The Study and Practice of Global Environmental Politics: Policy Influence Through Participation

The Study and Practice of Global Environmental Politics: Policy Influence through Participation Jessica F. Green, Case Western Reserve University1 Thomas Hale, Oxford University 11 December 2014 Prepared for the TRIP Strengthening the Links Conference 14-16 January 2015 Williamsburg, VA -Please do not circulate without authors’ permission- 1. Introduction Unlike war and peace or trade and investment, transboundary environmental problems are a relatively new feature of world politics, only emerging in the wake of the diffusion of industrial production and related global consumption patterns. But at the outset of the 21st century, it seems clear that environmental challenges will occupy a central and growing place in policymakers’ attention for the foreseeable future. Our impact on the natural world is imposing significant and increasing economic, health, and security costs on human societies. Indeed, environmental scholars now proclaim that we have entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which human impact has altered the natural systems of the planet.2 Moreover, the sources of these problems span national borders, with some, like climate change, reaching literally global proportions. The implications for world politics are profound. As an October 2014 Pentagon report noted, “Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water 1 Corresponding author. Please direct all comments to [email protected]. We would like to thank Peter Dauvergne, Kai Lee, Ron Mitchell, Marc Levy and Stacy VanDeveer for comments on an earlier draft. We are grateful to Quentin Karpilow for his excellent research assistance. 2 Crutzen and Stoermer 2000. 1 shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.”3 The implications for the study of world politics are similarly weighty. If international relations (IR) cannot contribute to environmental questions that concern the survival of humanity, it will be of limited relevance to world politics. While the study of global environmental issues has expanded in IR, GEP remains one of the more neglected subject areas in the field, as we demonstrate empirically in Section 3. More bluntly, consider Robert O. Keohane’s the 2014 Madison Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, in which he indicted the field’s neglect of climate change: “[A]lthough there is some outstanding work by political scientists (especially Victor 2001; Victor 2011), the list is small. Very few major political science departments have on their faculty someone whose principal research concerns climate change – although for the future of humanity climate change is at least as important as other topics that receive much more attention, including international trade and human rights. Compare our slight attention to climate change with the enormous attention the profession paid to an earlier existential threat to the planet – nuclear war.” We concur with Keohane that environmental issues – not just climate change – remain at the margins of the discipline. If one goal of academic study is to contribute to broader public discussions of import (as we believe it is), then the subfield must engage more actively with environmental issues. Given the relative lack of attention climate and other global environmental issues have received from IR scholars, can there be much evidence for IR’s influence on global environmental politics (GEP)? We argue that there has in fact been a substantial role for IR concepts and scholars in the practice and policy of global politics of the environment. We find it analytically useful to divide “influence” into three ideal types that fall on a “direct-indirect” spectrum. At the most direct level, causal influence occurs when scholarly ideas alter the behavior of policymakers through observable causal mechanisms. In other words, policy behavior would not have occurred but for specific academic findings or concepts. At the other end of the spectrum, diffuse influence occurs when scholarly research generally tracks and responds to the concerns raised in the policy world, and vice-versa. Here scholars and policymakers do not necessarily interact extensively, but share a common set of interests, knowledge, concerns, and assumptions. Between these two extremes, we identify interactive influence, in which scholars actively participate alongside policymakers in various policy processes. In this form 3 U.S. Department of Defense. 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Report. Washington, DC. Available at: http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/CCARprint.pdf. 2 of influence, in the middle of the spectrum, causality likely flows both ways, as scholars and policymakers engage in information exchange within a context of joint problem-solving. We argue that this last form of influence is the most significant within GEP, and relatively more common in GEP than in other IR subfields for three reasons: the technical nature of many issues increases the relative value of specialized knowledge, and epistemic communities include social scientists; GEP scholars are personally committed to environmental policy; and environmental policymakers are more diffuse and accessible than those in other issue areas. The paper proceeds as follows. We first describe how we define the various types of influence in greater detail. The remainder of the paper considers how each type of influence has and has not manifested in the realm of global environmental politics (GEP). We begin with diffuse influence, considering the parallel development of global environmental politics and the study thereof. We find increasing resonance between the two over time, as well as a growing role for GEP in IR. Next, we consider an example of direct influence. This is quite rare. Last, we consider interactive influence, which we argue to be of particular relevance for global environmental politics. The conclusion identifies opportunities for IR scholars to expand policy-relevant research on environmental politics going forward. 2. Defining Influence: Causal, Diffuse, and Engagement In order to determine whether GEP scholarship has had any influence on policy practice, we must define what we mean by influence. We suggest that influence can be conceptualized on a continuum. At the most direct end, specific scholarly ideas and actions alter the behavior of policymakers. Betsill and Correll define this type of influence as situations “when one actor intentionally communicates to another so as to alter the latter’s behavior from what would have occurred otherwise.”4 This is a very high standard for influence; indeed, Betsill and Correll apply this definition to NGOs, who generally have the explicit project of influencing state policy. To establish this type of specific influence requires careful analysis, which would likely include process tracing and counterfactual analysis to demonstrate that the proposal advanced by a specific actor is reflected in the outcomes because of that actor’s efforts. As we explore below, we expect this type of attributable, causal influence to be rare because it requires academics to divert significant time from research and teaching, and presumes that academics and their ideas wield decisive influence in complex policy processes in which many different actors compete for influence. These conditions obtain infrequently. Nonetheless, we find it is useful to consider causal influence as an ideal type because it corresponds to an intuitive (or possibly naïve) view of what “influence” entails. 4 Betsill and Corell 2008, 24. 3 At the other end of the continuum is a much more diffuse form of influence, where concepts and ideas generated by GEP scholars are adopted by policy practitioners and reflected in policy outcomes. This need not be the result of scholars’ efforts, but instead can occur because academic work simply “out there” in the world is utilized in the crafting or implementation of policy. For example, scholars who name phenomena and describe their characteristics may render a useful service to policymakers or activists who then can build on this knowledge, although they do not seek to influence individual actors or policies. Scholars react to developments in the policy world, and scholarly concepts and ideas leak into policy discussions and, ultimately, policy. We posit that this highly diffuse form of (mutual) influence is the most common variety, on average, across issue areas and subfields. In between these two ends of the continuum are forms of influence we broadly term interactive influence, which we define as the direct involvement of scholars in policy work. Such involvement can take several forms. First, many multilateral environmental institutions allow and encourage academic observers (along with other members of civil society) to participate through official submissions, “side events” at multilateral meetings, and in other ways. GEP scholars regularly put forward a range of ideas and policy proposals, many (but not all) drawing on academic data and analysis. Second, many international organizations include scholarly experts in various committees tasked with reviewing or implementing decisions. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), tasked with developing a scientific consensus on the causes and impacts of climate

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