Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Prince
and Hobbes's
Leviathan
and has been mainly concerned with state
security (Haas, 1990, p. 35). Emphasizing the political sphere, the realist
approach analyses relationships among states only according to issues
of power and self-interest (Kütting, 2000a, p. 12). It assumes that states
are only guided by national interest and that their purpose must be to
maximize power, a process that ultimately leads to war as states compete
amongst themselves. According to realists the actors (states) act rationally
and prefer those options that best suit their interests, under the assump-
tion that they have full awareness of world events and thus can estimate
both costs and benei ts of alternative solutions. Those solutions chosen
concern the acquisition of power (Haas, 1990, p. 35). Hence only when the
ef ectiveness of an international environmental agreement coincides with
the interests of the states, can the agreement be ef ective (Kütting 2000a,
p. 12). However, since international discussions about environmental
problems are often concerned with common threats to livelihoods and not
about power, there is a dif erence in focus between realist thought about
war and power on one hand, and concerns about environmental degrada-
tion on the other. Moreover, Haas (1990, p. 36) notes that there has been
substantial criticism about realism not being an appropriate model for the
analysis of environmental cooperation because of the importance it places
on matters of security, which are generally not salient features of environ-
mental agreements. However, if security could be extended to matters of
public health or security of borders then it could be included as a theme
when studying international environmental agreements.
Neorealism
Neorealism is the most recent version of classical realism
in international relations and is also known as structural realism. With
Kenneth Waltz (1979) as its main representative (Keohane, 1986), this
approach describes and studies international relations according to the
system's structure. Neorealists take methods from game theory and
microeconomics in order to explain how states behave under anarchy, and
how they negotiate among themselves, resulting in hypotheses about their
motives and the results of this negotiation (Haas, 1990, p. 37). However,
realism and neorealism share some basic principles such as the interna-
tional system still operating under anarchy and the states still being the
main actors within it. Neorealism, however, allows for some kind of
cooperation among states so as to reach a shared goal as, for example,
tackling a common environmental problem, since its centre of attention
has shifted from war (Kütting, 2000a, p. 13). This form of cooperation
can be explained in two dif erent ways, i rst through hegemonic stabil-
ity theory and second through game-theoretic approaches (Haas, 1990;
Paterson, 1996).
