This paper explores the current positionality of the Kurds vis-à-vis major natural resource assets as they have become central to the war with ISIS, and ensuing implications for Kurdish political futures. As Ahram (2014) has effectively pointed to, the role of oil and water as acquired assets has both enabled ISIS to become a formidable actor that has greatly disrupted the weak, albeit sovereign powers of the Iraq state, as well as expanded Kurdish political and economic resources vital to their realizing future political aspirations. This paper explores the centrality of regional and global geopolitical resource dynamics, and argues that resource acquisition remains a major factor in the making of Kurdish political power. Prospects for Kurdish maximization of that political power in a region riven by violent political conflict, and intense resource competition are critically assessed.

This paper examines the evolution of privileged elite lobbying groups in the Jordanian water sector and contributes to the body of empirical research authoritarian politics. Contending with the pressures of explosive population growth, refugee influx, and a natural dearth of water, Jordan is among the most water scarce countries in the world. The persistence of elite dominance in the sector through such practices as water theft and nepotistic behavior in a sector widely-acknowledged to be critical for economic development is therefore puzzling, particularly given the current monarch’s public commitment to Jordanian reform. Combining archival research with elite interviews, this study employs new institutional and public choice theories to construct an empirical account of the processes that shaped contemporary sectoral dynamics. Our findings indicate that the sector has experienced sustained internal conflict in attempting to accommodate increased municipal demands while being subordinate to elite interests. Structural and political constraints tied to landownership, elite identity and distributional conflict limit the regime’s ability to manage water resources effectively. This case provides an inroad to refining theories of public choice and resource conflict in authoritarian contexts.

The difficulties of life in Tajikistan are compounded by environmental and political insecurities which have operated in tandem since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Based on seventeen months of fieldwork, this paper explores intra-community resource conflicts and processes of collective action in the high-mountain communities of rural Tajikistan. Tracing the history of the conflicts of land tenure and water allocation, I argue that much of the negotiation around resources has taken place in reaction to older forms of tenure in place during the Soviet period. These forms, while not entirely eroding public trust, inhibited then establishment of institutions of collective problem-solving at the local levels. In the case of my primary field-site, a village located in the Bartang Valley in the Western Pamirs, I study the effects of a land grab by political elites who took advantage of the chaos afforded by the fall of the Soviet Union. These developments pushed the villagers to work for a full decollectivization effort to put an end to such actions. Thus, new forms of collective action have come about in order to address these and many other issues that have arisen in recent years. My contention in this paper is that while new institutional forms of resource management are coming into being in post-Soviet Tajikistan, they continue to be burdened by the legacies of the Soviet past and the new uncertainties of the present, which have undercut successful and long-term institutional action. Since natural disasters and other livelihood challenges resulting from climate change present new types of risks which must be addressed through socio-political means, these questions take on a sense of urgency for daily life in mountain communities in Tajikistan. It remains to be seen whether village-level organizations and other institutions of collective action will prove adequate to meet these challenges.