Upcoming talk: PhD Colloquium, School of International Service, American University

I will be presenting my ISA 2016 paper on the global politics of bottled water today (March 30th) at 2:30pm during the American University School of International Service PhD Colloquium. It’s always nice to be back among friends (many of the faculty at SIS AU are focused on environmental politics, and are good friends of mine), and it should be good to present my emerging research to a sympathetic audience. This is work in progress, and I’m often a bit weary from presenting such early drafts, but that’s how one learns. The abstract is shown below:

The global politics of bottled water
Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD
Assistant Professor, Public Administration Division
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

Bottled water is considered a growing business, soon to overtake soft drinks as the beverage of choice. Yet the growing phenomenon of consuming water packaged in a plastic bottle seems ill conceived given current global conditions of water shortage. Understanding the paradoxical global patterns of bottled water production, distribution and consumption necessitates going beyond an international political economy explanation to generate one that integrates national patterns of consumption, public health concerns, varying degrees of water stress and domestic, transnational and international politics. In this paper I examine the global politics of bottled water through a combination of comparative politics and international relations lenses. I set forth a number of questions that require addressing in our quest to understand the paradox of bottled water consumption. I then offer suggestions that outline how we can explore this phenomenon through a global environmental politics lens. Finally, I posit a research agenda for future scholarship on the global politics of bottled water.

You can check my slide deck below:

You can share this blog post on the following social networks by clicking on their icon.