The Initial US Rule Models Uncertainty Economics and Universality
The rule model shaping U.S. negotiating positions and behavior remained remarkably stable in the years that climate change emerged as a political issue.67 There were two components to the U.S. rules. First, and underlying all else, the United States was committed to universal participation in negotiations and efforts to address climate change. Universal participation was positively reinforced during the latter ozone depletion negotiations and this understanding matched the social context....
Chapter Ozone Depletion
See Haas 1992 Rowlands 1995 Litfin 1994 Parson 1993 and Hamp-son 1995. 2. James Rosenau coined the categories sovereignty free and sovereignty bound in an attempt to move beyond state-centric thinking. See Rosenau 1990. 4. International Environment Reporter 1986e, 331. 5. Obviously, this is a simplification the rule model that the United States was using at this time was not somehow natural or static, rather, it is a snapshot of an evolving rule model. 6. Article 8 in Vienna Convention,...
Implications For The Governance Of Ozone Depletion And Climate Change
However, even given its simplicity, it produces complex patterns and demonstrates that stylized norm entrepreneurs can play a role in forging intersubjective agreement and that they contribute to norm evolution as well as emergence. It shows in a general, formal way that norm entrepreneurs can alter the dynamics of a system of interacting agents sometimes catalyzing the emergence and evolution of norms. While not an empirical test of the NLC, the modeling exercises and...
Pick a Number
The Pick a Number model19 is a modification of a common way to choose who gets to go first in childhood games. The contestants pick a number between one and ten and the winner is the person whose number falls closest to the number selected by a third party. I have extended this game by removing the exogenous arbiter the person who thought of the number the others were trying to guess. Instead the agents in the simulation must pick a number between zero and one hundred in an attempt to match the...
Universal Participation As Us Strategy
Universal participation was not rational (strictly speaking), nor was this commitment necessitated by the scientific characteristics of the problems. A third alternative story stresses the influence of powerful actors in shaping governance processes.35 Realist or hegemonic analysis is rarely applied to low political concerns such as global environmental politics, but the logic of the analysis can certainly inform an explanation of a transition to and lock-in around universal participation. The...
Universal Participation and the Prevalence of Development Concerns
From the outset, it was clear that the climate change negotiations would be universal and that South-North issues would be at the top of the agenda. Curiously, from a strategic bargaining (or rational coercive bargaining) standpoint, the North accepted the principles of North-first action and of development assistance (side payments of financial and technological transfers) without any bargaining even though the South lacked the bargaining leverage to force linkage of development concerns to...
Reach of the Entrepreneur
While the above results are valuable, they are just the beginning. Just how robust are the effects of norm entrepreneurs found in these initial analyses Under what conditions do norm entrepreneurs have which effects To begin to answer these questions, I undertook sensitivity analysis on the model in order to assess the importance of entrepreneur reach.441 investigated the impact of limited reach the effects if the norm entrepreneur could not influence the whole population, but rather just a...
Life Without Norm Entrepreneurs
When norm entrepreneurs are absent from the system, two types of macro patterns emerge in the simulations. Depending upon the noise levels in the system, the simulation exhibits a strict dichotomy between stability and volatility in the system. Figures 4.2 and 4.3 are typical runs without norm entrepreneurs. As the noise in the system increases the simulation switches from stable to volatile. Each figure reports the average predictions group outcome made in each round by the agent population...
Universal Participation As Conventional Wisdom
In academic treatments, universal participation has become an accepted necessary factor in regime building.1 Downs et al. claim that the acceptance of universal participation as necessary is a hallmark of the transformational approach to regime design.2 This approach is based on the idea that participating in a regime can transform the states that join, and that the regime will thus grow stronger over time. Inclusive, broad participation is thus a major prescription because it ensures the...
Universal Participation and the Development of US Stalling Strategies
Before the formal negotiations convened in 1991, the consequences of the U.S. understanding of climate change as a requiring a universal response were clearly evident. However, the question remains Did the United States internalize universal participation, especially given their recalcitrant stance and implicit threat to not participate in the climate change regimes The short answer remains yes. The universal participation requirement was the understanding of climate change that served to shape...
Earth Summit Rio June
The United States along with most of the UN states came together in Rio in 1992 for the historic United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development UNCED . A centerpiece of this conference was to be the signing of the FCCC. The United States managed to dictate the terms of the agreement as a condition for observing it, and thus the document sets no specific goals or timetables for reducing carbon dioxide.185 However, neither the binding targets nor the South-North debate ended when...
Progression Of The Analysis
The rest of this book serves as an assessment of the claims made in this first chapter, and the analysis proceeds in clear stages. First, it is necessary to justify the need for a norms-based analysis of participation in ozone depletion and climate change. If I used a different theoretical lens, I might claim that universal participation is not a norm at all, but a result of the strategy of powerful actors with given interests, or determined directly by the objective scientific knowledge of...
Acknowledgements
I could not have completed this research and volume without the benefit of the expertise and aid of numerous people. I would be remiss if I did not thank Mary Durfee for diverting me from environmental engineering and sending me into the world of IR. At The George Washington University, Marty Finnemore, Jim Rosenau, and Susan Sell provided incredible support and guidance throughout the research process. Their advice and encouragement have been a continual source of motivation and direction....
Conclusion
To conclude, it is crucial to clearly differentiate between what this book claims and what it does not. First, I do not claim that eventually solving climate change and other global environmental problems can be accomplished with less than universal participation. Obviously, both ozone depletion and climate change are problems with global extent that emerge from diverse and numerous activities. Solving climate change, especially, will likely require participation at multiple levels...
