A Diplomatic Goodwill. Neutrality as a Status Quo in Southern African Freshwater Governance
Résumé
This article studies how diplomatic norms come to be considered as neutral in southern African freshwater governance, and contribute to reinforcing postcolonial power relations. It is argued that the adoption of diplomatic norms by regional officers (state representatives, consultants and experts from international organizations) is an attempt to increase their legitimacy through diplomatic goodwill. Freshwater officers identify formal diplomacy (i.e. from ministries of foreign affairs) as a legitimate sector and attempt to conform to its decorum. First, the article shows how formal diplomacy is identified as an example for the bureaucracy. This process goes through a formalization of practices that replicates diplomatic decorum, and the staging of a unified multilateral setup. Second, this staging leads regional agents to define “good cooperation” as a reification of power positions, thus reproducing hierarchies identified by regional officers as “neutral”. Neutrality is conceived as a diplomatic virtue by dominant regional officers, which contributes to a focus on decorum rather than on policy content. Although this practice serves as a resource of legitimation within the regional sector, it also has the unintended effect of contributing to its delegitimization among Western experts, hereby maintaining pre-existing postcolonial power relations and forms of contempt.
