From Red Sea to the Nile: water, power, and politics in Northeast Africa

Kaleb Demerew

Third World Quarterly, 2021, vol. 42, issue 12, 2883-2901

Abstract: How do ideational and material constraints explain changes in foreign policy orientation towards shared water resources? Beyond brute materialist explanations or idealist cooperative frameworks, water politics in Northeast Africa is best analysed through an accounting of material and ideational constraints on statecraft. Ethiopia’s contrary foreign policy orientations regarding two key water resources present an exemplary comparative case study in this regard. In the case of access to the Red Sea, Ethiopia adopted a passive foreign policy orientation; in the case of utilising the Nile, Ethiopia exercised an assertive foreign policy against a stronger power, Egypt. In effect, Ethiopia’s decisions to cede Assab Port to Eritrea in 2000, but then to defy Egypt in building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile in 2011, illustrate dynamic constraints on statecraft in Northeast Africa. These dynamics are analysed through a constructivist realism framework that accounts for both material and ideational constraints.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2021.1977622

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