream neighbours, social and environmental NGOs and professionals targeting the international donors and contractors. On the basis of document research and interviews, this article investigates which factors opened up the space for politicising the project, and how this politicisation played out in both the domestic and international domain. The link between the securitised (where water is almost by default a security issue) and non-securitised spheres of hydropolitical decision-making (where it is not) proved crucial to the success of the anti-dam opposition. Copyright The Author(s) 2012

Keywords: Hydropolitics; Turkey; Euphrates–Tigris; Securitisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10784-012-9178-x

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