Using the Kura river basin of the South Caucasus as a case study, this paper asks how development-funded projects in transboundary water management attempt to integrate transnational, national and local actors in project implementation, and under what conditions they are able to do so.

I explain the process of multi-level governance by considering the influence of an external set of powerful actors influencing negotiations among levels of stakeholders, and thus the management of resources: organizations which comprise the international development community. My research pays particular attention to the role of local communities in transboundary water projects, and how development organizations attempt to incorporate local actors in project implementation.

This paper draws upon a year of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Building upon and integrating literatures in resource management (regional cooperation on water management), comparative political science (transnational actors and state-society relations), and critical development studies (development project implementation and evaluation), my research demonstrates that for implementing transnational resource management projects at the local level, the existence of strong local civil society organizations is not a sufficient condition. Rather, project support by mid-level bureaucrats at the national level is the unexpected link to incorporating local actors in project implementation. Without “champions” in the mid-level bureaucracy to endorse the project and act as brokers of knowledge and power between local-level stakeholders and development professionals, international development projects in resource management are unable to establish sustained collaboration with local actors in project implementation. At the same time, obtaining the support of mid-level bureaucrats can have the paradoxical effect of solidifying the institutional arrangements which impede transboundary collaboration on resource management in the first place.