Water populism and the Iranians' collective adipsia

Abstract This article examines Iran as an example, where the water crisis is dealt with through denial, projection, and securitization approaches, described as “water populism.” The Iranian polity systematically adopts denial and projection approaches to obscure an underlying causal chain whose first ring is ideology, and then, it resorts to the securitization of water to safeguard these approaches against public criticism. Ideology prescribes an intensive hydraulic mission to facilitate “strategic industries clustered together in the central desert” and “self‐sufficiency in food production,” in the wake of its antagonism toward the world's powers and the ensuing international sanctions. This hydraulic mission depletes the country's water resources and results in “water bankruptcy” that is reflected in ecological degradation and socio‐economic disintegration. Ideology not only obstructs the genuine process of problem solving but also gives rise to water populism that serves as a political sedative by either disavowing the water crisis or attributing the crisis to a wide range of technical‐managerial factors or stifling dissenting voices. Any solution to Iran's water crisis seems infeasible in the absence of an ideological reform.