Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the environment, hence requiring environmental agreements to restrict
international economic relations. Finally, the last view is somewhere in
between, admitting the potential for both advantages and disadvantages,
arguing though that proper management of the global economy can gener-
ate benei ts for both sides, environment and growth (Clapp, 2006). In this
sphere of 'global governance' some writers suggest that in order for this
link between trade and environment to work benei cially, the creation of a
World Environment Organization (Biermann, 2000, 2006) might balance
the negotiating power of the World Trade Organization. To conclude,
according to the new perspective on the relationship between international
political economy and the environment, the former could potentially of er
some explanation of international environmental cooperation that dif ers
signii cantly from historical materialism.
Neoliberal institutionalism Neoliberal institutionalism has dominated the
study of international environmental agreements (Paterson, 2000, p. 12)
and centres on the work of regime theorists such as Keohane, Young, Levy
and others. This theory evolved from the development of traditions as
old as those of Grotius and Kant (Paterson, 1996, p. 115; Kütting, 2000a,
p. 15). In spite of the establishment of the United Nations after the Second
World War, institutionalism faded mainly because it was considered to
have failed in preventing international violence during the inter-war period
(Paterson, 1996, p. 115). However, the strengthening of international
reliance and collaboration and the emergence of regional integration in
the 1950s and 1960s (in particular the European Community) led to its
recurrence in an advanced form and its subsequent signii cance in the
1990s (Paterson, 1996, p. 115; Kütting, 2000a, p. 15). Neoliberal institu-
tionalism, when studying the ef ectiveness of international environmental
agreements, is closely interlinked with regime theory. Regime theory and
a dif erent approach within it, of great inl uence in the past decade, that of
Haas's 'epistemic communities', will be discussed in detail below.
Regime theory: regime theory or neoliberal institutionalism evolved out
of general developments in the international relations sphere and specii -
cally out of neorealism, thus producing a whole new range of views about
the role and importance of international institutions (Paterson, 1996,
p. 116). According to Krasner (1983, p. 358), who was one of the i rst and
more important authors on the subject, 'once regimes are established they
assume a life of their own'. He suggests that there are many ways in which
international institutions af ect outcomes by inl uencing state behaviour.
They can alter the capabilities of actors, including states', they can alter
states' interests, they can be a source of power that states can appeal to
and they may alter the calculations of states concerning the maximization
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