TITLE: A Study of Conflict and Cooperation in the Mekong River Basin: How Issues, Actors 
and Scale Matter

Presented by Tanya Heikkila, University of Colorado Denver, School of Public Affairs
in collaboration with Andrea K. Gerlak, University of Arizona & Aaron Wolf, Oregon State 
University

ABSTRACT: Like other international river basins, the Mekong River faces considerable 
challenges related to issues such as climate change, hydropower and land-use development.  
How states within international river basins respond to these issues - e.g. whether though 
conflict or cooperation - is of increasing interest to scholars.   Although a number of 
studies have begun to explore whether particular water management challenges, such as 
climate change, can explain the emergence of international conflicts, few have taken a more 
micro-level view to explore how issues relate to different types of conflict or cooperation 
events.  Also, scholars have not yet compared whether such issues play out differently at 
international versus domestic scales.  In this study we explore how different types of 
water management issues are associated with the degree to which actors engage in 
cooperation or conflict in the Mekong basin, both at the international and domestic scale.  
To analyze this question we use data on both international events and domestic events in 
the Mekong basin collected as part of the Basins at Risk Project at Oregon State University.