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In the academic literature, the assessment of water diplomacy processes has generally focused on rational factors; some studies, however, have shown that these are not the only driving force in transboundary water negotiations. The role of the affective aspects of transboundary water negotiations is often undervalued and overlooked. Such aspects include emotions, trust, religion, the relationship between body and mind, and the connection with nature. The research presented here explores if and how the spiritual beliefs and practices of individuals engaged in water diplomacy play a role. It builds on a review of the literature on spirituality and engages in qualitative interviews with water diplomats. The conceptualisation of spirituality and water diplomacy is applied to the lived experiences of water diplomacy practitioners in order to assess the role of spiritual beliefs and practices in transboundary negotiations. Fifteen professionals were interviewed about their personal, self-defined spiritual beliefs and practices and the role they perceived them to play in water diplomacy processes. The spiritual practices they identified included meditation, prayers, reading sacred texts, and emotional intelligence practices such as managing emotions (self-management), active listening, effective communication, and self-awareness. The research mainly found that spiritual beliefs and practices can play a role in the preparation of meetings on a personal level, for example through prayers, meditation, and self-centring. During the negotiation process itself, spiritual practices are more implicit and internal. Spiritual practices can provide an alternative to, or can complement, classical approaches to water negotiations. Negotiators' internal spiritual practice may manifest itself in more positive and/or less reactive negotiation processes. Creating more room for spirituality in the negotiation setting gives negotiators with a spiritual background more opportunity to bring in their spiritual beliefs and practices. This can unlock new ways of negotiating, which can potentially lead to more equity in the allocation of water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-making and negotiations on transboundary waters are often presented as rational, state-led processes. In that context, 'hydropolitics' refers to the dynamics of interstate relations regarding transboundary water resources, which are analysed at length in the literature. This paper adds a discussion of the (apparently) nonrational components that are more rarely considered: how the governance of international waters is impacted by emotions, spirituality, identity, trust or personal bonds. This introduction surveys the evolution of affective hydropolitics in both academic literature and in practice and recognises that, though these components have always been present in water diplomacy, the positionality of (mostly Western) researchers has precluded their ready assessment. To showcase the multi-level relevance of affective aspects for water politics, we draw on literature from political ecology and international relations. Based on this, we outline some general propositions and (future) research questions on the role of affective aspects in hydropolitics and water diplomacy. The contributions of the themed section show the role of emotion in negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the effect of group identity among representatives of Central Asian countries when mitigating tensions in the Aral Basin. The papers in this section further offer a conceptualisation of trust and trust-building in water diplomacy processes and explore how the personal spirituality of the individuals who negotiate international waters influences their approach. We are hopeful that shining an academic light on the human, emotional (nonrational) factors affecting those engaged in hydropolitics will help deepen our understanding of these critical and complex processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper historicises Burmese and Thai efforts to cooperate around hydraulic infrastructure construction in the conflictual Salween landscape. Transboundary water governance literature focuses on the material or physical changes in river flows or in upstream and downstream governance dynamics that are caused by infrastructure. This study enhances understandings of water conflict and cooperation by tracing how immaterial infrastructure can increase conflict dynamics at potential Salween project sites even before any concrete has been poured. Hydraulic infrastructure is used in its immaterial forms to restructure the landscape and international relations. The Burmese military or 'Sit Tat' uses such projects as an 'illiberal signal' to convey future political intentions to international partners. The immaterial infrastructures hold together securitised elite alliances that obtain legitimacy and foreign reserves for the Sit Tat in exchange for future resource extraction profits. Mirumachi's TWINS model (Transboundary Water Interaction NexuS) is used to highlight moments of infrastructure intentions that simultaneously increase violence and conflict without changes to the river's hydrology. This paper shows how international cooperation around megaprojects keeps Salween communities in cycles of violence and dispossession for decades, even at project sites where infrastructure has yet to be constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political conflicts on the sharing of international waters between Middle East countries can be avoided by adhering to agreements. International water law is vague and often contradictory, and is inadequate in preventing war waged by countries such as Israel, Egypt and Sudan over water sharing. The recurrence of such conflicts can be avoided with the strict adherence to a set of clear international guidelines.