Government Attitudes to the Central Asian Water Crisis and Third-Party Water Diplomacy

Abstract

Scarcity of water resources in Central Asia’s Amu Darya and Syr Darya river basins lies at the root of long-running tensions between Central Asian countries over the division of these resources. Water diplomacy by outside actors aimed at mediating this dispute has so far shown limited results. This thesis investigates what lessons for third-party water diplomacy can be drawn from the water narratives of the Central Asian governments. This question is pursued through a discourse analysis of government publications. This analysis reveals that four distinct discourses can be identified in the Tajik and Uzbek government narratives, which can be classified along two axes: upstream-downstream and international-domestic. The first distinction is to be expected, but the second warrants a closer look. A comparison with publications by governments engaged in regional water diplomacy shows that the Central Asian government discourses aimed at international audiences skew much more closely to the stated priorities of mediators and donors than their discourses for domestic consumption do. This implies that water diplomats should be careful in taking the narrative of Central Asian governments at face value and should pay close attention to their domestic narrative in order to carry out successful mediation.