The political economy of international environmental agreements: a survey

This paper surveys the recent literature on the political economy of the formation of international environmental agreements. The survey covers theoretical modelling approaches and empirical studies including experimental work. Central to our survey is the question how the political process impacts different stages of agreement formation and stability. We distinguish the rules defined during pre-negotiations that govern negotiations, ratification and implementation. Strategic delegation and lobbying are directly relevant during the negotiation and ratification phases. Implementation, the choice of policy instruments at the national level, will also be impacted by lobbying and indirectly influence negotiations. We find that the basic theoretical framework for the analysis of international environmental agreements is largely unrelated to empirical approaches. Furthermore, we observe that models of the political process of agreement formation, like for example sequential game models, are yet to be developed.     

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze des Zeitschriftenjahrgangs 2001

Mitteilungen und Berichte

     

Die Einbettung des Handelns. Pierre Bourdieus Praxeologie

Der Artikel rekonstruiert die Grundzüge der Handlungstheorie Pierre Bourdieus anhand dreier Thesen: Die werkgeschichtliche These behauptet die Kontinuität des Bourdieu’schen Denkens, die methodologische reklamiert die Überwindung der zentralen Schismen der Sozialtheorie, die theoretische geht davon aus, dass sein Ansatz ein fruchtbares Zusammenspiel von Sozialstruktur und Kultur eröffnet. Auf dieser Grundlage entwickelt der Aufsatz schrittweise Bourdieus Ansatz und demonstriert dabei dessen handlungstheoretische Fruchtbarkeit, und dies sowohl entlang der vertikalen als auch der horizontalen Achse. Die Rekonstruktion des Bourdieu’schen Ansatzes zeigt, dass dieser alle typischen Probleme der Handlungstheorie konstruktiv aufnimmt. Er markiert damit zugleich die Bedeutung der Trias Struktur — Habitus — Praxis innerhalb und außerhalb der Soziologie.     

International Environmental Agreements for biodiversity conservation: a game-theoretic analysis

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on International Environmental Agreements with an analysis of key characteristics for biodiversity conservation. We study three features that are specific to an international conservation agreement: the existence of a natural upper bound of conservation in each country, the importance of local benefits, and the subadditivity of the global conservation function. We consider asymmetries in benefits and costs of conservation and, separately, in the upper bound of conservation in each country, and we examine the impacts of these features on coalition stability and on the effectiveness of biodiversity agreements. Results show that subadditivity of the global conservation function can lead to larger stable coalitions. The inclusion of a transfer scheme that might be implemented through, e.g., international trade of biodiversity credits, can have an impact on coalition composition and can improve conservation outcomes and the size of stable coalitions in certain ranges of the parameter space.