With more than 50 percent of the world's landmass covered by river basins shared by two or more states, competition over water resources has always had the potential to spark violence. And growing populations and accelerating demands for fresh water are putting ever greater pressures on already scarce water resources. In this wide-ranging study, Arun Elhance explores the hydropolitics of six of the world's largest river basins. In each case, Elhance examines the basin's physical, economic, and political geography; the possibilities for acute conflict; and efforts to develop bilateral and multilateral agreements for sharing water resources. The case studies lead to some sobering conclusions about impediments to cooperation but also to some encouraging ones--among them, that it may not be possible for Third World states to solve their water problems by going to war, and that eventually even the strongest riparian states are compelled to seek cooperation with their weaker neighbors.

The quest for a viable policy toward the Third World will be a dominant theme in U.S. foreign policy throughout this decade. But before any judgments can be made about the range of choices for U.S. policymakers, it is necessary to understand the pressures that are likely to confront developing nations during the 1980s as well as the efforts of these nations as a group to extract greater resources and attention from the international system. This book considers policy responses that have been and are likely to be implemented by developing nations as they face increasing pressures in the areas of food, energy, trade, and debt – the main areas of interaction within the international system. The author also presents an analysis of how the North-South Dialogue functions and why it has produced so few genuine settlements, providing an additional perspective on whether the pressures on the developing countries might be diminished by successful global negotiations. The conclusions reached by examining policy responses and the Dialogue itself provide the basis for a number of specific policy prescriptions. They also help to establish a framework within which U.S. policy initiatives toward the Third World must be formed. The two concluding chapters discuss these policy choices in detail, carefully analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of persisting in present policies, attempting a genuine global restructuring, choosing to concentrate attention on a few "new influentials" in the Third World, and trying to construct a new approach out of selected elements of the other policy approaches.

Drawing on 16 case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, reveals the complex political and programmatic reasons why government officials in developing countries often willfully adopt wasteful natural resource policies.

Developing countries have for decades been trying to catch up with the industrialized high-income countries, but only a few have succeeded. Historically, structural transformation has been a powerful engine of growth and job creation. Traditional development aid is inadequate to address the bottlenecks for structural transformation, and is hence ineffective. In this book, Justin Yifu Lin and Yan Wang use the theoretical foundations of New Structural Economics to examine South-South development aid and cooperation from the angle of structural transformation. By studying the successful economic transformation of countries such as China and South Korea through 'multiple win' solutions based on comparative advantages and economy of scale, and by presenting new ideas and different perspectives from emerging market economies such as Brazil, India and other BRICS countries, they bring a new narrative to broaden the ongoing discussions of post-2015 development aid and cooperation as well as the definitions of aid and cooperation.

"Multilateral Diplomacy addresses an important historical episode in the struggle of the developing countries to restructure the international economic order that was perceived by them to be an obstacle to development. Told from the perspective of a participant in the negotiations, the book traces the evolution of the developing countries as actors in the economic system and describes the circumstances which gave rise to the demand for the New International Economic Order. It presents a detailed analysis of the negotiations on the NIEO and compares the strategies adopted by the parties to the negotiations. The geopolitical context within which the negotiations were carried out is also described. Equally important, Multilateral Diplomacy highlights the role of South-South cooperation as a counter strategy pursued by the developing countries in order to strengthen their bargaining position. The study points to the essential continuity between the struggle for the NIEO during the 1970s and the current efforts of developing countries to defend their economic interests in the negotiations taking place within the framework of the World Trade Organization and other similar forums. "

Co-publication with Banyan Publications, New Delhi. No sales rights in India.