Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Hegemonic stability: hegemonic stability theory suggests that coopera-
tion is most likely to occur when it is imposed by a dominant state or a
'hegemon' within a system (Haas, 1990, p.40). The dif erence between
the states that just dominate and the hegemons is that the latter already
have their power and leading role legitimately approved by the other
states (Paterson, 1996, p. 94; Kütting, 2000a, p. 13). However, according
to Kütting (2000a, p.14) this theory can only explain the existence of
cooperation among states but not the quality of that cooperation, because
the latter is out of its remit and therefore doesn't have the appropriate
methods. For this reason it is not appropriate for studying the ef ectiveness
of international environmental regimes.
Cooperation under anarchy (rational choice and game theory): the
'cooperation under anarchy' tradition is another school within neorealism,
which suggests that even in the absence of a hegemon cooperation is still
possible. As Paterson (1996, p.101) observes, scholars of this tradition,
inl uenced largely by game theory, believe that cooperation is indeed pos-
sible under conditions of anarchy without, however, suggesting generally
that this cooperation could change the primarily anarchic character of the
international political order. Rational choice and game theory study and
foresee the behaviour of the actors by calculating the best possible deci-
sion, under rational terms, for any actor under a particular state of af airs
(Kütting, 2000a, p. 14). This school looks at game-theoretic work focusing
primarily on repeated game situations such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, the
Chicken Game and Stag Hunt. One of the best-known options in empiri-
cal research for measuring regime ef ectiveness by using rational choice
and game-theoretic approaches is the so-called Oslo-Potsdam solution, for
which further details are given later in this chapter.
A dif erence with the hegemonic stability school is that cooperation
under anarchy suggests that various factors can cause the maintenance
of the agreements by states after the decline of a hegemonic power that
was initially necessary for the creation of these agreements. Moreover,
the supporters of this school, in contrast to the realists, assume imperfect
information, variable interest and choices of the actors, and only limited
ef ort at seeking alternative solutions to the problem (Haas, 1990, p. 44).
However, according to some authors (Paterson, 1996; Kütting, 2000a)
rational choice, game-theoretic approaches and neorealist approaches in
general, do not of er a major contribution to the study of the ef ectiveness
of international environmental agreements for various reasons. First, they
focus on the behaviour of units (states) and do not really include the object
of cooperation (the environmental problem) in their analysis in the sense
of dealing with the environmental degradation per se (Kütting, 2000a,
p. 15). Second, their main assumption is that states can be treated as actors
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