Transboundary water conflict, cooperation, and regional integration: Mercosur and the La Plata Basin

Water politics become diplomatic concerns when watersheds cross international borders. But how do these relationships between states change when the nature of these international borders themselves change through economic and political integration? The purpose of this study is to consider the relationship between regional integration and transboundary water conflict and cooperation within the context of the La Plata Basin (LPB) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR). Using the Basins at Risk (BAR) water event database and corresponding ordinal water event scale, this research evaluates binational relations between states the before and after the creation of MERCOSUR. The analysis will also employ the Hydro-hegemony Framework to consider hydropolitical relationships between riparian states and the Transboundary Waters Inter action NexuS TWINS) framework to plot the trajectory of LPB state relations beyond the dichotomy of conflict and cooperation. The paper concludes that MERCOSUR has coincided with somewhat more cooperative international water interactions within the LPB. Building from the results of this investigation, the esearch seek stohelp answer whether regional ntegration through MERCOSUR has produced more conflictive or cooperative relations in the basin as a whole as well as between individual riparian states. The final aim of this research is to comment on the generalized relationship between regional integration and transboundary hydropolitics using the study of this LPB-MERCOSUR case study.