Dams on the Mekong, a literature review of the politics of water governance influencing the Mekong River

This thesis offers a literature review on the evolving human-nature relationship and effect of power struggles through political initiatives in the context of Chinese water governance domestically and on the Mekong River. The literature review covers theoretical debates on scale and socionature, combining them into one framework to understand the construction of the Chinese waterscape and how it influences international governance of the Mekong River. Purposive criterion sampling and complimentary triangulation helped me do rigorous research despite relying on secondary sources. Historical literature review and integrative literature review helped to build an analytical narrative where socionature and scale explained Chinese water governance domestically and on the Mekong River. Through combining the scale and socionature frameworks I was able to build a picture of the hybridization process creating the Chinese waterscape. Through the historical review, I showed how water has played an important part for creating political legitimacy and influencing, and being influenced, by state-led scalar projects. Because of this importance, throughout history the Chinese state has favored large state-led scalar projects for the governance of water. This water governance was primarily influenced by the modernist-like Confucian school of thought that espoused recreating nature in humans’ image. The historical review showed how path-dependent socionatural relations and scalar preferences in water governance have evolved throughout history in order to develop characteristics that influence contemporary Chinese participation in, and interaction with Mekong governance institutions. Even though there exist different scalar projects with water governance in mind, all three of them create a scale mismatch were the scale of governance impacts the sustainable governance of the Mekong River for all its people and animals relying on its waters. Through the new scalar project of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, China is contributing to a reproduction of a Chinese socionature with the Chinese water machine constructing dams all throughout the Mekong region. By using this framework, it is possible to create novel understandings of Chinese interactions with current international Mekong institutions. The framework highlights how national political processes influence a state’s participation with international institutions. This framework can thus be used by policy creators to anticipate how different states will interact with different international institutions based on analysis of current socionatural relations and scalar arrangements