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The Rise of International Environmental Politics: A Review of Current Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Michael Zürn
Michael Zürn
Affiliation:
University of Bremen
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Abstract

This review article identifies five research themes in the study of international environmental politics. Among them, the research on regime effectiveness and on transnational networks has the greatest potential for becoming a driving force in the search for new avenues in the analysis of international relations. Although at the moment less is known about regime consequences and the role of transnational networks in international environmental politics than about regime formation, the former two have recently produced research questions and strategies that seem to be promising. However, the study of regime effectiveness and transnational networks requires more sophisticated research strategies in order to realize its full potential. Although the concept of causal mechanisms used in this research strand seems to be an extremely innovative and promising approach, it needs to be developed in more detail and backed up by comparative designs.

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Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , July 1998 , pp. 617 - 649
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1998

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References

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5 Young, Oran and Moltke, Konrad von, “The Consequences of International Environmental Regimes: Report from the Barcelona Workshop,” International Environmental Affairs 6, no. 4 (1994)Google Scholar; the work reports on eleven such large-scale projects.

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7 Homer-Dixon, “Physical Dimensions of Global Change,” 43.

8 The omission of technological change seems to be the one with the most distorting effects. For an argument that technology can spare the earth, see Ausubel, Jesse H., “Can Technology Spare the Earth?” Environment 37, no. 5 (1995)Google Scholar.

9 The following are the most important examples in the Choucri volume. Nazli Choucri and Robert North, “Growth, Development, and Environmental Sustainability: Profiles and Paradox,” inquires into the interrelationship between what the authors consider the three “master variables” of development—natural resources, technology, and labor. Hayward R. Alker, Jr., and Peter M. Haas, “The Rise of Global Ecopolitics,” considers environmental worldviews; the authors identify the Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, the Braudelian post-Marxist histories of global change, and the neo-Malthusians as the key forerunners of ecoholistic views. Francisco R. Sagasti and Michael E. Colby, “Eco-Development Perspectives on Global Change from Developing Countries,” write on five paradigms of ecodevelopment that may transform and restructure future world politics; specifically, they identify the frontier economics paradigm (nature serves humans and is free of charge), the deep ecology paradigm (humans are subservient to nature), the environmental protection paradigm (add-on solutions to specific problems), the resource-management paradigm (value ecology), and the ecodevelopment paradigm (codevelopment of society and ecology). See also Kempton, Willett, Boster, James S., and Hartley, Jennifer A., Environmental Values in American Culture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

10 Mies, Maria and Shiva, Vandana, Ecofeminism (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood, 1994)Google Scholar; Diamond, Irene and Orenstein, Gloria Feman, eds., Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990)Google Scholar.

11 See the contributions in Lynn-Jones, Sean M. and Miller, Steven E., eds., Global Dangers: Changing Dimensions of International Security (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Bächler, Günther et al. , Umweltzerstörung—Krieg oder Kooperation? Ökologische Konflikte im internationalen System und Möglichkeiten der friedlichen Bearheitung (Münster: Lit Verlag, 1993)Google Scholar; and Günther Baechler, “Violence through Environmental Discrimination: Causes, Rwanda Arena, and Conflict Model” (Ph.D. diss., University of Bremen, 1997).

12 See Pearce, David and Warford, James, World without End: Economics, Environment, and Sustainable Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar. A critical survey can be found in Helmut Breitmeier, “Umweltforschung im Schlepptau der Politiker? Abschied vom Konzept der ‘Nachhalti-gen Entwicklung’ und Aufbruch zu mehr Effektivitat in der internationalen Umweltpolitik,” in Martina Haedrich and Werner Ruf, eds., Globale Krisen und europäische Verantwortung: Visionen für das 21. Jahrhundert, Schriftenreihe der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, vol. 23 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1996), 132–45.

13 See, for example, Baker, Annette“Environment and Trade: The NAFTA Case,” Political Science Quarterly 110, no. 1 (1995)Google Scholar; Charnovitz, Steve, “GATT and the Environment: Examining the Issues,” International Environmental Affairs 4 (1992)Google Scholar; and Helm, Carsten, Sind Freihandelund Umweltschutz vereinbar? Ökologischer Reformbedarfdes GATT/WTO-Regimes (Berlin: Edition Sigma, 1995)Google Scholar. With regard to the EU, See Vogel, David, Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

14 Peter M. Haas with Jan Sundgren, “Evolving International Environmental Law: Changing Practices of National Sovereignty,” in Choucri, Global Accord. The authors evaluate 132 multilateral treaties drawn from UNEP's register of international treaties. More than 50 percent of these treaties were signed after 1972.

15 See especially the following studies in Haas, Keohane, and Levy, Institutions for the Earth: Edward A. Parson, “Protecting the Ozone Layer”; Marc A. Levy, “European Acid Rain: The Power of Tote-Board Diplomacy”; Peter M. Haas, “Protecting the Baltic and North Seas”; and M. J. Peterson, “International Fisheries Management.” See also Caroline Thomas (fn. 4), pt. 1; and Haas, Peter M., Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)Google Scholar. Both argue that the importance of epistemic communities in international environmental policy derives to a large extent from their ability to shape the agenda. For an argument that the current profile is shaped by factors emphasized by the sociology of risks rather than by scientifically defined urgency, see Michael Zürn and Ingo Take, “Weltrisikogesellschaft und öffentliche Wahrnehmung globaler Gefährdungen,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Supplement, 24–25 (1996), 3–12.

16 International regimes are social institutions consisting of agreed-upon principles, norms, rules, and programs that govern the interactions of actors in specific issue-areas. Defined in this way, regimes are distinct from international law in that they are more rooted in social practice than in general normative principles. International regimes can govern illegal activities (especially informal ones) and rely on a broader set of obligations for rule compliance. However, international regimes and international law are by no means mutually exclusive, and the main difference between the study of international regimes and the study of international law is a result of the different perspectives of different disciplines. For a discussion of an appropriate definition of international regimes, see Levy, Marc A., Young, Oran R., and Zürn, Michael, “The Study of International Regimes,” European Journal of International Relations 1, no. 3 (1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a comprehensive review of the literature on regime formation, seeHasenclever, Andreas, Mayer, Peter, and Rittberger, Volker, Theories of International Regimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 See Haas and Sundgren (fn. 14).

18 See, for example, Martin List and Volker Rittberger, “Regime Theory and International Environmental Management,” in Hurrell and Kingsbury (fn. 4); the authors explain regime formation using a set of factors that was developed “in a larger project on ‘International Regimes in East-West Relations.’”

19 See, in Polar Politics, Gail Osherenko and Oran R. Young, “The Formation of International Regimes: Hypotheses and Cases.” The cases taken up in the book are North Pacific fur seals (Natalia S. Mirovitskaya, Margaret Clark, and Ronald G. Purver), the Svalbard Archipelago (Singh, Saguirian), polar bears (Fikkan, Osherenko, Arikainen), stratospheric ozone (Peter M. Haas), Arctic haze and transboundary air pollution (Marvin S. Soroos).

20 The theory of hegemonic stability states that a hegemonic power must be existent before successful regime formation can take place. For good discussions, cf. Krasner, Stephen D., “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” World Politics 28 (April 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Robert O. Keohane, “The Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes in International Economic Regimes, 1967–1977,” in Holsti, Ole R., Siverson, Randolph M., and George, Alexander L., eds., Change in the International System (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

21 Oran R. Young and Gail Osherenko, “International Regime Formation: Findings, Research Priorities, and Applications,” in Osherenko and Young, Polar Politics, 235. The concept of individual lead ership is more broadly developed theoretically in Young, Oran R., “Political Leadership and Regime Formation: On the Development of Institutions in International Society,” International Organization 45, no. 3 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; he distinguishes entrepreneurial, structural, and intellectual leadership.

22 Osherenko and Young (fn. 19), 233.

23 An excellent chapter on the theoretical notion of institutional bargaining can be found in Young, Institutional Bargaining, 81–116.

24 Ibid., 93.

25 Such an approach is pursued in Zürn, Michael, Interessen und Institutionen in der internationalen Politik: Eine Grundlegung des situationsstrukturellen Ansatzes (Opladen: Leske oc Budnch, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Zangl, Bernhard, “Politik auf zwei Ebenen: Hypothesen zur Bildung internationaler Regime,” Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 1, no. 2 (1994)Google Scholar.

26 Young himself argues in another context: “It may well be that the independent force of ideas is greater during the prenegotiation stage than it is during the negotiation stage of regime formation.... In hard bargaining over the specific provisions of a convention or a treaty, however, ideas are more likely to be exploited for political advantage than to play an independent role in guiding the process” (International Governance, 98).

27 In line with this observation, Fritz W. Scharpf, Koordination durch Verhandlungssysteme:Analytische Konzepte und institutionelle Lösungen am Beisfiel der Zusammenarbeit zivischen zwei Bundeslanädern, MPIFG Discussion Paper, 91/4 (Cologne, 1991), 9. Scharpf states in an analysis of negotiations between the Lander in the FRG that “in general, participants as well as researchers are capable of reconstructing [the constellation of interests] with high reliability.”

28 Osherenko and Young (fn. 19), 13.

29 See Mesquita, Bruce Bueno de, “Theories of International Conflict: An Analysis and an Appraisal,” in Gurr, Ted Robert, ed., Handbook of Political Conflict: Theory and Research (New York: Free Press, 1980)Google Scholar. Bueno de Mesquita resolved the debate whether bipolar international systems are more stable than multipolar international systems by demonstrating that the answer depends on how willing the decision makers are to take risks.

30 Osherenko and Young (fn. 19), 14.

31 For a discussion of relative gains, see Grieco, Joseph M., Cooperation among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

32 Zürn (fn. 25), 155.

33 For this distinction, see Jon Elster, “Arguing and Bargaining in Two Constituent Assemblies,” Storrs Lecture (New Haven: Yale Law School, 1991); and Gehring, Thomas, “Regieren im interna-tionalen System: Verhandlungen, Normen und Internationale Regime,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36, no. 2 (1995)Google Scholar. Essentially, bargaining represents the mode of behavior as captured by rational choice theory, while arguing is informed by Habermas's notion of communicative action.” See also Müller, Harald, “Internationale Beziehungen als kommunikatives Handeln: Zur Kritik der utilitaristischen Handlungstheorien,” Zeitschrift fär Internationale Beziehungen 1, no. 1 (1994)Google Scholar.

34 Osherenko and Young (fn. 19), 12.

35 For this issue, see, among others, Keohane, Robert O., After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Haas (fn. 15); Ritt-berger, Volker and Zürn, Michael, “Towards Regulated Anarchy in East-West Relations,” in Rittberger, Volker, ed., International Regimes in East-West Politics (London and New York: Pinter, 1990)Google Scholar; Müller, Harald, “The Internalization of Principles, Norms, and Rules by Governments: The Case of Security Regimes,” in Rittberger, Volker, ed., with Peter Mayer, Regime Theory and International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; and Helmut Breitmeier and Klaus Dieter Wolf, “Analysing Regime Consequences: Conceptual Outlines and Environmental Explorations,” in Rittberger with Mayer.

36 See Young and von Moltke (fn. 5). A very important early contribution is Underdal, Arild, “The Study of Regime Effectiveness,” Cooperation and Conflict 27, no. 3 (1992)Google Scholar.

37 Haas (fn. 15); Mitchell (fn. 4).

38 Some examples of the broader consequences of international institutions are discussed in Levy, Young, and Zürn (fn. 16).

39 See Breitmeier and Wolf (fn. 35).

40 Keohane, Haas, and Levy, “The Effectiveness of International Environmental Institutions,” in Haas, Keohane, and Levy, Institutions for the Earth, 19.

41 Levy, Keohane, and Haas, “Improving the Effectiveness of International Environmental Institutions,” in Haas, Keohane, and Levy, Institutions for the Earth.

42 See. Bernauer, Thomas, “The Effect of International Environmental Institutions: How We Might Learn More,” International Organization 49, no. 2 (1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Victor, Chayes, and Skolnikoff, “Pragmatic Approaches to Regime Building for Complex International Problems.”

44 Most of the current international environmental regimes began with a broad framework convention that stated general goals and some procedures fostering cooperation, especially regarding pertinent knowledge production. Over time, the conventions were then supplemented by substantial protocols that spelled out specific targets for emissions reduction. In this sense, the convention-protocol approach is the legal basis of most environmental regimes. See, for example, Gehring (fn. 4), who studied the international regime on long-range transboundary air pollution and the regime for the protection of the ozone layer, both clear examples of the convention-protocol approach. Gehring, however, evaluates this approach very positively, succinctly labeling these regimes “dynamic international regimes.”

45 The following criticisms are exemplified in Susskind's book, which is in a sense more ambitious than the consciously and carefully circumscribed proposals by Victor, Chayes, and Skolnikoff.

46 For an excellent discussion of these issues, see also Wettestad, Jørgen, Nuts and Boltsfor Environ-mentalNegotiators: Institutional Design and the Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes—Conceptual Framework (Lysaker: Fridtjof Nansen Institute, 1994)Google Scholar.

47 See now Stokke, Olav Schram and Vidas, Davor, eds., Governing the Antarctic: The Effectiveness and Legitimacy of the Antarctic Treaty System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and Keohane, Robert O. and Levy, Marc A., eds., Institutions for Environmental Aid: Pitfalls and Promise (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

48 Keohane, Haas, Levy (fn. 40), 7.

49 He goes on to distinguish six different meanings of effectiveness: (1) problem solving, that is, the extent to which the regime contributes to solving the problem that it was created to deal with; (2) goal attainment, that is, the degree to which a regime's stated or unstated goals are attained; (3) behavioral effectiveness, that is, the extent to which the regime alters the behavior of actors; (4) process effectiveness, that is, the extent to which the regime alters rules; (5) constitutive effectiveness, that is, the extent to which it gives rise to new social practices; and (6) evaluative effectiveness, that is, the extent to which it fulfills evaluative criteria.

50 Keohane, Haas, and Levy (fn. 40), 7.

51 It has recently been argued that almost all research designs in the social sciences at one point or another build on counterfactuals. See Thomas Biersteker, “Constructing Historical Counterfactuals to Assess the Consequences of International Regimes: The Global Debt Regime and the Course of the Debt Crisis of the 1980s,” in Rittberger with Mayer (fn. 35), 324. Indeed, counterfactual assumptions about the comparability of cases are sometimes made in order to set up a comparative design. Although such a procedure may contain counterfactuals at the point of determining the set of cases to be compared, I consider this research strategy as comparative, because the causality is determined according to the logic of comparison. Here I want to refer to a distinct counterfactual method that uses coun-terfactuals in a specific way. Counterfactuals in this narrow sense have a different meaning: (causal) effectiveness of a specific regime is assessed in a given case by (implicitly or explicitly) constructing a scenario which excludes the regime and then compares the real-world outcome with the outcome of the scenario.

52 Fearon, James D., “Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science,” World Politics 43 (January 1991), 156CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Wettestad and Andresen (fn. 4), 2.

54 Elster, , Logic and Society: Contradictions and Possible Worlds (New York: Wiley, 1981), chap. 6Google Scholar.

55 Mitchell, “Intentional Oil Pollution of the Oceans,” in Haas, Keohane, and Levy, Institutions for the Earth; and idem (fn. 4).

56 Keohane, Haas, Levy (fn. 40), 10.

57 Ibid.

58 Haas (fn. 15).

59 Parson (fn. 15).

60 Levy (fn. 15).

61 Levy, Keohane, Haas (fn. 41), 406.

62 If the interest is “improved state of the environment” instead of”behavioral change of political units,” it is necessary to add a fourth step, that is, “improved quality of the environment = outcome 2.”

63 See Lijphardt, Arend, “The Comparable Cases Strategy in Comparative Research,” Comparative Political Studies 8, no. 2 (1975)Google Scholar. While in small-sample comparative designs it is necessary to control for other explanatory factors in order to highlight the effect of those that are tested (quasi experiments), large-sample comparisons supposedly control for distorting effects by a high number of cases.

64 Haas, Peter M., “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Risse-Kappen, Thomas, “Structures of Governance and Transnational Relations: What We Have Learned?” in Risse-Kappen, Thomas, ed., Bringing Transna-tional Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 See, for instance, Gordenker, Leon and Weiss, Thomas P., “Pluralizing Global Governance: Analytical Approaches and Dimensions,” in Gordenker and Weiss, eds., NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance (Boulder, Colo., and London: Westview Press, 1996), 19Google Scholar. They also introduce a list of further distinctions among transnational networks.

66 For a discussion of social movement theory, see Matthias Finger, “NGOs and Transformation: Beyond Social Movement Theory,” in Princen and Finger.

67 Nye, Joseph S. and Keohane, Robert O., “Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction,” in Keohane and Nye, eds., Transnational Relations in World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), xiGoogle Scholar.

68 Tarrow, Sydney, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 197Google Scholar.

69 For a good discussion of the concept of world society, see Weltgesellschaft, Forschungsgruppe, “Weltgesellschaft: Identifizierung eines ‘Phantoms,'” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 37, no. 1 (1996)Google Scholar.

70 See also Thränhardt, Dietrich, “Globale Probleme, globale Normen, neue globale Akteure,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 33, no. 2 (1992)Google Scholar; and Kößler, Reinhard and Melber, Henning, Chancen internationaler Zivilgesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993)Google Scholar.

71 Finger (fn. 66), 59.

72 Wapner, , “Politics beyond the State: Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics,” World Politics 47 (April 1995), 320CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A similar hypothesis has been put forward with respect to epistemic communities. “The greater the extent to which epistemic communities are mobilized and are able to gain influence in their respective nation-states, the greater is the likelihood that these nation-states will in turn exert power on behalf of the values and practices promoted by the epistemic community and will thus help in their international institutionalization.” See Adler, Emanuel and Haas, Peter M., “Conclusion: Epistemic Communities, World Order, and the Creation of a Reflective Research Program,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (1992), 372CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 See Wapner, Paul Kevin, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and Altvater, Elmar et al. , eds., Vernetzt und' verstrickt: Nicht-Regierung-sorganisationen als gesellschaftliche Produktivkraft (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 1997)Google Scholar

74 See, for example, Kevin Stairs and Peter Taylor, “Non-Governmental Organizations and Legal Protection of the Oceans: A Case Study,” in Hurrell and Kingsbury (fn. 4). This essay provides an excellent descriptive account of Greenpeace's role in the legal protection of the oceans at two points of the policy cycle. In the process of policy formulation, NGOs provided translators for non-English speakers from proenvironmental states, and they also provided them with scientific advice. In the process of policy implementation, the NGOs helped with monitoring; their only viable compliance force was to put offending states to shame. For similar findings, see Kenneth Piddington, “The Role of the World Bank,” in Hurrell and Kingsbury (fn. 4); Barbara J. Bramble and Gareth Porter, “Non-Governmental Organizations and the Making of U.S. International Environmental Policy,” in Hurrell and Kingsbury (fn. 4). See also Thomas (fn. 4), 290; and the contributions to Willetts, Peter, ed., “The Conscience of the World”: The Influence of NGOs in the UN System (London: Hurst and Company, 1996)Google Scholar.

75 Thomas Princen, Matthias Finger, and Jack P. Manno, “Translational Linkages,” in Princen and Finger.

76 Thomas Princen, “NGOs: Creating a Niche in Environmental Diplomacy,” in Princen and Finger, 36.

77 See Merton, , The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and see also Litfin, Karen T., Ozone Discourse: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

78 Clark, “The Antarctic Environmental Protocol: NGOs in the Protection of Antarctica,” in Princen and Finger.

79 Susskind (chap. 6) provides some very helpful starting points for dealing with the issue of implementation and compliance. See also Ausubel, Jesse H. and Victor, David G., “Verification of International Environmental Agreements,” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 17 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chayes, Abram and Chayes, Antonia Handler, “On Compliance” International Organization 47, no. 2 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 These variables are emphasized by resource mobilization theory, which is considered to be a promising approach for analyzing transnational networks. See Finger (fn. 66), 53—54.

81 Peet, , “The Role of (Environmental) Non-Governmental Organizations at the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (iMO), and the London Dumping Convention (LDC),” Ocean and Coastal Management 22 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 See Princen and Finger. See also Susskind, 46–53; and Kevin Stairs and Peter Taylor, ‘Non Governmental Organizations and the Legal Protection of the Oceans: A Case Study,” in Hurrell and Kingsbury (fn. 4), 134–36.

83 For an argument that the pressure of transnational networks in the global warming case may at this point lead to merely symbolic and essentially counterproductive commitments, see Victor, David G. and Salt, Julian E., “Keeping the Climate Treaty Relevant,” Nature 373 (January 26, 1995), 280-82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 See, for example, the studies in Risse-Kappen (fn. 64); and idem, Cooperation among Democracies: Norms, Transnational Relations, and the European Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.