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The temporal politics of big dams in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia: by way of an introduction

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Notes

  1. By 1958, Nehru had apparently changed his outlook, cautioning against a “disease of giganticism” and calling for smaller-scale projects (McCully 2001: 20; see also Nixon 2010, pp. 75–76). For a recent and rather sceptical statistical assessment of the long-term financial outcomes of hydropower megaprojects, see Ansar et al. (2014).

  2. Miescher (this volume) also links the Ghanaian dam project to high-energy industries such as aluminum production.

  3. It is perhaps significant that the biggest protest movements target dams in large democracies, such as India and Brazil, rather than non-democratic contexts like China or Tajikistan – and with some success. See also the aborted plan to dam Australia’s Mary river (Strang 2013).

  4. “International Activists Block Ilisu Dam Site”; http://www.internationalrivers.org/resources/pr-international-activists-block-ilisu-dam-site-7978 (accessed 23 January 2014).

  5. See e.g. Lenin’s address to the KP Congress in 1920: ‚Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country’ (Lenin 1959, p. 414).

  6. Indeed, transboundary river management, so often impacted by dam-building, was and is shaped by the Cold War and similar contexts. For a detailed analysis of a Finnish Russian example, see Korjonen-Kuusipuro (2013). For South-East Asia, see Molle et al. (2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Kirchweg 33, 14129, Berlin, Germany

    Katrin Bromber & Katharina Lange

  2. University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

    Jeanne Féaux de la Croix

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  1. Katrin Bromber
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  2. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix
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  3. Katharina Lange
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Correspondence to Katharina Lange.

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Bromber, K., Féaux de la Croix, J. & Lange, K. The temporal politics of big dams in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia: by way of an introduction. Water Hist 6, 289–296 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-014-0111-9

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