Assignment:
After reading the articles Mowle on worldviews and external conflict; and Dinar on scarcity and conflict along international rivers), answer and discuss the following questions:
How influential are scarce resources in bringing about and sustaining violent conflict? Is the statement presented at the beginning of Dinar's article that "the wars of the next century will be about freshwater" true? (Dinar 2009, 109)
Further, according to Mowle, does the worldview of our policymakers make a difference in deciding whether to engage in conflict over natural resources? How do you know?
Scarcity and Cooperation Along International Rivers
Shlomi Dinar
Global Environmental Politics 9:1, February 2009
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Worldviews in Foreign Policy: Realism, Liberalism, and External Conflict
Thomas S. Mowle
Political Psychology, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2003
International Society of Political Psychology
Blackwell Publishing. Inc.