'Silent Chernobyls': Ecological degradation, macroeconomic policies, and political institutions (Central Asia)

There is an ongoing debate in academia and among policymakers about the relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth. This dissertation analyzes competing arguments about this relationship. Concentrating on water resources, the dissertation will accomplish two aims. The first aim is a test of the long-term link between economic growth and water degradation (pollution and scarcity) using a Panel-Corrected Standard Error log-log econometric model for a cross-section of countries. The second aim of this dissertation is to investigate political institutional frameworks and international donor contracting aimed at the amelioration of water degradation in the Aral Sea region of Central Asia. These institutional factors are the threads that link my quantitative analysis to this comparative water policy analysis. Generally, I find support for my hypothesis that the EKC (the argument that environmental degradation will eventually decrease by increasing GDP) is an artificial representation of oversimplification. My results indicate a difference in this relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth among countries with different levels of income disparity. Distribution of income is important as it affects opportunities for access to the policy process and disparity is correlated with low levels of formalized accountability in the decision-making process (political constraints). I also find that political capacity is derived and used in a manner that increases water degradation, and based on my case study analysis, argue that this is due to a lack of high concern for environmental issues. Finally, formal political constraints have a minimal, incremental negative effect on water degradation, except in low-income disparity countries, where policy change becomes too constrained and leads to increases in degradation. My analysis of the Aral Sea case focuses on determining how concerns interact with these constraints and capacity, and demonstrates that the substance of both national environmental policies and international aid in the Aral Sea region are not appropriately directed to these interactive relationships. The contribution that this dissertation makes is in determining which political factors can mitigate or will exacerbate environmental problems caused by improper natural resource and economic development policies, and the most appropriate policy reforms national governments and donor organizations should follow.