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The objective of the present paper is to analyze if policies of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) - applied to the borderline region between Brazil/Bolivia - include social participation in the decisions about environmental resources exploitation. It was used the followed methods: textual analysis of public policies of IIRSA, photography, maps and interview analysis with experts in the subject of regional integration. The research is based mainly in the theories of David Harvey, Neil Smith, David Held and Bertha Becker. The current paper discusses about: 1) how policies have a "lacunar discurse2" conduced by Brazil. 2) how laws are planed exclusively by the decision makers, often without the vote of the citizens. Consequently, there is a loss of autonomy in the management of natural resources done by the people, and decisions are taken according to the international economic demands. The physical consequence of the policies on the environment is an increase of fragmentation not only ecological but also cultural, both reflecting negatively on the economy of the region involved in integrative policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once the most important whaling nation (70 percent of world whaling), the United States has become, in under a century, the champion of the struggle to save the whales. This paper reflects on the American role in the transformation of the International Whaling Commission into an anti-whaling regime. It seeks to analyse the American construction of a ‘green hegemony’ in this issue-area, paying particular attention to the external vs. internal dimensions of this process. Three aspects come under scrutiny: -Externally, the American position is at odds with its stance on most other multilateral environmental treaties. How did the whales become the chosen issue of the US’s international environmental policies? -The role of non-state actors. American environmental NGOs have proved particularly important in altering the negotiating position of the state at the table of the IWC. The paper explores how the state-NGO relationship impacts on the elaboration of an international environmental policy -Internally, the US position sits uneasily with the whaling cultures of its ‘first nations’, which continue to whale under the ‘aboriginal subsistence’ exception. How does this affect the continuance of the US’s position as hegemon? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been evident for some time that trade policy and environmental policy cannot long pretend to ignore each other’s existence. Conceptually, each is an integral element of sustainable development; which, ostensibly, is a stated goal of both. Practically, they already cast long shadows on each other and the actual implementation of each influences, and is influenced by, the other. After years of tortured public discussion on the subject, the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), held in Doha, Qatar, finally placed a limited set of trade and environment issues on the negotiating agenda of the multilateral trading system. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa, reaffirmed the need to establish more coherence between trade policy and environmental policy. Limited as these incursions might be, they suggest a trend and a tendency that is likely to be irreversible. It has been argued that within the context of the WTO, the question is no longer whether trade and environmental policy are going to be linked, but how. The answer, of course, is far from clear because a) the Doha mandate on trade and environment was left purposely vague; b) the issue is new to multilateral trade negotiations and its many implications and manifestations have not yet been fully explored; and c) because of that, parties have yet to fully develop and firm their positions on this subject as they have on many others. For all of these reasons, there is an opportunity for all parties to shape the agenda on future trade and environment negotiations in rather more profound ways than might be possible on many other issues. This opportunity is particularly pertinent to the developing countries of the South because they, for most part, have been generally suspicious of environmental issues seeping into trade deliberations and accepted the Doha mandate for trade and environmental negotiations rather hesitantly, if not grudgingly. The purpose of this paper is to better understand Southern concerns about the forthcoming trade and environment negotiations and to explore how an emergent Southern agenda might take shape. The analysis presented here derives directly from a review of Southern views on trade and environment issues compiled as part of an ICTSD/IISD/RING research project on the ‘Southern Agenda for Trade and Environment.’ While a budding literature on the subject does exist, this project was an early attempt to systematically collect and analyze the views of developing country delegates themselves. Methodologically, two distinct ‘data’ sets were constructed. The first compiles together the various formal interventions and proposals made by developing countries within the WTO; most particularly within the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE). The second data set of Southern views on environment and development is drawn from several months of consultations and discussions with developing country negotiators in Geneva and Brussels. These small group discussions sought to elicit a first-hand articulation of Southern concerns and interests in relation to trade and environment issues from developing country delegates, especially in terms of the post-Doha negotiation agenda. This paper presents a review and synthesis of the learning from these two data sets of Southern views on trade and environment. The research concludes that although the developing countries are likely to adopt a conservative strategy in negotiating the environment and trade aspects of the Doha workplan, this is to be expected. This is because developing countries a) had initially resisted these provisions, b) are the historically weaker parties and therefore prone to risk-minimizing strategies, and c) the newness of this issue for trade negotiations coupled with the resource and time strains on Southern delegations will itself limit the scope of innovation by any party. The previous section has outlined three key ingredients of the South’s post-Doha concerns that are likely to influence the defensive aspects of the South’s negotiation position between now, and January 2005. However, the more important conclusion relates to the emerging willingness within the developing countries to begin engaging the trade and environment agenda and to possibly re-craft it within the framework of sustainable development. This is neither going to be easy, nor automatic. While it is to the obvious benefit of the South (and many other parties) for the developing countries to adopt a proactive strategy, doing so will require much effort from the South itself and a supporting environment from other actors interested in a furthering the links between trade, environment and sustainable development. What can the South do itself to move from a reactive agenda defined by its apprehensions about trade and environment to a proactive agenda that seeks the opportunities to be realized by defining sustainable development as the goal of international trade? How can other international actors assist? The paper will outline four key steps in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine the concept and process of globalisation in relation to the global marine environment. Globalisation both as a concept and as a process is a contested term - its usage has become generally accepted but there is no definition of what constitutes globalisation and there is no empirical evidence that it is an actually occurring process. Attempts at conceptualising or theorising about globalisation from an IPE perspective tend to sideline environmental and social consequences of globalisation as issues in the intellectual framework within which globalisation is analysed. These issues are usually treated as part of an analysis of global civil society and new social movements but in this context only transnational actors representing social and environmental issues are incorporated into the analysis rather than the structural and systemic forces and constraints within which actors operate. The global marine environment has not received much attention in the context of globalisation and this paper will examine why this is the case and what the salient issues are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the origin of the management of toxic chemicals as an environmental issue. They are released into the environment in nearly every country in the world. The paper examines multilateral environmental agreements that comprise the key elements of global policy for hazaradous chemicals: the 1989 Basel Convention; the 1998 Rotterdam Convention; and the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persitent Organic Pollutants. It is suggested that governments can strengthen global chemicals governance by increasing ratification and participation, establishing improved coordination among relevant treaties and institutions, providing more effective and targeted financial and technical assistance to developing countries for monitoring and reporting, and focusing more attention on life cycle approaches to chemical controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the production of environmental imagery and rhetorics, and their links to racist geographies of African culture and environment in policy discussions, fiction, non-fiction, and film. It examines the ways in which Ebola virus is configured as a terror, the historic layering of imagery about Africa, women, and viruses, as well as the trajectories of dissemination -- globally and nationally. The paper suggests how an environmental and public health problem is constructed and managed through military interventions and institutions, embodying a larger turn, in conservation particularly, and social policy more generally, toward the resolution of public sector problems through militarized solutions and the amplification of environmental fears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence abounds that transnational advocacy networks (TANs) have played an important role promoting environmental causes and human rights issues, especially in the last quarter-century. Less well explored, however, are the long-term impact that advocacy networks have on ?developing? countries where TANs have focused their campaigns. For example, Brazil saw a steep decline in deforestation throughout the late 1990s despite the fact that the international campaign to protect Amazonian resources peeked in the early 1990s. As such, unless we believe the World Bank flawlessly executed the supervisory policies suggested by many international non governmental organizations (INGOs), we need a better causal explanation of why environmental conditions in Brazil continue to improve. While a leverage politics/?boomerang? story best explains environmental policy changes during the 1980s and early 1990s, it is not sufficient to explain the role that TANs have played in Brazilian environmental politics during the past decade, nor does an ?INGOs-as-primary-actors-within-networks? model correctly describe the current composition of environmental advocacy networks in Brazil. In this paper, I argue that continued improvement in Brazilian environmental policy can only be explained by a second-order process which occurred during the original Amazonian campaign: an information cascade that catalyzed Brazilian NGOs and raised the salience of environmental issues amongst both voters and politicians. By examining how international forces increase the resource base of domestic NGOs and raise public awareness regarding environmental issues, we can explain more of the current improvement in Brazil?s implementation of development programs. In addition to the Brazilian case study, this paper concludes with a research design that seeks to generalize the information-shock model across both countries and issue-areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will take as its departure point the February 2010 UNEP Governing Council's Special Session debating UNEP's role in Global Environmental Governance. The Nusa Dua Declaration has pointed out that the instruments of global environmental governance are complex and fragmented, and that UNEP should make this governance process more effective. I shall then put these recent developments in the context of the 2010 session of the CSD which has also been looking at some of these issues. Finally, I propose to conclude the paper by placing the environmentally sound management of hazardous chemicals and wastes into the interlinked two frameworks of UNEP's efforts regarding International Environmental Governance (the 'Belgrade Process'), and of its Green Economy Initiative. The Geneva-based 'Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management' (SAICM) plays an important role here. UNEP is essential in supporting SAICM by carrying out its secretariat services. SAICM's explicit multistakeholder-approach encompassing IGOs, industry, NGOs, and academia represents a particularly innovative instrument of global environmental governance. The objective of this paper is to make a contribution to the understanding of the dynamics driving the global environmental governance negotiations with a focus on their trade and North-South ramifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On February 8, 2009, the decommissioned French carrier Clemenceau was towed into port in Hartlepool, UK, for dismantling. This marked what French officials hoped would be the end to a nearly decade-long controversy surrounding the disposal of a ship labeled "toxic" by environmentalists concerned about the tons of asbestos and other dangerous chemicals it contained. Plans to process the Clemenceau at India's Alang shipbreaking yards in 2006 became the focus of an international debate over the practice of shipbreaking, one made more pointed as shipbreaking activities have shifted from developed to developing countries like India and Bangladesh where environmental and safety regulations are either non-existent or poorly enforced. This paper explores the legal and policy issues posed by the dispute over the Clemenceau. Intersecting several environmental regimes, shipbreaking has attracted the attention of the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste, the International Maritime Organization, the International Labor Organization, and other international and nongovernmental organizations. Reconciling their different perspectives on how to manage this lucrative and important, but highly risky industry represents a serious challenge for international environmental governance. This paper examines that challenge and the steps taken thus far to meet it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy-making is based on the attempt to control and steer future events. To do that, rationality, mainly in the form of scientific expertise, is required both to anticipate possible events and to bring legitimacy to the whole process. However, no rationality can cross-out the very elementary fact that, concerning future events, policy-making is inherently subjected to uncertainty: as for any activity involving some opportunity-risk, probabilities can be known but the outcome stays unforeseeable. This implies that policy-makers must always be able to assume responsibility for their decisions. The paper will explain that the complexity inherent to the climate change issue severely complicates this very basic truth by de facto asking policy-makers to act upon a kind of rationality that is not that of evidence, but that of choosing among probabilities of errors. Furthermore, starting from the assumption that policymaking is structurally entangled into the tension between a conservative attitude (the preservation of the comfortable symmetry between past and future events to the benefit of individuals) and a pro-active one (trying to improve their future), the paper will demonstrate how scientific complexity imposes that the first goal be abandoned and how this fact creates a serious problem in terms of policy-making legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. global environmental policy during the Bush administration was widely considered to have fallen short of both global and national needs. Among other actions, critics faulted the administration's disparagement of scientific consensus on climate change and its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, its ideological opposition to multilateral population assistance, its failure to exercise leadership on global sustainability initiatives, and a diversity of foreign policy decisions that have cost the United States much needed political support in critical regions of the world. This paper reviews some of the most important of these policy actions and looks ahead to the challenges Barack Obama will face as the 44th U.S. president. In particular, the paper examines the unique opportunities in 2009 and over the next several years for policy reassessment in energy use and climate change, population and development assistance, and sustainable development initiatives. It also considers the key policy actors who will likely play significant roles in the design, adoption, and implementation of a new generation of policies that can better address existing and emerging global environmental and resource problems. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the EU's capacity to play a pioneering role in international environmental policy. The objective is to explore the circumstances under which political entities possess the capacity to act as a policy pioneer. It proposes a conceptual framework for policy pioneership and applies these considerations to the EU.One could distinguish three major ways in which the EU influences international environmental policy: international negotiations, the use of coercion and conditionality, and voluntary diffusion of ambitious EU environmental rules. The voluntary diffusion of policy from one political entity to another can be an influential alternative and supplementation to the more traditional mode of global policy-making by nation states through international agreements and coercive measures. Policy diffusion is triggered by globalisation and the increasing interaction between various jurisdictions and other stakeholders. Through policy diffusion, not only nation states but also political entities such as the European Union can play an influential role at the global level. The first section of this paper discusses policy diffusion. The second part outlines the different factors and conditions that determine a political entity's capacity to pioneer policy. In section three, these conceptual considerations are applied to the EU. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of state capacity in environmental treaty implementation, by examining National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) development in five Pacific Island Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The central argument is that variation in the success of NAPA development is dependent on the civil service's ability to coordinate and carry out domestic assessments and on the government's ability to approve the plan, and that this capacity reflects state stability. Consequently, state stability - in terms of maintaining confidence in governments, securing peaceful transitions between governing parties, and in having the ability to enforce the rule of law and carry out the tasks of public goods provision effectively - becomes a condition for implementation success of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in these Pacific Islands.Funding for NAPA development is available from the international community, but accessing these funds involves burdensome and conflictual bureaucratic processes; the creation of the action plans also calls for high levels of public participation and consultation. These tasks require dedicated resources and personnel, including consistency in staff, adequate time allocated to policy development, and assistance from funding agency officers - all of which require an "enabling environment" within the state. Differential policy development success across the five LDC cases supports the hypothesis that, given the difficulty of the bureaucratic processes, political upheaval can compromise the government's ability to maintain effective administrative capacity and thus undermines its capacity to implement international agreements.The conclusions suggest that a focus on additional financing through international funds may not be the most effective mechanism for supporting the creation of adaptation policies; instead, the paper speculates that international agencies should focus on streamlining their bureaucratic demands, and should provide additional support for training programmes to strengthen local capacity and governance. The paper contributes to our understanding of the limitations of global treaties for many environmental concerns, and stresses the role of local institutions in addressing sustainability, adaptation, and vulnerability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the revision process of the EU emissions trading system (ETS). The ETS has so far operated on the basis of a main directive adopted in 2003 and a 'linking directive' adopted in 2004. In January 2008 the European Commission put forward a formal proposal for a revision of the system and hence new rules for trading in the 2013-20 period. The proposal was debated in the EU decision-making bodies in the course of 2008 and the final revised directive was adopted in December 2008. With the outcome of the process and the significant changes adopted as the dependent variable, the paper discusses three main explanations. First, applying 'intergovernmentalist' lenses, the key determinants for EU policy are found at the level of member states. The member states are the ultimate and main decision-makers, through decisions in the Council. Second, applying the lenses of multi-level governance theory, key determinants for EU policy are (increasingly) found in the positions and actions of the European Commission and the European Parliament. The Commission is the formal agenda-setter in the EU, but has also formal and informal influence in the decision-making phase. The Parliament has become a formal co-decider in the EU. Third, looking through global lenses, key determinants for EU policy may be found in global factors and institutions. Not least, EU policy-making is often embedded in global regimes/institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that fiction and literary non-fiction should play an important role in the environmental politics classroom, and explores how such works might best be employed. The paper draws on experience with past, present, and future-oriented liter ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of MNCs in conflict environments is a relatively new subject for scholarly and policy-oriented inquiry. The small body of research that does exist approaches the issue from corporate social responsibility, human rights, and environmental policy perspectives. This paper, in contrast, will consider MNCs from a security-studies viewpoint, and examine MNCs as actors in conflict systems. The focus will be on firms in the oil, gas, and mining industriesâ??the so-called "extractive sector." Multinational corporations affect, and are affected by, the violent environments in which they do business. This paper will pay particular attention to efforts by certain firms to promote stability through social development and security measuresâ??in other words, conflict mitigation, conflict transformation, or, more bluntly, "corporate counterinsurgency." ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While states continue to negotiate about the future of the Kyoto Protocol, a distinct, but related set of institutional arrangements is evolving to tackle the problem of climate change. Emissions trading markets are turning carbon dioxide—the world's most prevalent greenhouse gas—into a commodity to be bought and sold. The Kyoto Protocol created three mechanisms that enable emissions trading, but as this paper will demonstrate, they are only one part of a dense, interrelated set of public and private initiatives to buy and sell carbon dioxide emissions (as well as other greenhouse gases). Examining these initiatives as whole is important to understanding the legacy of private actors in the present institutional arrangements, and may provide indications about how a future global market might evolve.This paper has two aims. First, I map the set of markets that comprise this "regime complex" for emissions trading. Second, I offer an historical account of how various parts of the current regime complex came to be. I argue that private actors have placed a key role in shaping the evolution of the EU-ETS, and appear to be doing the same in the US. To understand the regime complex as it exists today, we must look at changes over time, and particularly the effect of private firms as leaders in emissions trading. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the influence of epistemic communities in global, POPs-related policymaking. Rising levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the global environment have spurred policymakers around the world to call for coordinated, multinational action to control those chemicals which pose the greatest dangers to human health and the environment. However, efforts to mitigate the risks posed by POPs have been impeded by the technical complexity of the problem, and policymakers have had to turn to scientists with expertise in fields such as toxicology and epidemiology for guidance on risk assessment and management. Policymakers’ reliance on scientific expertise has reduced their control over policy, as scientists have been given increasing power to determine socially acceptable levels of risk. While many scientists are loath to engage in policymaking, the grey area between science and policymaking does provide a unique opportunity for scientists with values-based agendas to influence policy in ways that promote their interests. This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study analyzing whether and how epistemic communities working under the auspices of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants use strategic issue-framing tactics to set the agenda, limit policy options, and ultimately bring about their preferred policy outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of transnational advocacy networks and coalitions has been widely discussed with regard to the rise of global civil society. However, little is known about transnational coalition formation among multinational firms in processes of market creation. This paper focuses on the transnational mobilisation of firms in promoting a global market for carbon emission credits in the context of climate politics.Since the inception of climate politics, firms have played a vital political role, initially opposing any form of regulation. However, in the late 90s, firms in Europe and subsequently in the United States began to endorse emissions trading as a form of market-based climate policy. At the core of this shift is the creation and promotion of various initiatives including advocacy networks, market-facilitating mechanisms, and private carbon trading schemes. This raises the question what drives the emergence of a transnational pro-trading coalition among multinationals in the transatlantic marketplace.Drawing from studies on policy diffusion and private governance, it is argued that coalition formation is best understood as a form of diffusion within and across industries. Here, diffusion is qualified as a distinct causal mechanism that builds on the interdependence of firm behaviour. Two main forms of diffusion are at work in coalition formation: diffusion through adaptation to global norms or competitive pressures, and diffusion through learning in transnational networks or through observation of industry peers. With this focus, the paper contributes to the understanding of the transnational mobilisation of multinationals in the creation of environmental markets. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has focused attention on the impact of political institutions on various types of policy outputs. The influence of political institutions has been examined for redistributive policy, health care, and environmental policy just to name a few. This paper looks at the relationship between formal political institutions and the enforcement of intellectual property rights. Using cross-national data the paper examines the impact of intellectual property right security from domestic political institutions. It tests a variety of theoretical propositions on the role of government in securing property rights, as well as suggesting unexamined areas of inquiry. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important question in the discussion about new global governance mechanisms is the development of democratic principles. Within this topic the environmental policy as an adjustmed field of public goods is central because globalization is primarily dealing with public goods. An extensive amount of literature was developed to this topic over the last years. However, this mostly normative discussion runs the risk to create a discrepancy between the normative desirability and the empirical reality. Therefore it seems important to discuss the normative coined conception of a democratization of inter and transnational rule setting processes in connection with the traditional acceptance of the conditions of international cooperation (e.g. group size, conflicts of interests, asymmetries of power, uncertainty). The paper focuses on this open question. A theoretical approach extended in this way allows on the one hand a broader theory discussion, and on the other hand an empirical examination. In addition the linkage of theory and empiricism still needs special attention in this discussion. After a theoretical discussion of the normative concept of democratic legitimacy and the possible necessary and sufficient conditions which are based in the collective action and regime theory, the paper concentrates on the empirical analysis of 56 international environmental subregimes and points out some assumptions given from a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we integrate the literature that is concerned with how to conceptualize and explain the effect of member states on processes and outcomes of regional integration with the literature on the responses of member states to the impact of supranational processes and institutions. This is done by analyzing the role of the EU members as shapers and takers of European environmental policies. Thereby, we try to simultaneously answer the two following questions: (i) Why do some member states achieve a better European policy fit than others? (ii) Why do some members infringe (even) on (fitting) environmental policies more frequently than others? We argue that member states that are good shapers are also effective takers of supranational policies â€" not only due to the better fit between obligations and domestic settings, but also because the factors that enable member states to shape environmental policies help them to ensure their effective implementation. In order to develop and test this argument, our paper proceeds in three steps. Drawing on the two-level games literature, the first part presents a theoretical framework that systematically links the making and taking stages of supranational policies. In the second part we employ econometric methods to assess the impact of several factors identified in the relevant literature against empirical evidence from the field of European environmental policy. The paper concludes with a discussion on the generalizability of our findings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental foreign policy is fraught with examples of states rhetorically affirming international action to address environmental threats and accepting international commitments that are never met in practice. This situation raises troubling questions for the study of environmental foreign policy. This is particularly true in the case of developed states, which typically possess the resources to comply with international agreements if there is sufficient political will. Why have developed states been willing to undertake commitments without fulfilling them? The foreign policy establishments of states value national reputations for fulfilling international obligations. Most states are thus reluctant to take on commitments that cannot be met. One frequent explanation is that governments undertake international commitments in good faith but then fail to fulfill them due to domestic political obstacles. While this is certainly true in some cases, this paper argues that governments frequently utilize environmental foreign policy as a symbolic tool to rally important domestic constituents and/or to signal priorities to other international actors. These commitments are often undertaken with full knowledge that they are unlikely to be met completely. After reviewing the reasons that environmental foreign policy lends itself to this sort of signaling, the paper focuses on three brief case studies to illustrate the strategy and effects of this signaling process: the use of climate change commitments by the European Union, the involvement of East European countries in the Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution negotiations, and the use of climate change by Margaret Thatcher during the late 1980s. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-national policy convergence is a widely recognized and analyzed empirical phenomenon in international relations and comparative political science literature. Hitherto many studies picked out one particular cause and assessed its effects on domestic policy changes and cross-national policy convergence, while neglecting others. This paper takes a more holistic perspective by integrating several conceivable mechanisms in the analysis and exploring their interactions. Drawing on studies from international relations as well as comparative political science this paper first of all introduces the analytical framework encompassing three distinct mechanisms which have so far been identified in the relevant literature to contribute to cross-national policy convergence: diffusion, harmonization and imposition. On a broad empirical basis of more than twenty environmental policies and instruments the paper subsequently explores observable interactions between these mechanisms and those interactions' effects on cross-national policy convergence. On the one hand, the paper identifies circumstances when diffusion, harmonization and imposition are likely to reinforce and complement each other and, thus, significantly increase the prospect of cross-national policy convergence. On the other hand, the paper identifies conditions when diffusion, harmonization and imposition are likely to constrain each other and, thus, hindering the emergence of cross-national convergence. In conclusion, the results show that the understanding of processes contributing to cross-national policy convergence is significantly improved when taking into account the interactions of diffusion, harmonization and imposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the process of issue framing surrounding the environment and climate change in the Netherlands. The Dutch have gained the reputation of being a leader in environmental policies, and particularly those regarding climate change. However, recent events have served to distract the Dutch from their efforts. Consequently, this paper asks two broad questions. How have the Dutch defined the environment and thus their responses to it? How and why has their response changed over time? More specifically, this study seeks to uncover the actors, actions and structures that have defined the construction of climate change within the Netherlands. Within what contexts has the discourse taken place? What international and domestic norms have been influential? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the conference paper "Leaders and Laggards? Comparing European and North American Approaches to Non-State Environmental Governance" presented at the "46th International Studies Association Conference" held from March 2 to 6, 2005 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The paper discloses the differences within Europe and North America regarding the emergence of non-state market driven in the forest sector known as forest certification. It also reviews the historical development of forest certification in Finland.

The global environmental agenda, alongside the broad neoliberal agenda, may be viewed by developing states and societies as a neo-imperialist adventure to be resisted. This paper considers the theoretical parameters of resistance to global environmental governance and argues that the idea of 'eco-imperialism' reflects the uncertain location of politics, the ambivalent role of states, and challenges assumptions in the mainstream study of world politics. However, this is an unusual case of imperialism, in so far as it reflects diverse interests and actors which may not be pursuing the same objectives. It appears that eco-imperialism may be both hegemonic force and anti-capitalist movement. In order to explain this apparent contradiction, we must note some of the contradictions in capitalism and globalization, but also how the mix of underlying political orientations create strange bed-fellows of developing country activists and oil company executives. In doing so, some view of the universal dynamics of global environmental policy and the prospects for matching these to particular political contexts may be arrived at. While the exploitative and dominating aspects of environmental policy deserve to be challenged and studied closely, this may have less bearing on environmental governance per se than on the globalized world in which it occurs. In recognising the importance of the critique, the paper also notes the mutual constitution of governance and resistance, and concludes that the requirement of bottom-up support for any eco-imperialism implies 'participatory empire' at worst, and challenges should inform rather than create obstacles to necessary if not entirely satisfactory forms of global environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers analyses globalization in terms of diffusion which has methodological conceptualized as Galton's problem. Galton's problem is a challenge for comparative research because it undermines the results of functional analysis. Not considering the Galtons's problem, however, leads to omitted variable bias of the analysis. The paper presents a model for the empirical analysis of diffusion by referring to solutions of the Galton's problem. By doing so it analyses Carbon Dioxide emissions of 18 highly industrialized countries over four decades. The results show that diffusion is a significant variable for the analysis of current environmental policies. However, diffusion was also a significant variable in the 1960s. The paper also points to the importance of veto functions in governments in turbulent periods. Many veto players clearly obstruct a decrease in CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the change in environmental protection from Soviet rule through the stages of independence, democratization and democratic stagnation in the Republic of Armenia. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of democratic transition and democratic stagnation on environmental protection in post-communist countries, and to determine what kind of eco-political dynamic we can expect in shallow democracies. The methodology is based on a structured comparison of environmental protection in two important policy domains, Lake Sevan and forestry resources, using thick description of the change in the development of political/administrative agencies, civil society and the rule of law in each domain over four time periods. The analysis is based on data gained from over fifty background interviews conducted in Armenia during four separate field trips from 1997 to 2001, and analysis of primary and secondary materials. My research demonstrates that, contrary to hopeful expectations, we see a convergence in both the increasing degradation of Lake Sevan and massive deforestation of Armenian forests during the transition period (despite their different starting points in 1991). I conclude that shallow democratization and stagnation may adversely affect environmental protection in post-communist countries. Environmental protection in shallow democracies is fundamentally different than in either fully consolidated democracies or fully authoritarian regimes. There is a unique pattern to this eco-political dynamic, which can be seen in the weakness in the political/administrative agencies, rule of law and civil society, the uneven development in these three spheres of eco-democratization, the increasing dependence on international aid which leads to short but unsustained bursts of activity, and repeated attempts to improve the situation that are not maintained. There have been a few positive exceptions to the overall dire picture that have come about because of decentralization of environmental policymaking allowing greater participation in the process, increasing access to information, and increasing cooperation with the international community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in comparative studies of EU and US federalism and its implications for environmental policy. US and EU approaches to atmospheric pollution issues, such as acid rain and climate change have been the subject of various studies and have pointed to the different approaches of the US and the EU towards common air pollution problems. This paper will examine policy making styles towards air pollution problems in federalist systems. Of particular interest is how an expanding EU may influence the policy approaches of the EU towards air pollution problems and will consider whether an enlarged EU will lead to greater convergence between EU and US approaches to air pollution issues or will instead, reinforce the divergent approaches of these federal systems towards problems such as acid rain and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certification programmes have been maturing recently as global mechanisms of environmental governance. Developing broadly accepted standards in these programmes has provoked intriguing patterns of multi-stakeholder politics -- and increased academic scrutiny. This multi-stakeholder politics often operates quite apart from the traditional state-centred forums for political activity: it may be formally integrated into the programmes’ individual decision-making processes, as a component of the programmes’ internal constitutions; or it may operate informally, regulating the competition between programmes with similar targets. In the stakes surrounding such multi-stakeholder politics, the question of programme autonomy arises as a central strategic problem. Under what circumstances will particular stakeholders seek to dominate the standard development and adjudication processes of a given programme, and under what circumstances will they prefer instead self-elaborating and even self-justifying standard-development and adjudication processes, such as one finds in the development of English common-law? A careful study of a recent regional crisis in the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) demonstrates that this programme increasingly exhibits objective self-producing autonomy, or autopoiesis. The paper considers some of the implications of this structural development for environmental and forest resource politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

REDD+ - a mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation - is a quintessential "boundary object", in that it has gained widespread support in the absence of clear operational definition. In particular, ongoing debates over REDD+ "safeguards" highlight widely divergent views regarding the ways in which REDD+ should prioritize a range of conflicting environmental and social forest values. Contestation over the meaning of REDD+ is thus displaced over time and across the many arenas in which REDD+ is being enacted. This paper maps this contestation by following the articulation of social safeguards within various public and private organizations involved in operationalizing REDD+. Our findings reveal that forest carbon-related certification schemes have pioneered the concept of "additionality" of social benefits, while giving varying attention to equity and benefit distribution within communities. In contrast, inter-governmental organizations have pursued a risk-based approach, employing a "do no harm" policy to society's most vulnerable, but lacking binding additionality requirements. Finally, inter-subnational efforts have played a unique role in addressing the nesting of project-level efforts within frameworks at broader scales. Given the uncertainties about whether, when and how REDD+ might transition into a national-level payment scheme in different REDD+ countries, it is difficult to predict the lasting influence of these current efforts. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that the current complexity of actor involvement and safeguard design may explain ongoing support for REDD+ as a boundary object accommodating disparate actors, interests and ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational networks have demonstrated increasing impact on international policy outcomes in various issue areas, as demonstrated by many case studies on international political mobilization or the influence of private actors such as NGOs and multinational corporations on international politics. International climate policymaking in particular has gained growing scholarly interest as an area with important transnational interactions between state actors from different governmental levels and nonstate actors from various societal sectors. However, quantitative assessments of the structures emerging from such interactions, not to mention their impact on policymaking, have been very limited. In this paper, I make a first attempt to measure transnational network structures in international climate policymaking using event data coded from international news wires for the years 2000 to 2010. Event data encode who did what to whom and when based on reported actor interactions and can then be analyzed using techniques from Social Network Analysis. In a further step, I will test if specific characteristics of these network structures can be associated with the progress and regress of the international policy process to establish an effective international climate protection regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most authors in the field today seem committed to the notion that there is something qualitatively different about global politics. In reflection of this, governance experts are beginning to develop increasingly sophisticated models that can sufficiently assess the degree of effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy in emerging governance structures. In particular, embedded models are increasingly being employed as a means to frame and analyze complex macro scale governance problems such as climate change. To illustrate the benefits and weaknesses of these methods, this paper assesses three embedded approaches - network analysis, institutional theory and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) - to show how such models have improved our understanding of climate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have been published that use methods of statistical inference to gauge the relationship between environmental stress and armed conflict, and results are inconclusive. This paper makes several contributions. First, we introduce and use a new dataset that tracks violent events on the sub-state level, namely a sub-Saharan Africa subset of the new UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP GED). Second, we test for the effects of environmental stress on a kind of armed conflict events which constitutes a theoretically more appropriate dependent variable, namely so-called 'non-state conflicts'. Third, we test for the effect on non-state conflict of the interactions between soil degradation and population density, and between fresh water availability and population density. We find that extreme soil degradation in areas of extreme population density is strongly related to heightened risk of onset of non-state conflict. Also population growth is associated with onset on non-state conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at how sub-national policies in the United States are interacting with policymaking at the national level to address the issue of global climate change by focusing on a coordinated effort to get the national government to fund U.S. cities' efforts to address this issue. It reviews how research has looked at climate change policymaking in the United States, paying particular attention to the ways scholars have looked at climate change policymaking at different scales of governance. On the one hand, there is a large and growing literature that analyzes U.S. climate change politics at the national level, challenges to policymaking at this level, and how national politics contribute to the American position in international negotiations. On the other hand, a smaller literature analyzes climate change policies coming from the local, or sub-national, level. In contrast, I consider how policies at different levels of government interact by presenting research on national legislation to support local efforts to address climate change. Although local climate politics in the U.S. have the potential to scale-up to a meaningful national policy, I argue that a federal U.S. climate policy that has successfully passed through both houses of the U.S. Congress is not imminent. Moreover, without implementing legislation passed by the Congress, the U.S. is unable to be a party on any binding climate change treaty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the World Bank’s implementation and modification of environmental and social safeguard policy norms. Initially implemented as a series of ad hoc guidelines, environmental and social policies would become entrenched as appropriate “safe ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the development of regional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading schemes in North America. Specifically, it focuses on the creation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), which incl ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how uncertainty and an unequal distribution of costs across countries affect governments’ preferences towards the timing and design of climate change policies. In choosing and enacting climate change policies, governments have to deal ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper develops a methodology for estimating the risks and consequences of possible future increases in tropical cyclone intensities due to climate change that would allow policy makers to relatively quickly evaluate the cost of different mitigation st ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do instruments of legalization and flexibility influence environmental regime performance? Although policymakers increasingly acknowledge international regimes to be of substantial importance, it remains unclear how to establish or restructure effective international institutions along the frames of both variables. This paper explores the impact of both legalization and flexibility on regime performance by a first large-N study, using data on international environmental regimes. The main implications are that "precision" is a necessary requirement for environmental regimes to be effective. If a regime's rule and norm system is well defined, well understood, and clear, i.e. very precise, then a regime tends to be more effective in addressing an environmental problem. We do not find evidence, however, that "hard law" is more effective than "soft law" or that delegation mechanisms may be of relevance. Second, flexibility in the regime structure promotes regime performance. Regular instead of subsidiary bodies seem to enhance flexibility and thus effectiveness. However, contrary to our expectations, flexibility in states' agenda setting power, membership or decision-making seem not to be of crucial importance for the effectiveness of international environmental regimes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As globalization has increased the interdependence among states, the flows of goods and people across borders and the organization and reach of civil society, some scholars and policymakers have argued that the result is a waning in the power of the state. A dozen years ago, Susan Strange went so far as to proclaim a "retreat of the state" and challenge the relevance of "state-centricity" of modern international relations (1996). Although Strange's argument is probably overstated, the intuition is certainly correct: the role of the state is changing. This paper aims to understand when and how non-state actors are undertaking governance activities. I am uninterested in contributing to an "either/or" debate about whether the state is in retreat. Rather, I am interested in the changing nature of the relationship between state and non-state actors, and specifically, the ways in which non-state actors govern in international environmental politics. The nature of this relationship represents a relatively new area of research, and is little understood. This analysis contributes to the study of non-state actorsâ??and therefore, debates on private authority and the role of the stateâ??by conducting a careful historical analysis of delegation to non-state actors in multilateral environmental agreements. I look closely at one governance role assumed by private actors: the extent to which they are selected as agents by states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost two decades have now passed since the launching of the Mediterranean Action Plan since 1975. A number of similar regional initiatives were launched throughout Europe since then as, for instance, the Barcelona, Helsinki, Oslo and Paris Conventions on coastal areas. Concerning mountain areas, the Alpine Convention was opened for signature in 1991 and it was followed in 2003 by its "sister" Carpathian Convention. This paper proposes an appraisal of the design of the Alpine Convention in the light of how it was written, one decade of implementation and how it is impacting the development of the Carpathian Convention and future multilateral agreements for the protection and sustainable development of other mountain regions. While the former had remarkable effects on the design of both conventions, the latter strongly impacted their respective implementation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the application and conception of sustainable development, and then seeks alternative theories or visions for the global "economy." In this work distinction is drawn between chrematistics and economics. This approach is extremely helpful in the translation from normative theories to practical politics. As one alternative I look at the "new" old radicalism including "descroissance," a bifurcated theory/cum movement currently inspiring environmentalists, scholars cum/and activists, in Geneva and Paris. A third approach is original in that it builds on the Aristotilean concept of "economic" and "economy," and looks into theories of knowledge and meanings attached to life. The intent is to find fresh concepts for building a global environmental theory with a view to practical application. It involves a search into the history of science and the nature of happiness. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The linguistic turn in philosophy and in understandings of politics should have made clear the constructed nature of our political realities, and this has become an influential aspect of theoretical developments, yet the main features of the international system are not necessarily amenable to reconstruction in practice. In this paper an examination of the emerging discourses of global environmental politics will indicate the challenges it faces in coping with existing political practices, and the prospective patterns of conformity to environmental policy norms that may be candidates for future strategies in global environmental politics. In doing so it aims to relate theory and practice in GEP. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emissions market of the Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism, often called a cap-and-trade market, aims to reach an overall reduction target but allows participants to determine the most efficient means of doing so. Participants are permitted to buy and sell emissions credits in a centrally-managed market. Through the basic forces of supply and demand, states determine which parties will enact the policy changes necessary to achieve the overall reductions target. Cap-and-trade markets simultaneously provide economic incentives for individual states to pursue emission-reducing policies, while allowing other signatories to purchase their way out of changing their behavior. In this paper, we examine how the cap-and-trade market of the Kyoto Protocol challenges existing notions of institutional efficacy and compliance. Existing explanations of institutional efficiency measure the efficacy of institutions by member states’ compliance with the express terms of the agreement. Kyoto, however, demands a different rubric. First, effectiveness is measured as aggregate performance of all members, rather than individually. Second, the role of sub-state actors is important for dictating not just compliance but also the form of cooperation states choose. Finally, the ability of states to join the Kyoto Protocol without expectations of enforcement of or compliance with the agreement challenges the concept of state membership as endogenous to expectations about compliance. Additionally, this type of cap-and-trade market presents an interesting empirical puzzle. Prices of freely-traded emissions credits represent real-time indicators of otherwise-difficult to measure ideas, such as demand for additional allowances/restrictions and willingness to comply with the terms of the treaty. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU emissions trading system (ETS) has now completed its three year pilot phase (i.e. 2005-7). Links have already been established between the EU ETS and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore, global emissions trading under the Protocol is set to commence in 2008. Based on an emerging body of literature on institutional interaction, this paper will discuss various dimensions of the developing positive and negative interaction between the company focused EU ETS and the country focused global carbon trading and other relevant global institutions. More specifically, the following three cases of interaction will be analysed: First, the interaction between the Kyoto Protocol (as source) and the ETS as target. The first and seminal phase of this interaction started quite immediately after the adoption of the Protocol in late 1997. A second phase of interaction started in 2004 when the EU states started to develop national allocation plans (NAPs) where bringing in credits/allowances developed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and (subsequently) Joint Implementation (JI) became one compliance strategy. Second, the opposite relationship will be more closely examined. i.e. with the ETS as the source and the Kyoto Protocol institutions as targets. This can also be analysed in several phases, with the first phase starting after the adoption of the 2003 ET Directive and with the developing ETS possibly leading to a more rapid and extensive CDM development than would otherwise have been the case. A separate case of interaction deals with the possible role the ETS plays and could play for an emerging global carbon market. Third, attention will be given to a different type of interaction involving the ETS, namely interaction between the ETS and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the idea of the green state has emerged as a way of understanding the state in the context of the international relations of the environment. By assuming the role of a public environmental trustee and responsible global environmental citizen, states can achieve changes at the international and domestic levels. However, for changes to be sustained and deep, policy needs to challenge rather than support the logic of ecologically destructive competitive capitalism and hierarchical globalization. This paper argues that Canada's historical commitment to green multilateralism makes it well-positioned to move toward the role of a green state, but that a major barrier remains Canada's continuing support of inequitable and unsustainable global relations of economic exchange based on competitiveness. Rather than forming a single coherent strategy on climate change, for example, two distinct and competing principles vie for dominance in Canadian international environmental policy: competitiveness and protection. As a result, Canada's climate change policies have been irregular and inconsistent. For example, Canada has recently departed from multilateral commitments agreed at Kyoto, while simultaneously claiming to take decisive action to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International relations scholars have engaged the debate over whether and when international institutions influence state behavior for over a quarter of a century. This paper argues for shifting the debate from the sterile evaluation of whether individual institutions matter to the more policy-relevant question of "which institution worked better." We develop and demonstrate an approach for selecting institutions and evaluating their influence in ways that allow comparative assessment of whether, how much, and what type of influence those institutions had. In particular, we demonstrate the value of including multiple institutional variables that correspond to different claims about institutional influence. Our empirical analysis, using three protocols under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, brings to bear new variables and new data for 53 countries and 23 years that demonstrate that our approach can distinguish whether institutions influence state behavior, how much influence they had, the pathways by which they had influence, and the types of country on which they had influence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International and transboundary governance is increasingly characterized by the disentanglement from traditional political institutions and the emergence of new, horizontal and dialogue-oriented governance modes. Within the Great Lakes-regime between the USA and Canada, deliberative governance across national boundaries has been evolved, which produces democratic legitimacy and effectiveness through the inclusion of civil-societal and economic actors, argumentative procedures and common good oriented problem solving. This raises a challenging research question: Is the deliberative mode of governance within the Great Lakes-regime a model case, which allows drawing conclusion on institutional prerequisites and means how to “democratize” governance in similar issue areas? Guided by this research question the paper develops a three-dimensional model (input, throughput, output) of deliberative democracy, which serves as normative-analytical framework in order to identify and to appraise, generally speaking, the potential of deliberative politics in international governance and, in particular, the deliberative potential within the Great Lakes-regime. Equal access to political influence for non-state actors in the political communication and decision making is conceptualized as input-legitimacy. The throughput-proceduralism relies on the communication and action modes between state and non-state actors aiming at collective preference formation. The output-effectiveness relates to the search and formulation of factual and common good oriented problem solving options, which can be recognized by the public as such ones. My long-term empirical study on the Great Lakes reveals that a deliberative network and multilevel governance system of a bilateral decision making body, expert advisory bodies and public participation has been established. Six different public participation procedures on different political-institutional levels have been identified and analyzed by means of an interpretive analytical approach including policy analysis, discourse analysis and speech act analysis: public hearings, workshops, meetings, round tables, focus groups, and public advisory bodies on the regional and local levels. The results of the expert and public participation within a two-years-working cycle are aggregated in biannual reports, which provide the basis of the Canadian and US environmental policy making on the Great Lakes.Against the background of the theoretical-conceptual research on deliberative democracy and the empirical analysis of the Great Lakes-regime, generalizing conclusions can be drawn on the institutional and procedural design of deliberative governance in transboundary and international spaces in form of a loose coupling of decision making bodies, scientific advisory bodies, public participation, and epistemic community. For this purpose the merits and weaknesses of the Great Lakes-regime were carefully considered and the normative thoughts reflected. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]