Post-water political-economics

Abstract

Existing concepts of water political economy (WPE) focus on political bargaining within relatively static institutional and climactic environments. This article adds ``post'' to WPE to explore how non-stationary climate interacts with (endogenous) political institutions to create and magnify policy and behavioral uncertainties. These PWPE ideas are then applied to food security, to explore potential future scenarios. The implications are terrible for poor people living in water-scarce, food-importing countries but not much better for everyone else.

Keywords: political economy, climate change, food security, virtual water, agricultural trade

JEL Classification: F51, H42, Q17, Q25