Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A new approach to dei ning and measuring ef ectiveness
In the i rst part of this chapter various theories about international envi-
ronmental regime ef ectiveness and a range of ef orts to dei ne and measure
this ef ectiveness in applied cases were reviewed and examined. What is
evident is that there is no one way to dei ne and measure such a concept,
especially when dealing with complex interactive systems consisting of
socioeconomic factors, policy and politics and the global environment.
The second part presented an overview of an international regime and
a critical discussion of its ef ectiveness as a case study. The assessments
of MAP made by dif erent academics and practitioners largely varied
according to which criteria they used in assessing the regime.
The theories of realism and neorealism are primarily concerned with
state security and national interest. They do not include environmental
concerns in their analysis, and assume that states have given interests,
which is not the case in environmental issues. Looking at the formation
of MAP, as Haas noted, an explanation through the hegemonic stabil-
ity strand failed once France declined as the hegemon. MAP continued
to exist and be supported by both the lead and weaker states. Historical
materialism and international political economy, especially with the
dominance of economic globalization, can in some cases explain envi-
ronmental cooperation better, but in the case of MAP these theories also
failed since interests of both sides, developed and less-developed states, are
represented equally in the regime. Therefore, neoliberal institutionalism
and strand regime theory are the most suitable traditions to explain inter-
national environmental cooperation. The distinction between Krasner's
dif erent orientations is not important because regimes may matter under
certain conditions, meaning that ef ective regimes do matter.
Concerning the dif erent approaches used when dei ning and measuring
ef ectiveness, most of the regime theorists focus on institutional perform-
ance of a regime. Even those that consider the environmental problem do
not clearly dei ne how this aspect can be assessed. A dif erent approach
by Mitchell gives an example of such an assessment, but it leaves out of
the calculation factors that cannot be easily measured by numbers, such
as the political benei ts of cooperation. Kütting makes clear the need
for a distinction between institutional and environmental performance,
although looked at from a regime theory perspective. As far as qualitative
and quantitative techniques used in the study of regime ef ectiveness are
concerned, the former usually explains a case well, since time and ef ort
are spent in researching that particular case, however generalizability
poses problems. On the other hand, quantitative approaches can be valid
for many situations, but they might miss important case-specii c factors.
For instance, in counterfactual analysis it is dii cult to estimate the
