A central question in the hydropolitical debates on water scarcity concerns to what extent it may trigger conflicts or incentives to cooperate. In a volatile and water stressed region as the Middle East, with high population growth, pessimistic hydro-political predictions about future water conflicts are often forecasted. Uncertainties about climate change and their consequences on water resources have further added to the complexity of the conundrum. As a consequence, it is hardly surprising that with the start of the Middle East peace process (MEPP) in the early 1990s, the water sector was an important and prioritised area to encourage cooperation and peacebuilding. Various efforts to improve water management and cooperation between different local parties were seen as ways to prevent future water conflicts and enhance the prospect for peace. This is also reflected in the extensive international engagement of donor assistance in the water sector under the umbrella of peacebuilding. In hindsight, we can observe that technical support and solutions have dominated water management and cooperation. The overarching aim of this paper is two-fold: (a) to explore theoretically through conceptual scoping the interplay between water management, peacebuilding and technocracy; and (b) to empirically analyse how water management and the conflict/cooperation conundrum in the case of the Jordan River Basin have unfolded in the last decade. The argument advanced in this paper is that the technical framing of water conflict tends to ignore the political and power dynamics. It is argued that the politics of water and power need to be taken into account in order to promote a sustainable resolution and management of water.
