A Framework for Negotiation in Power Asymmetry: Syria and Turkey's Negotiations over the Euphrates and Tigris Waters.

The difficulties encountered with negotiating and sharing a common resource, like water, are well known. A conflict over water exists when an actor feels constrained in the realization of its national goals and objectives through the unilateral use of the resource by another actor. The author addresses water conflicts from the perspective of negotiation theories, by revealing the direct and indirect issues at stake and the coalition dynamics at work. In line with major theoretical debates in the field, the study aims to shed a new light on the ongoing debate on water, security and conflict, as well as power and negotiation. In order to evaluate past and prospective negotiations, a conceptual framework is developed, which identifies the actors' main (bargaining) variables (e.g., power asymmetries, coalition dynamics, strategies) and interests (water security, territorial claims, economic development, environmental concerns) and suggests some of their inter-relations. The framework draws on negotiation analysis to show how it is that actors will tend to employ power strategies to improve short-term gains, rather than engage in cooperation toward long-term solutions, when a comprehensive settlement is not realized. Counter-strategies on the part of weaker States can prove to be effective when issue-linkage is applied in the negotiation process. In order to understand the power puzzle, the framework is applied to the Euphrates and Tigris Basins. What is the weight of water-sharing in the power dynamics of the three key actors - Syria, Turkey and Iraq? What were the negotiation strategies of Syria and Iraq, downstream riparians on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, towards their powerful upstream neighbor, Turkey. Despite its geographic, political and economic predominance, why has Turkey agreed to a minimal water allocation to Syria? Linkages between water, power and security variables are thus disentangled and the paper concludes that asymmetries of power can paradoxically favor cooperative dynamics over water between upstream and downstream riparian States. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]