Politics and governance

The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute (GDI) is leading the FutureDAMS work on the politics and governance of dam building.The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute (GDI) is leading the FutureDAMS work on the politics and governance of dam building.

The central concern of the FutureDAMS project is to understand how decisions about dams and connected electricity infrastructure are made. This range from the identification of dams over other infrastructure as the preferred solution to perceived energy, food, environmental and water needs to the site selection, design, construction and operation of dams. While infrastructure development, including dam construction, is technologically challenging, it is also fundamentally political, with distributional and ideological dimensions that are a vital consideration.

As such the politics research stream examines how interests, institutions and ideas shape dam decision making in two case studies—Ethiopia and the Nile Basin; and Ghana and the Volta Basin, focusing on three main research themes:

The political economy of the energy sector, the power-generation mix and distribution of electricity
The politics of building capacity in dam planning and operation
Decision making around dam location and design

The politics and governance team:

Alex Asiedu, Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana
Ishmael Ayanoore, The Global Development Institute, The University of Manchester
Simon Bawakyillenuo, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana
Deborah Darko, Water Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Barnaby Dye, The Global Development Institute, The University of Manchester
Emanuele Fantini, IHE Delft
Mesfin Gebremichael, Institute of Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University
Fana Gebresenbet Erda, Institute of Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University
Edegilign Hailu
Tom Lavers, GDI – Research Director
Emmanuel Obuobie, Water Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Kwadwo Owusu, Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana
Luca Puddu, University of Naples
Abera Tadesse, Addis Ababa University
Biruk Terrefe, University of Oxford
Sarah Vaughan, The Policy Practice
Paul Yankson, Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana

Politics and governance research

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		Title/download	Summary
07/2020	Policy brief	Rwanda’s Electricity Boom and the Danger of Too Much Power	The Policy Practice Working Paper with policy conclusions for donors and governments in Africa regarding expansion of the power sector
03/2020	Journal article	Ideology matters: Political machinations, modernism, and myopia in Rwanda’s electricity boom	Africa is experiencing a boom in electricity infrastructure, particularly in energy generation. However, this trend is under-researched and deserves greater attention as to why and how it is happening. This article builds understandings of this trend theoretically and empirically.
08/2019	Journal article	Continuity or Change in the Infrastructure Turn? Reform of the Technicians’ Realm in a World Bank Dam	A detailed case study of the Rusumo Dam, examining the decision-making processes of the World Bank and a new dam-building organisation, Nelsap.
07/2019	Working paper	The contradictions of an aspiring developmental state: energy boom and bureaucratic independence in Rwanda	What factors drive countries’ economic development? Is it still possible for Africa to follow the trajectory of the Asian states that saw rapid industrialisation in the latter half of the 20th century?
06/2019	Working paper	What holds back dam building? The role of Brazil in the stagnation of dams in Tanzania	This paper examines this puzzle of resurrected projects being actively planned but not built by looking at two dams in Tanzania between 2009-2017, the Stiegler’s Gorge and Mnyera dams.
05/2019	Working paper	Dam building by the illiberal modernisers: ideology and changing rationales in Rwanda and Tanzania	Taking conclusions from Dye’s doctoral thesis, the paper presents research on the ideological drivers for the return of dam building.
01/2019	Working paper	Theorising the political economy of dams: towards a research agenda	An overview of the literature on the politics of dams, which has been analysed from a range of disciplinary perspectives—including comparative politics, international relations, political economy and political ecology.

Showing 1 to 7 of 7 entries

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Research update video:

This video was produced for the FutureDAMS annual forum (November 2020) by Barnaby Dye on his current research progress.

Politics and social science: Ghana, India and The Manual

Webinar: Understanding the political economy of the electricity sector and dam-building in Ghana

Thursday 3rd February 15:00 - 16:30 GMT REGISTER Barnaby Dye: When the Means Become the Ends: Ghana’s ‘Good Governance’ Electricity Reform Overwhelmed by the Politics of Power Crises Pauline Destree: Renewables as 'Stranded Assets': overcapacity and energy transitions...

Seeking environmental and social justice in Uttarakhand

Read Shruti Jain's commentary published in India's Economic & Political Weekly, 'Repudiating Chipko Village’s Identity and Existence'. Jain is a postdoctoral fellow with the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, working on FutureDAMS. In her article she comments on a...

Keynote seminar: Moving to a zero carbon world and the future role of hydropower

Joao Costa, Head of Sustainability, International Hydropower Association Jeff Opperman, Global Freshwater Lead Scientist, WWF Mathaios Panteli, Assistant Professor, University of Cyprus Jamie Skinner, Principal researcher, natural resources, IIED Chair: Judith Plummer...

Politics, power and ambition in Ethiopia’s electricity sector

By Fana Gebresenbet, Biruk Terrefe and Tom Lavers In 1991, Ethiopia had 370MW of installed electric power and 4% grid connectivity, one of the lowest rates in the world. In the 27 years of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF) rule, both of...

Britain’s New Infrastructure Bank: Can it learn from Global Experience?

By David Hulme and Barnaby Dye (Global Development Institute, University of Manchester) Originally published on Global Policy Can Britain learn from the mistakes and reforms of other emerging and developed economies in creating its new infrastructure bank? In the...

Dams, Development and Water – FutureDAMS & Institute of Economic Growth Workshop

FutureDAMS and the Institute of Economic Growth, India, are inviting participants to a workshop on Dams, Development and Water. 27-28 April 2021, 02:00PM-06:15 PM IST (9:30 AM - 13:45 PM UK). There will be eight presentations by leading scholars, examining a wide...

Construction of Calamities in the Uttarakhand Himalaya

Read the article by FutureDAMS Postdoctoral researcher, Shruti Jain, on the recent dam disasters in the Himalaya, published in Economics and Political Weekly - Construction of Calamities in the Uttarakhand Himalaya.Hydropower projects on the Uttarakhand rivers have...

Prepare to fail? Dam development in the face of rising disasters

By Udisha Saklani On the morning of 7th February 2021, India’s Dhauliganga Valley in the northern Himalayan state of Uttarakhand witnessed a tragic flash flood, which was set off by a breach in the Nanda Devi glacier. As a large chunk of snow, fresh water and rocks...

New working paper: India’s development cooperation with Africa

A new working paper by Barnaby Dye analyses how India’s development cooperation with Africa has significantly changed. Founded after India’s independence, the country’s development cooperation programme was rhetorically framed as demand-led, non-interventionist and...

Is the dam-age over? The growth of dam removals in America

By Barnaby Dye and François Edwards This week the BBC featured an article describing the largest-scale project of dam removal to date on the Klamath River in the Western USA. The project involves the gradual disassembling of four out of eight hydroelectric dams. These...

The political power controlling Ghana’s electricity system and the ensuing crises

By Barnaby Dye On the 27 August 2012, a small group of pirates triggered the first of two major power crises in Ghana. Attempting to escape from the Togolese Navy on a captured oil tanker, the pirates left the ship’s anchor trailing. It snagged on the West African Gas...

Webinar – Meeting Africa’s Latest Dam Builders: The Indian ExIm Bank, ‘Entrepreneurial’ Companies and the Outcomes of South-South Cooperation

Barnaby Dye, The Global Development Institute, University of Manchester Tuesday 14th July 2020 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wq6uGTxnAbc https://youtu.be/wq6uGTxnAbc Download the working paper: Meeting Africa’s Latest Dam Builders: The Indian ExIm Bank,...

Dams and Covid-19: Some Thoughts

By David Hulme and Barnaby Dye, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester Today we live in a lockdown world as the Covid-19 pandemic sweeps across countries and continents: air travel has virtually ceased; billions of people have been told to stay at...

NEW working paper – The role of the state in development: Rwanda

By Barnaby Dye What factors drive countries’ economic development? Is it still possible for Africa to follow the trajectory of the Asian states that saw rapid industrialisation in the latter half of the 20th century? A new working paper by Benjamin Chemouni and...

DW Radio’s Living Planet: What are the lessons learned from Brazil’s Brumadinho dam collapse?

Listen to DW's radio show 'Living Planet' to hear FutureDAMS' Barnaby Dye talk about the safety of dams, how we can improve the planning of integrated water-energy-food-environment systems using the FutureDAMS integrated assessment toolset and what a sustainable dam...

New Working Paper: What holds back dam building? The role of Brazil in the stagnation of dams in Tanzania

By Barnaby Dye Africa has experienced a dam boom since the mid-2000s with projects across the continent being built by the so-called rising powers like China, ‘traditional donors’ (e.g. the USA and Germany) and established international development organisation such...

New research: idealogical drivers of Rwanda’s electricity boom

By Barnaby Dye A boom in constructing electricity infrastructure is underway in Africa – whether in generation plants or power lines. However, there aren’t many studies explaining why this building wave is taking place. My new paper presents a detailed case study of...

FutureDAMS lecture – Anna Mdee

'The missing middle: addressing tensions in interdisciplinary 'solutions-focused' water research projects' The latest FutureDAMS seminar was delivered by Dr Anna Mdee, Associate Professor in International Development in the School of Politics and International Studies...

New Research: Continuity or Change in the Infrastructure Turn?

Development is undergoing an infrastructure turn, no more so than in resurgent dam building. But how are new projects planned and constructed? Are we seeing the underestimation of economic, environmental and social costs? Have past critiques changed infrastructure...

What to do with old dams?

By Barnaby Dye Many industrialised countries in Europe and America built dams in the early 20th, or even 19th century. As these infrastructures age, their services may be better replaced by other technologies. Often, this happens when sedimentation builds up in a...