Drawing on his experience in government, Rory Stewart shares his observations into the impact corruption can have on society.

This event is organized in association with Transparency International UK as part of Transparency International UK’s Annual Lecture series.

As the United Kingdom prepares to go to the polls on 12 December 2019, this event, organized in conjunction with the BBC's show, The World Tonight, will give a Chatham House audience the opportunity to put their foreign policy questions to a panel of senior UK politicians.
 
Important Information About the Event
This event is hosted in collaboration with the BBC. It will be recorded and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 – The World Tonight. Given the BBC’s commitment to due impartiality during the election period, questions will be asked to be pre-submitted via email by audience members the day before the event. The BBC will then select a balanced and diverse range of questions from those submitted. The panellists will not receive the questions in advance of the event.
 
About the Ballot
Due to the expected popularity of this event, this event will be balloted. Please register your interest for the event by 11:59pm on Monday 25 November. Successful registrants – selected at random – will be notified on Tuesday 26 November and then invited to submit their questions. The BBC will contact directly those audience members whose questions they select.
 
As priority will be given to members, we are unable to register members’ guests for this event.

On the eve of the UK general election, a group of senior Chatham House experts analyse a range of key foreign policy issues that will hinge on the election’s outcome.

The new European Commission has finally started its work this week. In a world increasingly defined by great power competition and deprived of the certainties of a strong transatlantic partnership, this might well be the first commission where foreign and security policy issues will be equally important to internal EU ones.

Amid an escalating Sino-American rivalry, there is a growing realization in Brussels that something has to change in the way the EU thinks and acts internationally.

Charting a more successful path forward will not be easy. Josep Borrell, the EU’s new high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, during his confirmation hearing, offered a hint as to what might be needed to get there: ‘The EU has to learn to use the language of power.”’

What might this mean in practice?

Four issues illustrate some of the key dilemmas ahead for the EU and its new executive.

Hard power

The most revealing of these concerns hard power.

For a union so addicted to the US security guarantee, and so used to the softer approaches of exercising its influence, this was always going to be a difficult discussion. The recent disagreement between Germany and France over the future of NATO gave a taste of how fraught and complex this discussion can be.

Underpinning it are three fundamental questions. If the EU has to enhance its capacity to defend its interests with military power, how (and how quickly) is it to move ahead, how much additional responsibility will that mean and to what degree will this responsibility need to be shouldered autonomously, potentially distancing itself from NATO or Washington? Moving forward with this agenda while balancing the competing interests of member states and preserving the fragile progress already achieved with initiatives such as PESCO will not be easy.

Discussion and debate among member states should not be discouraged, but the new commission has a role to play in ensuring that such discussion is constructive. Distracting talks about an EU army or a nuclear ‘Eurodeterrent’ should be shelved, with the focus as much as possible on acquiring tangible capabilities, getting the defence architecture right, ensuring operational readiness and spending defence budgets smartly.

How to use power

Great powers have traditionally been able to cooperate in certain areas while competing in others. Given their wide reach, powers like the US have generally not allowed disagreement on one issue to interfere with the ability to work together on others.

If the EU aspires to be a more assertive global player, it will need to grow comfortable with this compartmentalization. For example, if Brussels wants to stand up to Beijing regarding human rights, the South China Sea or issues of acquisition of European infrastructure, this should not mean that cooperation on areas such as peacekeeping, arms control or climate change needs to be blocked.

Footing the bill

Ursula von der Leyen, the new commission president, has announced that she wants an increase of 30% for external action in the 2021–27 Multi-annual Financial Framework (the EU budget). But with the Brexit budget gap looming, and little appetite to increase contributions or reduce the funds allocated to costly schemes, like the Common Agricultural Policy, compromises will have to be made for this to happen.

This will be one of the first key tests for the new commission. Power costs money, not just gestures, and therefore specific commitments already made under the Juncker mandate regarding the European Defence Fund or the new Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument need to be guaranteed, if not expanded.

Internal politics

None of these steps are possible if the internal workings of the EU become too dysfunctional. A stronger stance internationally would make the sometime incoherence of internal EU management more of a liability to the bloc’s credibility. For example, how can the EU advocate for the rule of law beyond its borders while some of its own member states violate the same principles? 

And there remains the perpetual question of how much more power member states are willing to cede – if any – to deliver faster and more efficient decision-making. If the bloc’s reflexes – often slow, consensual and risk averse – are out of place with the role of a modern great power, how does the commission envision introducing decision-making mechanisms, like qualified majority voting, in foreign and security policy matters?

Borrell’s résumé shows his extensive experience in handling critical policy dossiers. He is also expected to travel less than his predecessor, being mindful of the even heavier institutional work ahead, not least in working with a more politically fragmented European Council and a more politicized European Parliament.

Ultimately, learning the language of power might mean that the EU finally deals with the basics of international affairs as a coherent and cohesive actor, rather than as an occasional ensemble. This endeavour clearly lacks a fixed path or destination. But the new commission seems to be mindful that the EU will have to find new ways to use power as the world changes around it. In doing so, it should keep in mind that the language of power is best articulated not with words, but with actions.

The Belvedere Forum is a leading annual British and Polish bilateral dialogue bringing together a diverse group of actors from civil society, politics, business, academia and NGOs. It seeks to strengthen and deepen the extensive partnership between the two countries by exploring political, economic, social and cultural issues through debate and discussion.

The forum is an annual event alternating between the UK and Poland. Originally created in 2017 by the governments of the UK and Poland, the forum is now jointly organized by Chatham House and the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) in Warsaw.

In recent decades, political party systems across Europe have fragmented and electoral volatility has increased. The number of parties represented in parliaments across the continent has grown and the formerly dominant mainstream parties have seen their support base collapse, forcing parties into often uncomfortable and unstable coalitions.

From the United Kingdom to Germany, politicians and commentators talk of such scenarios in often apocalyptic terms and associate it with political instability and policy paralysis.

They shouldn’t. Instead they should focus their energy on making these increasingly competitive political markets work.

The Netherlands is frequently held up as a prime example of this process, which is therefore sometimes referred to as ‘Dutchification’. Its highly proportional political system has created the opportunity for new parties and specific interest groups to win parliamentary representation, ranging from an animal rights party and a party catering specifically to the interests of the elderly.

This has been accompanied by increased electoral volatility. In the 1970s, less than 15% of seats in the Dutch parliament would change party at any election, but in the last election in 2017, this was just over a quarter. The system also created space for the relatively early rise of populist far-right parties, though it was not the cause of their rise.

Nevertheless, despite the regularly difficult coalition politics, it remains one of the most well-governed countries in the world.

A short history of fragmentation

Looking at the effective number of parties represented in parliaments, the number of parties, corrected for their size, provides a good measure of the extent of fragmentation. In the Netherlands this steadily increased from around four in the 1980s to over eight following the election in 2017. Even the populist far-right vote has fragmented, with two parties partly competing for the same electorate. In other countries it has been a more recent phenomenon. Spain remained a de facto two-party system until the financial crisis. Dissatisfaction with both mainstream parties has seen challenger parties on both the left and the right attract significant support, making it harder to form stable coalitions. Political fragmentation decreased slightly in Italy in recent years, but that was from a high base as it shot up in the early 1990s when the post-war political settlement crumbled.

German politics, long a hallmark of stability, is struggling with the decrease in support for the parties that dominated its political scene in the post-war period. The Christian Democrats and Social Democrats only barely managed to win a majority together in the election in 2017, at 53.4% of the vote compared with the 81.3% achieved 30 years earlier. The latest polls suggest they would only get to 40% together if an election were held today.

A similar trend is visible within the European Parliament. Whereas the two largest groups in the European Parliament, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, together won 66% of the vote in the election in 1999, they did not even manage to win a majority together in 2019, taking just 39.5% of the vote.

No crisis of democracy

If electoral volatility and political fragmentation does indeed constitute some sort of crisis of democracy, we should expect to see voters become unhappy about how their national democracy functions. Largely, the opposite seems to be the case.

In the Netherlands, satisfaction with its democracy went up at the same time as Dutchification did its work. Similar trends are visible in other highly fragmented European political systems, often those with very proportional systems. Despite regular minority governments, satisfaction with democracy is above 90% in Denmark and at 80% in Sweden, according to the latest Eurobarometer data.

In comparison, it stood at 52% in the United Kingdom and 53% in France, where the electoral system has, at least on the surface, prevented the kind of fragmentation supposedly plaguing proportional systems.

Satisfaction with democracy seems to be affected by a number of factors. This includes the state of the economy, particularly in countries that were hit the hardest by the global financial and euro zone crises. Nevertheless, the data suggests that, even if we can’t say that Dutchification by definition leads to more satisfaction with democracy, it is clearly not associated with falling faith in the system.

A competitive political market

Dutchification should be seen as accompanying a more competitive political marketplace. A more emancipated, demanding and politically engaged electorate than in the post-war decades is willing to shop around instead of merely vote according to socioeconomic class or other dividing lines, such as religious ones. The fragmented parliaments that emerge as a result provide better representation of different groups within European societies.

This makes life harder for Europe’s political parties and politicians, as they juggle large coalitions, or changing coalitions under minority governments, but provides voters with more choice and democratic renewal. If handled correctly this would also allow more responsiveness to shifts in public opinion.

Such democratic creative destruction in competitive political markets is to be celebrated in a well-functioning democracy. Just as companies prefer to operate in an oligopoly, political parties prefer the stability of limited political competition. But wishing for this kind of stability comes perilously close to preferring stability over proper representation.

Worrying about Dutchification risks confusing a crisis of the traditional mainstream parties with a crisis of democracy. For some countries, particularly those like the Netherlands and Denmark which have longer histories of consensus-based politics and coalition building, this is an easier adjustment. But this should not be an excuse to not attempt to make politics work better as they were forced to go through, arguably still ongoing, adjustment processes too.

Instead of investing in futile attempts to get back to how things were in the old days, or hoping this will somehow magically happen, political leaders and parties across Europe need to reassess how they deal with the new reality of Dutchification.

Drawing on her experience as secretary of state for defence and secretary of state for international development, Penny Mordaunt discusses how soft power can protect, promote and project Britain’s international interests and foreign policy agenda.

Often defined as the capacity to influence others without coercion or force, soft power differs from traditional military capabilities in favour of more subtle forms of influence rooted in values, culture and civic institutions.

Consistently upholding democratic values and human rights can contribute to a nation’s soft power as much as its cultural icons and legacies.  However, utilising soft power – the power of attractiveness – is not straightforward: the government is only part of a broad mix of institutions and actors with a role to play.

Can the UK develop a long term approach that brings together all of the components of its soft power for a common purpose?

What are the key sources of Britain’s soft power? How has Brexit affected perceptions of Britain internationally? And with the UK’s departure from the European Union now confirmed, how should we think about its soft power in the future?

There are two well-established ideas in trade. Individually, they are correct. Combined, they can lead to a conclusion that is unfortunately wrong.

The first idea is that, across a range of economic sectors, the EU and the US have been engaged in a battle to have their model of regulation accepted as the global one, and that the EU is generally winning.

The second is that governments can use their regulatory power to extend strategic and foreign policy influence.

The conclusion would seem to be that the EU, which has for decades tried to develop a foreign policy, should be able to use its superpower status in regulation and trade to project its interests and its values abroad.

That’s the theory. It’s a proposition much welcomed by EU policymakers, who know they are highly unlikely any time soon to acquire any of the tools usually required to run an effective foreign policy.

The EU doesn’t have an army it can send into a shooting war, enough military or political aid to prop up or dispense of governments abroad, or a centralized intelligence service. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared her outfit to be a ‘geopolitical commission’, and is casting about for any means of making that real.

Through the ‘Brussels effect’ whereby European rules and standards are exported via both companies and governments, the EU has indeed won many regulatory battles with the US.

Its cars, chemicals and product safety regulations are more widely adopted round the world than their American counterparts. In the absence of any coherent US offering, bar some varied state-level systems, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the closest thing the world has to a single model for data privacy, and variants of it are being adopted by dozens of countries.

The problem is this. Those parts of global economic governance where the US is dominant – particularly the dollar payments system – are highly conducive to projecting US power abroad. The extraterritorial reach of secondary sanctions, plus the widespread reliance of banks and companies worldwide on dollar funding – and hence the American financial system – means that the US can precisely target its influence.

The EU can enforce trade sanctions, but not in such a powerful and discriminatory way, and it will always be outgunned by the US. Donald Trump could in effect force European companies to join in his sanctions on Iran when he pulled out of the nuclear deal, despite EU legislation designed to prevent their businesses being bullied. He can go after the chief financial officer of Huawei for allegedly breaching those sanctions.

By contrast, the widespread adoption of GDPR or data protection regimes inspired by it may give the EU a warm glow of satisfaction, but it cannot be turned into a geopolitical tool in the same way.

Nor, necessarily, does it particularly benefit the EU economy. Europe’s undersized tech sector seems unlikely to unduly benefit from the fact that data protection rules were written in the EU. Indeed, one common criticism of the regulations is that they entrench the power of incumbent tech giants like Google.

There is a similar pattern at work in the adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. In that field, the EU and its member states are also facing determined competition from China, which has been pushing its technologies and standards through forums such as the International Telecommunication Union.

The EU has been attempting to write international rules for the use of AI which it hopes to be widely adopted. But again, these are a constraint on the use of new technologies largely developed by others, not the control of innovation.

By contrast, China has created a vast domestic market in technologies like facial recognition and unleashed its own companies on it. The resulting surveillance kit can then be marketed to emerging market governments as part of China’s enduring foreign policy campaign to build up supporters in the developing world.

If it genuinely wants to turn its economic power into geopolitical influence – and it’s not entirely clear what it would do with it if it did – the EU needs to recognize that not all forms of regulatory and trading dominance are the same.

Providing public goods to the world economy is all very well. But unless they are so particular in nature that they project uniquely European values and interests, that makes the EU a supplier of useful plumbing but not a global architect of power.

On the other hand, it could content itself with its position for the moment. It could recognize that not until enough hard power – guns, intelligence, money – is transferred from the member states to the centre, or until the member states start acting collectively, will the EU genuinely become a geopolitical force. Speaking loudly and carrying a stick of foam rubber is rarely a way to gain credibility in international relations.

This article is part of a series of publications and roundtable discussions in the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

What role does the EU want to play in a world characterised increasingly by power politics? The new European Commission has explicitly stated its ambition for the EU to become a stronger geopolitical actor. Is it capable of becoming a third pole in an enduring US-China stand-off?

From climate change to trade policy and security, the next 5 years may prove decisive in proving the EU can be a strong player both in its neighbourhood and globally. Given what is at stake, what are the Commission’s strategic and policymaking priorities for the next five years? With the discussions on the future EU budget ongoing, what areas will be prioritized when member states come to make decisions between competing objectives? Does the way the EU is perceived externally depend on its member states’ ability to put on a united front when it comes to the most pressing global challenges?

Finally, is this ambitious geopolitical vision deliverable within the EU’s existing structures? If not, are member states ready to give up more control for a stronger Europe at the EU level?

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Labour leadership candidate, Lisa Nandy, reflects on the party's foreign policy priorities and makes the case for a foreign policy underpinned by internationalism.

In recent years, the Labour party has struggled to reach cross-party consensus on its foreign policy agenda. While the current leadership election offers the party an opportunity to debate and redefine its position on issues such as immigration, security and Brexit, the extent to which Labour can reconcile its factionalism remains unclear. As Labour undergoes a process of reflection, what kind of foreign policy agenda should the party rally behind that will also appeal to voters outside of its traditional base?

Can the Labour party be unified on its approach to international issues? Is an internationalist foreign policy an attractive choice for voters? And as Brexit tensions persist, what might the party's framework be to ensure new trade deals and partnerships align with fundamental Labour priorities such as workers' rights?

In the past few weeks, European Union member states have implemented measures such as social distancing, school and border closures and the cancellation of major cultural and sporting events in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. Such measures are expected to have significant economic and political consequences, threatening near or total collapse of certain sectors. Moreover, the management of the health and economic crises within the EU architecture has exposed tensions and impasses in the extent to which the EU is willing to collaborate to mitigate pressures on fellow member states.

The panellists will examine the European Union's response to a series of cascading crises and the likely impact of the pandemic on individual member states. Can the EU prevent an economic hit from developing into a financial crisis? Are the steps taken by the European Central Bank to protect the euro enough? And are member states expected to manage the crisis as best they can or will there be a united effort to mitigate some of the damage caused?  

This event is part of a fortnightly series of 'Business in Focus' webinars reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on areas of particular professional interest for our corporate members.

Not a corporate member? Find out more.

 

Please note this an online-only event.

According to a previously agreed timetable for phase two of Brexit talks, negotiations on the future EU-UK trade relations were scheduled to begin in March. Then a global pandemic hit. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the UK government insists that the Brexit negotiations are on track and there are currently no plans to extend the transition period beyond 2020.

However, the original timetable for trade talks was already widely seen as extremely constrained. Can negotiations still be done in time? With the decision on any possible extension to be made by July at the latest, can the two sides make sufficient progress by that point? Or would the ongoing public health crisis make requesting an extension to the transition period more politically viable for the UK government? Finally, if there is no extension, could Britain still leave the EU with no deal?

In this webinar, the speaker will discuss how the need to manage other challenges, such as the current COVID-19 outbreak, might affect the government’s approach to the negotiations with the EU. He will also share his insights on what to expect from the second phase of negotiations and on the most important lessons from phase one. 

In the last 100 years, global economic crises from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the 2008 financial crash have contributed to significant political changes in Europe, often leading to a rise in popularity for extremist parties and politics. As Europe contends with a perceived crisis of democracy - now compounded by the varied responses to the coronavirus outbreak - how should we understand the relationship between externally-driven economic crises, political upheaval and democracy?

The panellists will consider the parallels between the political responses to some of the greatest economic crises Europe has experienced in the last century. Given that economic crises often transcend borders, why does political disruption vary between democracies? What can history tell us about the potential political impact of the unfolding COVID-19-related economic crisis? And will the unprecedented financial interventions by governments across Europe fundamentally change the expectations citizens have of the role government should play in their lives?

This event is based on a recent article in The World Today by Hans Kundnani and Pepijn Bergsen who are both researchers in Chatham House's Europe Programme. 'Crawling from the Wreckage' is the first in a series of articles that look at key themes in European political discourse from the last century. You can read the article here. 

This event is open to Chatham House Members. Not a member? Find out more.

This article uses the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) that took place in Tel Aviv to explore how cultural mega-events serve both as political arenas and as tools for identity construction, negotiation and contestation. These processes of identity politics are all conducted across national–subnational–international–transnational levels. The hosting of mega-events fleshes out these multiple processes in a very strong manner. We first discuss the politics of hosting mega-events in general. We then examine the identity politics associated more specifically with the Eurovision Song Contest, before examining in depth the complex forms of identity politics emerging around the competition following the 2018 Israeli victory. We suggest that it is important to study together the multiple processes—domestic, international and transnational—of identity politics that take place around the competition, as they interact with each other. Consequently, we follow the various stakeholders involved at these different levels and their interactions. We examine the internal identity negotiation process in Israel surrounding the event, the critical actors debating how to use the stage to challenge the liberal, western, ‘normal’ identity Israel hoped to project in the contest and how other stakeholders (participating states, national broadcasting agencies, participating artists) reacted to them, and finally we examine the behaviour of the institution in charge, the European Broadcasting Union, and national governments. We contribute to the study of mega-events as fields of contestation, to the understanding of the complex, multilevel nature of national identity construction, negotiation and contestation in the current era, and more broadly to the role that popular culture plays in this context.

Brexit will significantly change the balance within the EU in relation to nuclear energy. Apart from France and Finland, both of whose nuclear development programmes are behind schedule, the UK is the only member state in northern or western Europe currently investing in new nuclear capacity. Brexit will therefore leave the supporters of nuclear energy within the EU27 and the European Commission in a weaker position.

The speaker will argue that at a time when the energy industry needs to accelerate its shift away from fossil fuels, and when the electricity generation industry must cut its carbon emissions faster than it has ever managed to do in the past, this change is unhelpful.

The workshop will also address the need for additional interconnector capacity and the future of carbon-trading outside the EU emission trading system and how this relates to potential nuclear energy capacity.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

In a new event in the Sustainable Transitions series, the speaker will present an update of Sino-Russian gas cooperation.

To give a comprehensive account of their impact on global liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies, he will discuss the following points:

• Gas is scheduled to start flowing from the Power of Siberia I (POS) on 2 December 2019. But what is the background of development of POS 1 and what is its current status and prospects? 
• What are the chances of exporting gas through the proposed Altai pipeline? Why is the Mongolia export route so significant? And how will it affect the Central Asian Republics and in particular Turkmenistan’s gas export to China? 
• What are the implications of both POS I and Altai gas via Mongolia route in the context of global LNG supply?
• What are the prospects for multilateral pipeline gas cooperation in northeast Asia?
• What are the implications for other Arctic onshore LNG supply, in particular, for Novatek's Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 1 and 2 to China on top of POS 1 and Altai gas?

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

The International Forum on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing brings together over 100 leading policymakers, researchers, industry representatives and civil society groups from across the world to discuss the latest initiatives, regulations and research in the areas of fisheries governance and trade in illegal fish products.

This meeting formed part of a programme of work which investigates the role of negative emissions technologies (NETs) in achieving the Paris Agreement climate targets. Previous meetings held in London and Brussels have looked at integrating negative emissions into EU policy-making, the implications and degree to which NETs, and in particular bioenergy with carbon capture storage (BECCS), can be an effective climate mitigation tool. This meeting focused on the possible deployment pathways of NETs and alternatives to BECCS for the US in particular, in the context of geographical constraints and socioenvironmental implications, the role of the private sector, and appropriate governance and finance mechanisms. 

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has declared that she wants Europe to become ‘the first climate-neutral continent by 2050’, and in December 2019, the Commission presented the European Green Deal in order to achieve this objective. However, even though greenhouse gas emissions from the EU have fallen by more than 20 per cent since 1990, the Union remains the third largest emitter in the world, after the United States and China.

What are the opportunities and challenges for raising climate ambition in Europe?  Will the EU increase its Nationally Determined Contribution and what impact might this have globally? How might Brexit affect climate action in the EU and the UK?  The second event in the Chatham House COP26 Diplomatic Briefing Series will address these critical questions.

Historically, Iraq lay claim to one of the most abundant water supplies in the Middle East. But the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has reduced by up to 40% since the 1970s, due in part to the actions of neighbouring countries, in particular Turkey, upstream.

Rising temperatures and reduced rainfall due to climate change are also negatively impacting Iraq’s water reserves. Evaporation from dams and reservoirs is estimated to lose the country up to 8 billion cubic metres of water every year.

A threat to peace and stability

Shortages have dried up previously fertile land, increasing poverty in agricultural areas. Shortages have also served to fuel conflict: communities faced with successive droughts and government inertia proved to be easy targets for ISIS recruiters, who lured farmers into joining them by offering money and food to feed their families. Economic hardship for those whose livelihoods relied upon river water has also driven rural to urban migration, putting significant strain on already over-populated towns and cities, exacerbating housing, job and electricity shortages, and widening the gap between haves and have-nots.

But scarcity isn’t the most crucial element of Iraq’s water crisis – contamination is. Decades of local government mismanagement, corrupt practices and a lack of regulation of dumping (it is estimated up to 70% of Iraq’s industrial waste is dumped directly into water) has left approximately three in every five citizens without a reliable source of potable water.

In 2018, 118,000 residents of Basra province were hospitalised with symptoms brought on by drinking contaminated water, which not only put a spotlight on the inadequacies of a crumbling healthcare system but sparked mass protests and a subsequent violent crackdown.

The water crisis is also undermining the stability of the country’s federal governance model, by occasionally sparking disputes between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, as well as between governorates in the south.

The crisis is both a symptom and a cause of poor governance. Iraq is stuck in a cycle whereby government inaction causes shortages and contamination, which result in economic losses, reduced food supply, increased prices and widespread poor health. This in turn leads to increasing levels of poverty, higher demand on services and civil unrest, increasing the pressure on a weak, dysfunctional system of government.

What can be done?

The first priority should be modernising existing water-management infrastructure - a relic of a time when the problem was an excess rather than a shortage of water (the last time Iraq’s flood defences were required was 1968). Bureaucratic hurdles, widespread corruption and an endless cycle of other crises taking precedent prevent good initiatives from being implemented or scaled up.

Diversifying energy sources to improve provision is crucial. Baghdad has a sewage treatment plant that originally ran on its own electricity source, but this capacity was destroyed in 1991 and was never replaced. The city continues to suffer from dangerous levels of water pollution because the electricity supply from the grid is insufficient to power the plant. Solar energy has great potential in sun-drenched Iraq to bridge the gaping hole in energy provision, but successive governments have chosen to focus on fossil fuels rather than promoting investment to grow the renewables sector.

Heightened tension with upstream Turkey could turn water into another cause of regional conflict. But, if approached differently, collaboration between Iraq and its neighbour could foster regional harmony.

Turkey’s elevated geography and cooler climate mean its water reserves suffer 75% less evaporation than Iraq’s. Given that Turkey’s top energy priority is the diversification of its supply of imported hydrocarbons, a win-win deal could see Turkey exchange access to its water-management infrastructure for delivery of reduced cost energy supplies from Iraq.

German-French cooperation on coal and steel in the 1950s and the evolution of economic integration that followed might provide a model for how bilateral cooperation over one issue could result in cooperation with other regional players (in this case Iran and Syria) on a range of other issues. This kind of model would need to consider the future of energy, whereby oil and gas would be replaced by solar-power exports.

These solutions have been open to policymakers for years and yet they have taken little tangible action. While there are leaders and bureaucrats with the will to act, effective action is invariably blocked by a complex and opaque political system replete with vested interests in maintaining power and wealth via a weak state and limited services from central government.

Breaking the cycle

To break this cycle, Iraq needs a group of professional and able actors outside of government to work with willing elements of the state bureaucracy as a taskforce to pressure for action and accountability. Publishing the recommendations from a hitherto withheld report produced in the aftermath of Basra’s 2018 heath crisis would be a great start.

In time, this taskforce could champion the prioritisation of water on the national agenda, the implementation of infrastructure upgrades, and hold more productive conversations with neighbour states.

With such a high degree of state fragmentation and dysfunction in Iraq, looking to the central government to provide leadership will not yield results. Engagement with a coalition of non-state actors can begin to address the water crisis and also open a dialogue around new models of governance for other critical issues. This might even be a starting point for rewriting the tattered social contract in Iraq.

This piece is based on insights and discussion at a roundtable event, Conflict and the Water Crisis in Iraq, held at Chatham House on March 9 as part of the Iraq Initiative.