Negotiating hydro-scales, forging states: Comparison of the upper Tigris/Euphrates and Jordan River basins

In this comparative study of two water basins in the Middle East, we examine the hydro-political construction of scale as central to state and nation building, and their territorial consolidation. We argue that scalar negotiations and constructions of freshwater became central to the very consolidation of both Turkey and Israel. The examples we offer also illustrate the usefulness of a performative approach to scale, benefiting from but moving beyond a politics of scale approach. The comparative focus on hydro-scalar politics and performativities in relation to state and nation building offered a) lends to an enriched understanding of water politics in these two contested river basins, b) enables fuller understanding of how water becomes central to the processes by which nations, states, and territories are consolidated in this region, and c) contributes to recent debates in political geography by demonstrating the value of scalar and performative approaches. Underscoring these linkages, the analysis differs from many works on water in the Middle East, contributes to studies of state and nation building as contested processes, and avoids the assumption of state or national scales as ontological pre-givens. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction: water scales and critical hydro-politics In justifying Turkish state led damming and development of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Upper Mesopotamia, planners are quick to note that the twin rivers represent over one quarter of Turkey's freshwater resources and a similar percentage of Turkey's hydroelectric potential. During the first decade of the Israeli state, 1948e1959, water experts strongly disagreed over the estimates of water potential and the most appropriate institutional and technical apparatuses to utilize that potential (Alatout, 2007b, 2008a, 2008b). To date, many investigations of water politics or state building in the Middle East have largely ignored the tight link, implicit in both cases, between hydro-politics, technical and political constructions of scale, and state and nation building. Here, we extend insights from other studies (e.g., Giglioli & Swyngedouw, 2008 for Sicily; Swyngedouw,1999 for Spain) by investigating these linkages in two Middle Eastern contexts. Drawing on the contemporary example of Turkey and the historical example of Israel, we find that the scalar and technical constructions of hydrologic geographies have been