Realism -Neorealism PDF

Realism –Neorealism 1 2 major strains of realism 1. largely neglects economics Machiavelli: little connection between economics and politics. Postwar American realists :economics =“low politics”. 2. draws close linkages between power/security and economic relations. Thucydides: war among to Greek city-states due to both security/strategic and economic reasons. Classical Mercantilists (16th-17th): linkages between wealth and power (a major factor in the establishment of a realist perspective on IPE). 2 Basic Tenets of the Realist Perspective 1. There is no central authority above nation-states in the international system unlike most domestic societies, international relations is a “self-help” system in which each state must look after its own interests => the international system is anarchic 2. Nation-state is the principal or dominant actor in the international system Elements of the modern nation-state : a people, a territory in which they lived, and a government (Treaty of Westphalia (1648) The government: a legal entity having the special status of sovereignty Sovereignty= the state has an absolute power over its subjects (“internal sovereignty”) and an absolute right to be free from interference by other states in the exercise of that power (“external sovereignty”) 3 3. Nation-States preserve national sovereignty and pursue own national interest To retain its sovereignty, a state must have sufficient power to defend its interests.  the pursuit of power is a primary objective in furthering the national interest. Realists give top priority to the survival/security of the state which are a necessary precondition for its economic and political well-being. Power: the ability to prevail in conflict and overcome obstacles : i.e. the ability to influence the behavior of others in accordance to own => Power = means to maximize utility 4 4. Nation-states are rational, unitary actors Rational actor: government uses a rational process to achieve goals (i.e., maximize utility) regardless of its form of government or type of economic system Rationality: individuals connect choices transitively, take constraints into account, and choose the course of action that they believe will give them the best result. => Rationality = the ability to relate means to ends. Unitary actor: the government is a monolith, that is a. It speaks with one voice b. It holds one view c. It has one set of agreed-on values d. It has one set of agreed-on goals. NOTE: Non-state actors (International Organizations) generally operate within the rubric of state policies 5 This a point of disagreement with both liberals and realists Relationship between politics and economics Realists 1. give priority to politics over economics. 2. assume the state has considerable capacity to structure economic relations at the international level. Realists are critical of liberal theorists who argue that increased interdependence and globalization erode state control => Larger states have the capacity of either opening or closing world markets and they can also use the globalization process to improve their power position vis-à-vis smaller/weaker states. 6 The nature and purpose of international economic relations 1. Because of the anarchic nature of the international system, each state looks after its own survival and security => a security dilemma results when each state takes actions to bolster its own security because such actions increase the fear and insecurity of other states. 2. Because economic relations in an anarchic international system are often a zero-sum game (one group’s gain equals another group’s loss) => states are concerned with relative gains that is each state seeks to maximize its gains (minimize its losses) relative to other state(s). In the PD game the non-cooperative equilibrium. 7 Absolute versus Relative Gains Neoliberal Institutionalists versus Realists Recall: Payoff = quantities of a good (money) Utility = level of satisfaction derived from payoffs Neoliberal Institutionalists argue that states attain greater utility as they achieve higher individual payoffs: U=V (= a state enjoys utility, U, in direct proportion to its payoff, V) => 1. State utility functions are independent of one another 2. States are indifferent to the payoffs of others 8 Realists argue that in an anarchic system 1. states prefer greater than smaller absolute gains 2. states prefer smaller rather than larger gaps in gains favoring partners 3. Some states strive for, and all states would accept (but not necessarily seek) gaps in gains in their favor U = V – k(W-V) k represents state A’s coefficient of sensitivity to gaps in payoffs = the level of the state’s susceptibility to reductions in utility if gaps in gains favor partners. Note: Payoffs by others do not in themselves affect state A’s utility, only gaps in payoffs (W-V) do so [gaps in favor of B (W-V)>0, reduce A’s U; gaps in favor of A (W-V) cannot be neatly categorized. Hegemonic stability theory asserts that a relatively open and stable international system is most likely when there is a single dominant or hegemonic state that 1. has a sufficient large share of resources that it is able to provide leadership 2. is willing to pursue policies necessary to create and maintain a liberal economic order. The hegemon must follow policies that other major actors believe are relatively beneficial. 12 Hegemonic conditions have occurred 1. Under Britain in the 19th century 2. Under the United States in the 20th century 3. Under the United Provinces (the present-day Netherlands) in the mid-17th century (but its international power was not comparable to British and American influence). 13 What are the motives and strategies of hegemonic states? 3 different models of hegemony 1. The hegemon is interested in promoting generalized benefits than its self-interest and relies on rewards rather than coercion to ensure compliance by other states => benevolent hegemon is concerned with the absolute gains of states (Liberals: provide public goods) 2. The hegemon has an interest in general as well as personal benefits and relies on coercive methods when necessary to achieve its objectives=>mixed motives and strategies hegemon is concerned with both absolute and relative gains. (Realists: the overall effects of hegemony are beneficial) 3. The hegemon is interested in own self-interest and uses coercion to enforce compliance => exploitative hegemon is more concerned with relative gains.(Marxists) 14 Is hegemony necessary and/or sufficient for the provision of international public goods? Realists: the existence of a hegemon increases the likelihood for the provision of international public goods => hegemony is both necessary and sufficient Necessary: hegemon promotes provision by helping create and maintain international regimes Example: The USA Sufficient: regimes are more difficult to maintain if a hegemon is declining or there is no hegemon. Evidence: British hegemony in the 19th contributed to trade liberalization. The decline of British hegemony 1875 led to a decline in free trade. The lack of a hegemon in the interwar years resulted in increased protectionism culminating to the Great Depression. The emergence of the USA as a global hegemon after WWII resulted in the reemergence of an open and stable international economic regime. 15 Is the US hegemony declining? Declinists: hegemony is inherently unstable and according to Koehane “one of the most important features of American hegemony was its brevity”. Reasons for US hegemonic declines 1. Its tendency to overextend itself in both military and economic terms 2. The tendency of free riders to gain more from economic openness than the USA does 3. The emergence of more dynamic and competitive economies that challenge the USA’s predominant position. Renewalists: although USA’s economic power of has declined in relative terms since 1945, still the USA is still the hegemon because: 1. It has a considerable amount of structural or “soft” power (i.e. successful in getting other countries to want what it wants) => it continues to have a large degree of control over setting the global agenda and determining how issues are dealt with in international politics. 2. US supremacy in the military-security permits it to exercise power in economic issues. 3. US television, movies, and magazines have an enormous effect on cultural 16 tastes and habits around the world. USA and climate change USA’s position on climate change should be examined 1. in a historical context = a la carte approach to environmental policy (=multi-track approach: multilateral, unilateral) 2. environmental policy was never central to the US efforts (as opposed to trade and monetary policy) 3. domestic factors very important (= interplay between domestic interest groups and the fragmented nature of USA’s political system) 17 Environmental leadership has an important effect on international negotiations and norm creation takes many forms 1. Entrepreneurial leadership: facilitates compromise and agreement in international bargaining in the interest of environmental causes 2. Intellectual leadership: diffusion and role model effects of national environmental policies 3. Structural leadership: explicit use of economic incentives and sanctions in pursuit of international environmental objectives 18 US and EU perspectives US: the laggard 1. Expressed skepticism regarding the state of scientific knowledge 2. Emphasizes the costs to its economy of limiting emissions 3. Stresses the alleged inequities of their having to act while fast- growing developing countries (China, India) do not. 4. Formed the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (2005) (Australia, Japan, China, Korea, India and Canada) to weaken collective action on climate change EU: the leader 1. Was instrumental in the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol 2. Is likely to meet the emissions reduction obligations of the Kyoto 3. Was influential in making the Kyoto ‘mechanisms (emissions trading and the CDM) work 4. Has built further multilateral action on climate change. 19 US-EU relations Hegemonic rivalry with prolonged conflict because 1. EU does not see the US as being important in climate change (better to build relations with large developing countries) 2. They have competing forms of capitalist organization a. competitiveness concerns: emissions reductions affect competitiveness through the increased production costs or ‘carbon linkage’ ( polluting industries migrate outside the regulated zone) b. competing models of growth US= carboniferous capitalism (development based on cheap fossil-fuel energy resources and extensive land development) EU= ecological modernization (corporatism is conducive to development of policies favoring ecological transformation of capitalist economies) 3. The climate change regime has become very complex ( many actors, many levels of interaction) 26 International Studies Review (2005) 7, 585–599 American Hegemony and the Global Environment ROBERT FALKNER Department of International Relations, London School of Economics What about the critics who say the Bush AdministrationFat bestFlacks an en- vironmental policy? OrFat worstFis engaged in an assault on the environment? It’s clear that we have failed in the court of public opinion to tell our story. ( John F. Turner, US Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, March 2, 2004) For many environmentalists in Europe and elsewhere, the United States has emerged as the new ‘‘rogue state’’ in global green politics. Ever since the United States took a backseat at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, US foreign policy has appeared to be lukewarm about, and often hostile to, multilateral environmental policymaking. From the rejection of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to the withdrawal from the Kyoto Pro- tocol on climate change, the United States has shown itself to be concerned more with national economic interests than global environmental threats. Many observ- ers see this as a fundamental shift away from the US environmental leadership of the 1970s and 1980s. In the early days of global environmentalism, the United States pioneered modern environmental legislation and promoted the creation of global regimes ranging from ozone layer protection to the preservation of threat- ened species. More recently, however, the US government has repeatedly chal- lenged the need for new environmental treaties; questioned the scientific basis of international regulation; and rejected the notion that precautionary action is war- ranted in the face of potential ecological dangers. Whereas in the 1970s and 1980s, the United States frequently branded European countries as environmental lag- gards, it is the European Union (EU) that now claims the mantle of international leadership in sustainable development. This reversal in international environmental roles coincides with a fundamental shift in international relations. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War have precipitated a profound change in the underlying structure of the international system. The United States has emerged from this tectonic shift as the predominant power in a unipolar international environment. With no other state to challenge its preponderance in the military field, talk of the return of hegemony, and even empire, has gripped the imagination of scholars (Ikenberry 2001; Wade 2003). Curiously, the renaissance of the study of hegemony has left no discernible mark on the field of international environmental studies. This fact is somewhat surprising, given the widespread perception of a shift in US foreign environmental policy since the early 1990s. To be sure, hegemony has never fared well as a concept in the study of international environmental policymaking. But the strengthening of America’s hegemonic position in the post-Cold War era and its more overtly uni- lateralist stance should give rise to more systematic reflection on the links between the international distribution of power and the pursuit of global environ- mental objectives. This essay provides some initial thoughts on the relevance of r 2005 International Studies Review. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK. 586 American Hegemony and the Global Environment ‘‘hegemony’’ to the study of international environmental politics and US environ- mental diplomacy. Indeed, the essay takes as its starting point the widespread perception of America’s foreign environmental policy as increasingly unilateralist and obstruc- tionist. Although there is considerable prima facie evidence to support this view, it would be misleading simply to equate the rise of US hegemony with a kind of global antienvironmentalism. Hegemony is central to understanding US foreign policy; this applies to foreign environmental policy as well. However, the link between the position of the United States in the international structure and its environmental diplomacy is more complex than systemic theory would suggest. Three points in particular are worth noting: First, America’s apparent disengagement from multilateral environmental pol- icymaking must be seen in a wider historical context. An exclusive focus on post- Cold War transformations in the international system is at danger of overstating the recent shift toward unilateralism. A historically informed perspective would em- phasize both the use of unilateral measures in the past and the continued relevance of multilateralism today. Even though there is greater willingness in Washington ‘‘to go it alone,’’ unilateralism has always been part and parcel of US environmental diplomacy. Ever since the first UN environmental conference in 1972, the United States has pursued a multitrack approach, which has included multilateral envi- ronmental policymaking as well as the use of unilateral threats and sanctions. The more recent revival of US hegemony will merely strengthen this á la carte approach to environmental policy instruments. Second, there is no simple and straightforward correlation between America’s hegemonic position and the type of environmental diplomacy it is likely to pursue. The fact of hegemony as such does not determine whether the United States will promote or oppose the creation of international environmental governance. To some extent, a link can be established between US predominance in the international political economy and the rise of global environmentalism since the late 1960s, analogous to the way in which it promoted global economic cooperation after 1945. But unlike trade and monetary policy, environmental policy has never been central to the US effort to create international order. At times, the US government has used its economic strength and political influence to promote global environmental ob- jectives. On other occasions, it has acted as a veto power, blocking progress toward multilateral policymaking. This suggests that we have no convincing structural the- ory that can explain the direction and evolution of US foreign environmental policy. Third, we, therefore, need to look at the domestic sources of US foreign en- vironmental policy. Given the absence of a global strategic imperative in US en- vironmental diplomacy, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the United States pursues global environmental issues largely in response to domestic imperatives. Indeed, closer analysis of the foreign policymaking process supports the view that domestic factors play a key role in determining environmental diplomacy, arguably more so than in many other foreign policy arenas. As will be discussed below, the fluctuation and diversity in US foreign environmental policy to a large extent re- flect the interplay among domestic interest groups and the fragmented nature of America’s political system. Much of US foreign environmental policy can be un- derstood as an attempt to internationalize domestic environmental policy objectives or to protect domestic economic interests against international regulatory threats, depending on the prevailing balance of domestic interests. America’s strengthened position as a global hegemon is, thus, likely to reinforce the domestic imperative in foreign environmental policy. It is important to note, however, that the domestic imperative can work in both ways: against as well as in favor of multilateral en- vironmental solutions. The essay proceeds in three parts. The first part examines the concept of he- gemony within the study of international environmental politics, highlighting its ROBERT FALKNER 587 potential uses and shortcomings. The second part seeks to shed light on the apparent contradictions in US foreign environmental policy. It argues that in ex- plaining US involvement in the global environmental agenda, hegemony provides an important, albeit incomplete, perspective and needs to be supplemented with other, nonstructural dimensions. The third part seeks to explain the variation in the con- duct of US foreign environmental policy with reference to domestic factors. Against the backdrop of this explanation, the concluding part provides an interpretation of US foreign environmental policy and multilateralism’s problematic place within it. Hegemony and the Study of International Environmental Politics Political-structural approaches1 to hegemony have played only a marginal role in the burgeoning literature on international environmental politics. This is in stark contrast to the study of international economic relations, in which scholars have invoked the concept of hegemony in explaining the emergence and endurance of international cooperation and regimes. Serious concerns exist with regard to the explanatory power of the concept of hegemony (Lake 1993; Walter 1993), but for many it remains a useful starting point for analysis. In environmental studies, however, hegemony has not featured prominently; indeed, most of those scholars who have considered its explanatory power have rejected it. The appeal of the structural approach to theories of international bargaining and cooperation rests on its status as a highly parsimonious form of reasoning. Linking specific outcomes in international negotiations to the distribution of power between the players involved often provides an intuitively convincing first-cut explanation. In this perspective, powerful states tend to be rule makers and less powerful states tend to be rule takers. International institutions, such as the Bretton Woods regime, broadly reflect the interests of the leading powers that dominated international society at the time of their creation. Structural theory predicts that, by and large, great powers and particularly hegemons determine the course of international regime building (Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger 1997: chap. 4). Scholars of international environmental politics have objected to this line of thinking for two reasons. At an empirical level, several cases can be cited in which environmental regimes have been created and developed irrespective of, and even against, the interests of the great powers and especially the hegemon. Oran Young (1994:117) has pointed to the bargaining regarding the deep seabed provision of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, in which the United States was unable to prevail over other countries, and the 1990 London Amendments to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which included provisions that the United States did not want to see as part of the Protocol. One can add to this the case of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which was adopted despite severe US reservations and entered into force in February 2005. More recently, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety was adopted in 2000 and entered into force in 2003; this protocol was achieved despite US obstinacy (Falkner 2000). These cases suggest that it has been possible at least to reach agreement on in- ternational environmental issues without full US support or even against active US opposition. Of course, whether international regimes created against the interests of hegemons stand a chance of being effective cannot be taken for granted. But it is widely accepted that the experience with international environmental policymaking in the twentieth century does not support the claim that hegemony is a necessary condition for regime formation. 1 This essay focuses on political-structural theory that takes the distribution of power in the international states- system as the central structural variable (for example, Krasner 1976) as compared to the economic-structural theory that merges dominant state power with capitalist structures (for example, Cox 1987) in its perspective on global hegemony. 588 American Hegemony and the Global Environment At a conceptual level, structural accounts emphasizing the role of hegemons have been criticized for providing only a partial explanation of international cooperation at best or for ignoring the issue-specific characteristics of international environ- mental politics. Young (1994) has argued that the question of transferability or substitutability of different forms of power limits the applicability of hegemonic theory in the field of environmental protection. The United States may be the unrivaled military superpower at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but ‘‘there is little reason to believe that military power has much relevance in the negotiations of... environmental regimes’’ (Young 1994:136). In a similar vein, Gareth Porter and Janet Welsh Brown (1996:15) state: Global environmental politics do not give rise to a hegemonic power in the tra- ditional sense of a state with the ability to use military power to coerce other states into accepting the hegemon’s position. There is no positive correlation between dominant military power and leadership on global environmental issuesFand there may be a negative correlation between the two in that high levels of military spending divert financial resources from environmental issues. Given the empirical anomalies and conceptual limitations of hegemonic theory, it is not surprising to find most environmental scholars looking for other, nonstructural accounts of environmental regime building. In his review of recent scholarship on global environmental politics, Ronald Mitchell (1998) accords only marginal value to hegemony in explaining regime formation. While acknowledging that regimes can be imposed by hegemonic states or that weaker states may perceive certain regimes as imposed, Mitchell (2003:505) asserts that ‘‘structural power provides less explanatory leverage than realists might have us believe.’’ Michael Zürn (1998:625), in his review of recent scholarship on international environmental politics, likewise dismisses the notion that hegemonic power plays a major explan- atory role. In accounting for the rise of international environmental regimes and governance, the majority of environmental scholars have used neoliberal institu- tionalist, cognitivist, or transnationalist arguments (Haas 1990; Haas, Keohane, and Levy 1993; Wapner 1996). When structural arguments enter the analysis, they usually do so with regard to the distribution of interests and issue-specific power resources in a given policy field, but less so with regard to the basic structure of the international system and its conditioning effect on interstate relations. If hegemony is conceived narrowly in terms of military preponderance, the concept will be of very limited use in the study of international environmental politics. Considering the economic foundations of hegemony, however, brings into sharper focus the close nexus between international economic interdependence and the global ecology. Because hegemons invariably occupy a prominent place within the global economy, their foreign policy is bound to be of critical importance to the prospects of creating effective environmental regimes. Depending on the nature of the environmental issue, economic power can be a determining factor regarding that hegemon’s bargaining position (Young 1994:134–138). For exam- ple, economic predominance is a critical asset when a hegemon can use trade sanctions in an asymmetrical fashion, that is, without facing retaliatory action by target nations. In a similar fashion, economically dominant countries may be able to resist pressure to go along with international efforts to protect the environment and can be thought of as potential ‘‘veto powers’’ that are able to block progress in international negotiations. In environmental issue areas in which the cooperation of a hegemon, or a group of economically influential countries, is essential to the success of a regime, these countries will be in an exceptionally strong bargaining position (Porter and Brown 1996:14). Hegemony, thus, remains a relevant concept for the study of international environmental politics, if not to explain the creation of regimes, at least to help us understand the obstacles to effective international action. ROBERT FALKNER 589 American Hegemony and International Environmental Politics: Between Leadership and Veto Power For hegemonic theory to provide a useful guide to understanding a hegemon’s foreign policy, it needs to be supported by an account of its domestic sources. As critics of hegemonic stability theory have pointed out, an exclusively systemic ap- proach cannot explain the particular policy choices that a hegemon makes (Lake 1993:477). This criticism applies to the nature of trade and monetary policy as much as to environmental policy. It is, therefore, necessary to clarify the domestic structures and dynamics that sustain a specific approach taken by a hegemon when dealing with global environmental problems. Throughout the history of international environmental politics, the United States has played an active role in the creation and design of international regimes and has used its power to pursue its preferred policy objectives. To be sure, US he- gemony has not translated into international policy outcomes in a straightforward manner. Nor has US foreign environmental policy been consistent over time in terms of its overall direction. Depending on the environmental issue that is the focus of attention and its broader international context, America’s hegemony has formed the basis for both international leadership and veto power in environmental regime formation. There is, thus, no simple correlation between the US position in the international system and its environmental objectives. As will be argued below, the influence of competing domestic interest groups and the fragmented nature of the foreign policy system in the United States are largely responsible for the con- siderable variation in US foreign environmental policy over time and across issue areas. Hegemony as Environmental Leadership The first use of hegemony in international environmental politics revolves around the use of superior power in the interest of international regime building. Young (1989:88) has argued in International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Re- sources and the Environment that, even though hegemonic states rarely impose in- ternational regimes against the wishes of other states, they play an important role in providing leadership in the creation of mutually agreeable environmental regimes. Although environmental leadership does not necessarily result from hegemonic power, it is closely linked to such power. Environmental leadership can take many different forms: policy entrepreneurship of individual actors in international bar- gaining that facilitates compromise and agreement in the interest of environmental causes (entrepreneurial leadership); diffusion and role model effects of national environmental policy (intellectual leadership); and the more explicit use of eco- nomic incentives and sanctions in pursuit of international environmental objectives (structural leadership) (Young 1991; Lake 1993; Vogel 1997; Tews 2004). Even though hegemony is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the existence of environmental leadership, it is usually only powerful states that have a lasting effect on international negotiations and norm creation. Weaker states may assume a leading position when it comes to developing progressive environmental policies or demanding stringent international rules. But such initiatives will remain ineffective if they are not backed up by political and economic clout that can foster international agreement and induce compliance. For example, smaller European states such as Denmark and the Netherlands have often been in the vanguard of environmental policy innovation, but Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is usu- ally credited with providing the essential leadership for advancing environmental policies at the EU level. A similar picture emerges in the international system. It is mainly states that have dominant economic and political clout and whose position in the international economy affords them the possibility of exerting indirect or direct 590 American Hegemony and the Global Environment pressure on other states that can provide effective leadership on environmental issues. The United States is a good example of this conclusion. For much of the early phase of international environmental politics, the United States provided inter- national leadership in one form or the other. It was one of the first leading in- dustrialized nations to develop comprehensive environmental legislation and reg- ulatory institutions. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was set up in 1970 to integrate the widely scattered programs and institutions dealing with environmental matters, instantly became a model for similar regulatory agencies that were created in other industrialized countries during the 1970s. Much of this state activity was underpinned by the world’s most dynamic environmental move- ment, which came into existence in the mid-1960s. US environmental groups ranging from the more traditional bodies (Sierra Club, National Audubon Society) to modern environmental nongovernmental organizations (Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace) worked to create broadly based domestic support for a more ambitious environmental policy at home and abroad. US scientists and activists came to play a leading role in the global envi- ronmental movement that began to emerge in the 1970s (Kraft 2004). At the international level, the United States began to claim the mantle of en- vironmental leader, first at the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972 (Hopgood 1998:96), and later in the context of the multilateral efforts to agree on environmental treaties. Having declared eight whale species endangered based on the Endangered Species Act of 1969, the United States took up the issue of whale preservation internationally and initiated a transformation of the international whaling regime to emphasize species protection rather than nat- ural resource usage. US diplomatic pressure and threat of sanctions were instru- mental in getting the International Whaling Commission to place a ban on commercial whaling in 1984 (Porter and Brown 1996:77–81; Fletcher 2001). Also in the 1970s, the United States began to support international efforts to take action against ozone layer depletion and in the 1980s became a key advocate of international restrictions on the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. During the ne- gotiations on the Montreal Protocol, the US government provided important lead- ership and exerted pressure on skeptical states, especially the European producers of ozone-depleting substances, that objected to strong international measures (Benedick 1991). Whereas the ozone negotiations provided the United States with an opportunity to display leadership in a multilateral context, US policy on the conservation of species took on a more unilateral character. More than any other country, the United States has used the threat of sanctions to change other nations’ behavior in areas that endanger threatened species. Using import restrictions on products made in an environmentally damaging way, the US government forced foreign fishing fleets to comply with American standards of protection of, for ex- ample, dolphins and sea turtles (DeSombre 2001). In these cases and others, the United States benefitted from its superior position as the world’s largest economy and import market for internationally traded goods. The nodal position that the US economy occupies in international economic flows affords it a unique opportunity to use economic pressure in the pursuit of envi- ronmental objectives. This is not to say that other nations are devoid of similar economic power; depending on the nature of the environmental issue, economic power can be more dispersed than concentrated in the international economy. In biodiversity protection, for example, none of the industrialized countries appear to have such decisive economic clout that it can force support of the global biodiversity regime; all they can do is provide financial side payments. Furthermore, the Eu- ropean Union has emerged as a potential contender to US environmental lead- ership not the least because it has assumed a coequal position in key areas of international policymaking, such as in international trade (Smith 2004). But the fact ROBERT FALKNER 591 remains that on many environmental issues, the United States has unrivaled op- portunities for exercising leadership. That it has not always acted on these oppor- tunities does not alter the reality of America’s superior power. Hegemony as Environmental Veto Power Hegemony can provide the basis for environmental leadership, but it can also easily degenerate into a source of veto power. Just as economically dominant states can use their power in the interest of environmental action, so they can seek to block progress on international efforts to manage environmental problems. The United States has acted as both a leader and a veto power over the last 30 years in the environmental arena, and has shifted toward the latter more decisively in recent years. Veto power in environmental affairs rests on the ability of a state, or a group of states, to withhold essential cooperation in the management of environmental problems (Porter and Brown 1996:14). Environmental veto power does not solely rest with hegemons. For example, Brazil, Malaysia, and other countries with trop- ical forests were able to resist pressure to agree on a binding forestry regime at the 1992 UNCED, mainly because the world’s largest rainforests are within their na- tional jurisdiction. But a hegemon such as the United States possesses a environ- mental veto power in a more comprehensive manner, spanning across a wide range of environmental issue areas, because of its pivotal role as the world’s leading economy. A few economic indicators may serve to illustrate this point. For example, the United States is the world’s largest contributor to man-made climate change. It emitted 23.4 percent of global CO2 emissions in 2002 (US Department of Energy 2004). The US share of global energy consumption is in the region of one-quarter. The average per capita consumption of energy in the United States is five times the global average, with per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the United States being double that of most other industrialized nations and nearly 20 times that of India’s per capita emissions (Starke 2004:26). The US share of global forest products consumption is 18.5 percent (FAO 1996 data), and the US share of worldwide materials consumption is 28.7 percent (US Geological Survey 1995 data). These are merely snapshots of a larger picture that emerges when one considers the share of US production of environmental ‘‘bads’’ and consumption of environmental ‘‘goods.’’ They indicate the scale of American entanglement with an environmen- tally damaging economic system that spans the world. The United States, thus, has the potential to dramatically influence the effectiveness of international regimes in their promotion of environmental protection. Its contribution to international ac- tion will be crucial to overall success; its failure to participate in joint efforts is likely to prevent other states from acting on their own. In this sense, American economic hegemony is of direct concern to the field of global environmental governance. Turning now to the historical record, we can find several instances in which the United States has acted as a veto power or has failed to cooperate with other nations in the search for solutions to global environmental problems. To be sure, US refusal to join multilateral environmental agreements did not always prevent such agree- ments from entering into force. Indeed, one of the more remarkable facets of international environmental policymaking is the emergence of regimes in the ab- sence of hegemonic leadership or cooperation. But when the United States has refused to support international agreements, as in the case of the Kyoto Protocol, their effectiveness is severely constrained. In the long run, US participation is essential to providing effective solutions to global environmental problems. The collapse of US environmental leadership in recent times has broadly coin- cided with the end of the Cold War. Although the Reagan administration had already started to reign in the ever-expanding scope of environmental regulation, the impact of the Republicans’ deregulatory agenda manifested itself in foreign 592 American Hegemony and the Global Environment policy only under the presidency of the first George Bush. US opposition to key agreements at UNCED in 1992 signaled a new confrontational approach that was to characterize US policy throughout the 1990s. When the Clinton administration took office in January 1993, many expected the new White House to resume a leading role in international environmental politics. Vice President Al Gore’s long- standing commitment to progressive environmental policy, as expressed in his best- selling book Earth in the Balance, was reflected in the Clinton–Gore election cam- paign manifesto: The world faces a crisis because of global climate change, ozone depletion, and unsustainable population growth. These developments threaten our fundamental interestsFand we must fight them at a global level. America must lead the world, not follow (quoted in Paarlberg 1997:135). The new administration made encouraging steps toward restoring US environ- mental credibility, including the establishment of a White House Office of Envi- ronmental Policy and the appointment of Carol Browner as the new head of the EPA. But on important multilateral environmental issues, the Clinton administra- tion failed to make any significant progress. Despite its declared intention to adopt the CBD and its support for the Kyoto Protocol, the White House failed to win sufficient support in Congress for the ratification of both these multilateral envi- ronmental agreements. Unlike Clinton, George W. Bush entered office in January 2001 without any promise to restore US environmental leadership. Instead, Bush reversed several domestic environmental policy decisions taken by the outgoing administration and placed economic interests at the heart of its new foreign policy. Even though Clin- ton had supported the Kyoto Protocol, he deliberately failed to submit it to Con- gress for ratification, knowing that it would be defeated. Bush subsequently decided to renounce the treaty in 2001, provoking widespread condemnation among other signatories. The rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was but the most spectacular of a number of withdrawals from multilateral environmental policymaking. In the field of regulating genetically modified organisms (GMOs), for example, the US dele- gation led the opposition by a small group of GMO-exporting countries against trade-related measures in the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Falkner 2000; Bail, Falkner, and Marquard 2002). Transatlantic environmental relations reached a new low in 2003 when the United States brought a formal WTO challenge against the European Union’s regulatory framework for GMOs (Brack, Falkner, and Goll 2003). To be sure, the United States’ more critical view of the global environmental agenda is not the result of a fundamental policy shift under the current Bush administration. It reflects a long-standing skepticism among Congressmen, and especially Republi- cans, about the merits of an undifferentiated commitment to multilateralism. In the words of Robert Kagan (2003:78), ‘‘American Cold War multilateralism was more instrumental than idealistic in its motives.’’ This instrumental approach was only reinforced by the end of the Cold War and resulted in a more compartmentalized foreign environmental policy. Despite repeated efforts by the Clinton administra- tion to link the security agenda with economic and environmental concerns (All- enby 2001), environmental issues were never fully incorporated into the United States’ strategic outlook. In effect, domestic factors played a critical role in deter- mining the direction of US foreign environmental policy. Explaining US Foreign Environmental Policy: The Domestic Factor When accounting for the US influence on environmental politics in the twentieth century, most analysts agree that the United States was a leader in the late 1960s ROBERT FALKNER 593 and 1970s but has turned into a laggard more recently (Paarlberg 1999; Dryzek et al. 2003:17). This section of the essay will examine the factors that have shaped US foreign policy on the environment and will help explain the changes in recent history. Even though American hegemony and the wider international context undoubtedly play an important role in determining US foreign policy, hegemonic theory itself is a poor guide to understanding the shifts that have occurred in its foreign environmental policy. Unlike in finance and trade policy, for which scholars of international political economy have posited a close link between hegemonic leadership and the creation of an open and liberal international economic order (Lake 1993), parallel arguments about what kind of foreign environmental policies hegemons are likely to pursue have not been advanced (Barkdull and Harris 2002:70). It is in the realm of state–society relations, domestic interest groups, and bureaucratic politics that we have to look for an explanation of the shifts in US environmental diplomacy. A Divided Political System As the experience with US policy on biodiversity and climate change suggests, US presidential leadership abroad is easily trumped by Congressional opposition at home. The split between the executive and legislative branches of government became all too apparent in the 1990s. Because the Clinton administration lacked Congressional support for its international environmental ambitions, it had to backtrack from its support of the CBD and the Kyoto Protocol, and it was unable to live up to its earlier promises to take the country back into the multilateral pol- icymaking arena. These two examples suggest that a critical condition for envi- ronmental leadership is, therefore, the building of domestic coalitions in support of an active foreign policy (Paarlberg 1997:137). Although the success of domestic coalition building will be influenced by the political landscape of the day, there are structural reasons to suggest that stable and broad-based coalitions are likely to be the exception rather than the norm, and that domestic fragmentation will remain a pervasive aspect of foreign environmental policy in the United States. One important reason for this fragmentation lies in the nature of the American political system. With its decentralized decision-making process and power sepa- ration between the executive, legislative, and judiciary, US environmental politics proceeds in an often erratic fashion and can lead to considerable deadlock between competing institutional interests (Kraft 2004:chap. 3). Presidential leadership can easily be blocked through concerted efforts on Capital Hill, where lobbyists are likely to find a receptive audience, especially in the runup to Congressional elec- tions. And although the executive has greater room for initiative in foreign policy, the need for Congressional approval of international agreements and domestic programs acts as a dampener on international leadership efforts that are not backed by a broader coalition of interests at home. Congress’s powerful position in US foreign environmental policy is based on its constitutional role in the policymaking process in three particularly sensitive areas: its authority to ratify international treaties; its budgetary and fiscal powers that affect proposals for environmental taxation, international environmental aid, and other environmental spending programs; and its general legislative role in estab- lishing and reviewing environmental regulations. All three of these areas are critical to foreign environmental policy. They affect the ability of the United States to accede to agreements it has negotiated and signed; they determine the extent to which US environmental leadership is backed up by promises of international en- vironmental aid; and they influence the ability of the United States to provide a model for policy innovation through effective domestic regulation. Decentralization and the separation of powers in the American political system make it more difficult for the government to sustain support for international 594 American Hegemony and the Global Environment environmental institutions. The example of global biodiversity policy shows how limited the powers of the White House can be when faced with determined op- position in Congress. Despite achieving major concessions at the 1992 Earth Sum- mit in Rio, the United States refused to sign the CBD, mainly over concerns for intellectual property protection and in response to intense industry lobbying. The Clinton administration sought to reverse the image of the United States as a global environmental laggard and negotiated with leading biotechnology firms a solution that would allow the country to sign the Convention. This was to be done through an interpretation to be submitted with the US signature, which would prevent the convention from infringing on patent rights or commercial opportunities for re- search and innovation. In the end, however, it was Congress that refused to ratify the Convention, despite a broad consensus between industry, environmental groups, and the White House. Until today, Republican opposition to this particular Convention has prevented full participation by the United States in this area of international environmental regulation (Falkner 2001:169–171). Pluralist Interest Group Politics One of the defining characteristics of US foreign environmental policy is the degree to which it is driven by domestic concerns. More than in many other fields of foreign policy, domestic actors play a highly visible and influential role in shaping American engagement with the international environmental agenda. William Clark and Nancy Dickson (2001:260) go so far as to describe the US encounter with global environmental risks as ‘‘an inherently social phenomenon’’ (emphasis in the orig- inal). Because of the openness of the foreign policymaking process and the active involvement of domestic interest groups in the environmental field, the US role in global environmental politics would be incomprehensible if nonstate actors were not taken into account. From the early days of modern environmentalism, scientists, civil society groups, and corporations have been actively seeking to shape the creation and implemen- tation of international environmental regimes. The influence of nonstate actors can be detected in all three phases of international regime building: agenda setting, negotiation, and implementation. Apart from creating and influencing public opinion on environmental risks, domestic interest groups have directed their lob- bying efforts at key actors within the executive and legislative branches of govern- ment. This is not to say that state actors do not retain a certain degree of autonomy in pursuing foreign environmental objectives. Interest group politics do not dom- inate the formation of national negotiation positions, which often reflect the par- ticular interests of individuals, or bureaucratic units, operating within the governmental apparatus. But in the environmental field, these state actors reach decisions within a highly politicized context that requires Congressional approval for major international initiatives and agreements. They are, thus, exposed to the diversity of interests that make up the fluid field of interest group politics in the United States. The high degree of nonstate actor involvement in foreign environmental policy can be observed in other states as well. But the American political system provides a particularly fertile ground for interest group lobbying and poses more severe con- straints on the autonomy of state actors in the pursuit of international environ- mental goals. The separation of powers between the executive and the legislature provides multiple entry points for interest groups, and interdepartmental compe- tition within the executive branch of government elevates interest groups to im- portant allies in the bureaucratic politics of foreign policymaking. This is all the more so because foreign environmental policy involves a wide range of depart- mental interests. In most cases, the inner core of executive decision making involves the White House, the State Department, and the EPA. Depending on the environ- ROBERT FALKNER 595 mental issue, it may also include the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Agricul- ture, Health, and the Treasury as well. The relative influence of different interest groups varies across time and between issue areas, which is one important reason for the fluctuations in the pursuit of US environmental diplomacy. Two important rifts within the domestic constituency of US foreign environmental policy can be observed: that between environmental organizations and business groups, and that between competing interests within the business sector. Environmental groups and business interests frequently pull in opposite directions when it comes to managing environmental problems, but under certain circumstances they can work together to support international regulation. Furthermore, the business community is not always united in its stance on envi- ronmental issues. Potential conflict between different corporate interests over the desirability and nature of international regulation is an important influence on the US position in international environmental negotiations (Falkner 2001). Much international environmental regulation appears on the international agen- da through the process of internationalizing domestic regulation (Schreurs and Economy 1997; DeSombre 2000). Just as any other country with advanced envi- ronmental regulation, the United States has regularly sought to export its domestic regulatory standards. This has been done not only with a view to raising the global level of environmental protection but also to creating a level-playing field for its industry. As Elizabeth DeSombre (2000) has shown, US efforts to internationalize domestic regulations are most likely to occur when domestic coalitions exist be- tween environmental and business interests that would benefit from the interna- tional harmonization of standards. Environmental groups wish to ensure that global environmental problems are addressed at the highest level, while certain industry groups support international regulation to reduce, or avert, the threat of competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis foreign competitors. This was the case in the extraterritorial application of US standards to dolphin and sea turtle protection in tuna and shrimp fisheries (DeSombre 2001), the pressure on European states to adopt America’s partial phaseout of the use of ozone-depleting substances (Kauff- man 1997), and US efforts to introduce an international ban on commercial whal- ing following the passage of America’s Endangered Species Act in the late 1960s (Porter and Brown 1996:78). The United States may not have always succeeded in getting other states to agree to its preferred environmental standards, but more than any other country, it has used economic sanctions as a tool for internationalizing its domestic policy pref- erences. Given that the use of economic pressure results in costs and may have negative international repercussions, US governments have used this route only when strong domestic pressure has compelled them to do so. In this sense, then, the use of America’s dominant position in the international political economy is directly linked to domestic forces and coalitions of interest groups. The variation in the pursuit of environmental leadership is in part a direct reflection of the constantly shifting domestic ground on which America’s ‘‘green hegemony’’ has been built. American Hegemony and the Future of Multilateral Environmentalism Since the end of the Cold War and especially in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, it has become commonplace to argue that the world of inter- national relations is undergoing a period of rapid and profound change. The col- lapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the communist bloc, the rise of new security threats including fundamentalist terrorism, and the acceleration of economic and social globalization have all added to the growing sense that estab- lished structures and patterns of international relations have become more fluid. Although it is easy to overstate the change that is occurring in large political and 596 American Hegemony and the Global Environment social systems, the last few years have justifiably reawakened a sense of historical transformation that much international relations scholarship lacked during the Cold War years. This sense of international change is less pronounced in the field of international environmental politics than in other policy areas. Some recent trends, however, suggest that the re-emergence of a unipolar international system is likely to have a lasting impact on the politics of global environmental protection. The United States has more readily than ever before challenged the foundations of multilateral environmental policymaking and has withheld support for interna- tional environmental regimes on several occasions. Within the transatlantic rela- tionshipFalready severely strained by disagreements over the use of force and the role of international lawFthe debate on climate change and GMOs has further tested US–EU relations. In a reversal of previous roles, the European Union has even begun to portray itself as the new international leader while branding the United States a laggard. America’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 was but the most con- troversial example of this renewed unilateralist instinct that is said to have gripped US foreign policy. Washington’s opposition to Europe’s precautionary ban on GMOs and its reluctance to agree to any specific targets at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development further deepened international suspicion of an an- tienvironmental turn in US foreign policy. But the reality is less clear-cut than some European observers would admit. The revival of American hegemony has not led to a straightforward decline in America’s commitment to multilateral environmen- tal policymaking. The exercise of green leadership and veto power have always been closely connected with the United States’ dominant position in the interna- tional political economy. Moreover, the United States has pursued multilateral and unilateral strategies in its foreign environmental policy ever since the rise of mod- ern environmentalism. What has changed since the end of the Cold War is the degree to which the United States can afford to choose international environmental commitments to which it is willing to agree. US environmental diplomacy has thus oscillated between global environmental commitment and unilateral abstention for some time, including in more recent years. That the current Bush administration has shown greater willingness to prioritize national economic interests over envi- ronmental concerns is widely acknowledgedFeven by the administration itself. But on some environmental issues on which domestic interests and governmental ob- jectives coalesce, the United States has continued actively to engage with the global environmental agenda. To cite only a few recent examples, the United States signed the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent in 1998 and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in May 2001. In November 2003, the United States hosted the signing of the revised Inter-American Tropical Tuna Convention, the treaty designed to protect migratory fish. The United States also continues to support environmental efforts in developing countries financially, for example, through the Congo Basin Forest Partnership and debt-for-nature-swaps in tropical countries. If there is one important impact that the strengthening of America’s hegemonic position has had, it is the role that multilateral policymaking plays in US environ- mental diplomacy. More so than for any other industrialized country, the United States is willing and able to view environmental multilateralism as a tool rather than as a guiding principle. The United States has consistently stressed that the emer- gence of a global environmental agenda should not be confused with the trans- formation of national interests into some diffuse concept of the planetary interest. Despite pressures from domestic environmental groups to transcend the narrow pursuit of realpolitik, successive US governments have identified and managed glo- bal environmental problems as discrete issues and within their national interests (Hopgood 1998:235). The United States is, of course, not alone in seeking to pro- tect its sovereignty when engaging with a global agenda. But because of its ROBERT FALKNER 597 unrivaled supremacy in the international political economy, the country is in a better position than any other state to ensure that the ‘‘pull effect’’ of multilateral policymaking does not unduly erode its national autonomy. Unlike Europe’s in- dustrialized countries that have come to consider the need to participate in mul- tilateral environmental institution building as a ‘‘good citizenship’’ norm in international society, the United States has no qualms about remaining outside the multilateral fold whenever it sees that important national interests are threat- ened.2 Multilateralism is, as a result, less of an intrinsic foreign policy objective for the United States than for other nations, not because it is hostile to multilateralism, but because it has greater ability to pursue both multilateral and unilateral options. This is not to say that there are no strong voices speaking in favor of multilateral environmental policy within America’s foreign policy elite. In their condemnation of US obstructionism in climate change policy, Europeans are in danger of over- stating the US shift toward unilateralism. Officials within the core institutions of US foreign environmental policy will continue to advocate supporting international environmental regimes and the principle of multilateralism. In what Stephen Hopgood (1998) describes as a central cleavage within the US state, ‘‘advocates’’ and ‘‘skeptics’’ will continue to struggle over the direction that US environmental diplomacy should take in the future. Much of this intrastate wrangling will involve domestic interest groups that support one of these two sides. Given the close con- nection between international environmental regulation and domestic interests and the lack of an overall strategic interest in environmental protection, American pol- icy will probably follow closely the shifting patterns of interest coalitions that emerge in the state–society nexus. For this reason, then, it is possible to detect a certain degree of continuity in US foreign environmental policy. Whether the United States pursues aggressive en- vironmental objectives or seeks to block regime creation at the international level, it will do so in response to domestic imperatives and in reflection of the underlying interest coalitions driving environmental diplomacy. More so than in other public policy arenas, the domestic imperative reigns supreme in US foreign environmen- tal policy. Whether the United States will revert to recent trends toward environ- mental unilateralism and obstructionism depends primarily on the emerging balance between competing domestic interest groups and their interaction with Congressional and governmental actors. The reassertion of American hegemonic power since the end of the Cold War will not in itself prevent a more active US engagement with the global environmental agenda. But renewed US environmen- tal leadership is only possible as a result of strong public demand, supported by institutionalized pressure from environmental groups and business interests acting in favor of international regulation. There is no structural reason why this different vision of US environmental diplomacy cannot become a reality. As Mick Cox (2003:532) said in a recent response to Robert Kagan’s diagnosis of the new reality in US foreign policy, ‘‘the struggle for the foreign policy soul of America will go on.’’ References ALLENBY, BRADEN. (2001) New Priorities in US Foreign Policy: Defining and Implementing Environ- mental Security. In The Environment, International Relations, and US Foreign Policy, edited by Paul G. Harris. Washington: Georgetown University Press. BAIL, CHRISTOPH, ROBERT FALKNER, AND HELEN MARQUARD, EDS. (2002) The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety: Reconciling Trade in Biotechnology with Environment and Development? London: RIIA/ Earthscan. 2 As an example, consider the Biodiversity Convention where the United States is part of a small group of countries that are nonparticipants including Iraq, Timor, and the Holy See. Environmental Politics Vol. 17, No. 1, February 2008, 40–57 The Kyoto Agreement and the pursuit of relative gains Sevasti-Eleni Vezirgiannidou* Department of Politics, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK The Kyoto Protocol is thus far the only broadly international eﬀort to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases. The withdrawal of US support in Downloaded By: [ETH-Bibliothek] At: 15:09 18 December 2008 2001 was a major blow to the Protocol and has been attributed to the inﬂuence of fossil fuel lobby groups. This study argues that the Protocol was eﬀectively rejected by the Senate before it was even signed in 1997, due to relative gains concerns over China. China is a major source of disquietude in the US after the end of the Cold War, and Kyoto would allow China to make signiﬁcant gains in competitiveness due to the costs the US would incur for implementation. The empirical evidence based on Congressional debates lends support to the argument of relative gains. Introduction Climate change is currently the highest proﬁle environmental issue. Climate change is anthropogenic, and caused in particular by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, which is produced by the combustion of fossil fuels (Jacoby et al. 1998, p. 57). These emissions cause the temperature to rise, producing a number of climatic eﬀects that could harm human life and ecosystems of the planet. Some representative eﬀects of climate change are extreme weather phenomena, sea-level rise, desertiﬁcation and shortages of water supply (Oberthur and Ott 1999, pp. 4–5). Recognising the gravity of this problem, 161 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, followed by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which involved binding commitments for emissions reductions by developed countries. Although the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in February 2005, problems remain; one of the most signiﬁcant is the non-participation of the United States. The US was originally a signatory of the Protocol, but eventually repudiated it in 2001, claiming that it would severely harm its *Email: [email protected] ISSN 0964-4016 print/ISSN 1743-8934 online Ó 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09644010701811483 http://www.informaworld.com Environmental Politics 41 economy and that it does not include commitments for developing countries (Boehmer-Christiansen and Kellow 2002, p. 80). This is a major blow to the Kyoto process, since the US represents 36% of Annex I countries emissions1; thus, the US stance requires an explanation. I argue that one of the major reasons the US refuses to ratify Kyoto is relative gains concerns over China. According to the relative gains argument, initially championed by neo-realists, relative gains impede cooperation because a state may believe that its partner(s) will gain more out of an international agreement, and then use the additional gains against the interests of the state in question (Grieco 1993). Neo-liberals challenge this view, but as will be shown later, they agree that relative gains matter in some situations (Matthews 1996, p. 117). I argue that Kyoto is such a case: Kyoto’s implementation is supposed to cost a substantial amount of money in the US (as much as 3% GDP according to some estimates),2 while China will most likely proﬁt by the Downloaded By: [ETH-Bibliothek] At: 15:09 18 December 2008 agreement, since it has no emissions reductions obligation.3 Thus, Kyoto presents a ‘relative gains’ problem for the US. In order to substantiate this hypothesis, I examine US policy makers’ views on this subject. The policy makers that are of interest are both members of the Administration and the Congress, with the latter having more signiﬁcance. Congressmen’s views are important since the Senate has the power of ratifying international treaties. Also, the House, together with the Senate, has control over the authorisation of funds (Hao 1997, p. 27), such as those that would be used for compliance with international treaties. Therefore, in order to explain US policy towards Kyoto, the analysis needs to be taken to the domestic level. In order to do that, I have covered all committee hearings of the US House and Senate on the subjects related to Kyoto, climate change and US–China relations.4 These documents were chosen because I believe they are the most accurate proxy of US Congressmen’s views.5 Conclusions are drawn by using the ‘qualitative content analysis’ method on these documents.6 Results are presented through employing an ‘illustrative style’ strategy, according to which, data are selected by virtue of their ‘ability to illustrate general themes which emerge and which can be supported by the use of speciﬁc examples’ (May 2001, p. 196). The argument developed in this article contributes to both environmental and International Relations literature. It is diﬃcult to think about relative gains being important in environmental matters in general, but this case is especially conducive to this analysis, given the signiﬁcant costs involved with climate change mitigation, costs large enough to have security implications. This suggests that if similar cases arise in the environmental sphere, relative gains considerations should be taken seriously. On a theoretical level, this article widens the possible applications for relative gains arguments by applying them on an environmental issue. The ﬁrst part of the article covers the literature on relative gains and assesses the applicability to Kyoto of the various studies on the subject. It also compiles from the literature the conditions under which relative gains matter. 42 S.-E. Vezirgiannidou The two following parts then try to establish both theoretically and empirically whether these conditions are satisﬁed in the case of US–China security and trade relations and subsequently in the case of Kyoto. The second part reviews the literature and examines the views of policy makers on US–China security and trade relations, in order to establish why US relative gains considerations are directed towards China and how this aﬀects the two states’ relations in those ﬁelds. The third part deals explicitly with Kyoto. A brief introduction to the Protocol is given, followed by an analysis of the US costs for its implementation. Since these costs are substantial, a relative gains problem (theoretically) arises out of China having no obligations by the treaty. In order to substantiate this claim empirically, the views of policy makers on the subject are presented. The analysis concludes that the evidence provide support for the hypothesis. Finally, the fourth part is devoted to alternative explanations for Downloaded By: [ETH-Bibliothek] At: 15:09 18 December 2008 the US stance and how these compare with relative gains. When do relative gains matter? There has been an extensive debate on whether or not relative gains matter. The relative gains argument comes from neo-realists, who argue that states will not cooperate, even when they have common interests, because they are concerned that their partners will gain more out of the agreement and may then turn that additional gain against them (Grieco 1993, p. 161). According to neo- realists, states care about relative gains because their ultimate goal is to ‘maintain their position in the system’ (Waltz 1979, p. 126). States are defensive positionalists rather than utility maximisers, as neo-liberals suggest (Grieco 1993, p. 162). If they perceive that an agreement will allow another state to increase their relative capabilities, they will refrain from entering that agreement. Neo-liberals argue that relative gains do not impede cooperation because states are concerned with absolute gains and not with the distribution of gains. As long as a country is better oﬀ with cooperation than without it, it will choose to cooperate, regardless of how much its partner gains (Grieco 1993, p. 159). To support this argument, a number of neo-liberal scholars have undertaken studies based on formal models. However, none of their analyses has been able to discount the relative gains argument entirely, and thus they have come to the conclusion that relative gains matter only in some situations and not always (Matthews 1996, p. 117). In what follows, I examine game- theoretical work by both neo-liberals and neo-realists on relative gains and its applicability to Kyoto. Powell (1993, 1999) and Morrow (1997) provide models to examine whether relative gains lead to war and how that aﬀects cooperation. According to Powell’s model, relative gains do not impede cooperation if the costs of ﬁghting are high enough to prevent the likelihood of war. If war is not at issue, relative gains do not matter (Powell 1993, p. 211). Furthermore, Powell (1999, p. 77) argues that relative gains do not impede cooperation because a state can Environmental Politics 43 increase its military allocations in order to balance another state’s dispropor- tionate gains. Morrow (1997, p. 28) makes a similar argument, namely that states will prefer to adhere to trade agreements if they do not have to spend all their gain from trade on the military. As long as a state increases its consumption with an agreement that does not threaten its security, it prefers cooperation. Powell and Morrow’s analyses add the possibility of war, which helps represent neo-realists’ concern with conﬂict. However, cooperation is possible despite relative gains in their analyses because a state can use part of its trade gain to increase its military allocations, in order to oﬀset another’s disproportionate gain. This may be possible in trade, but it is not possible in most environmental agreements, since the latter do not provide any economic ‘absolute’ gains that can be used for security reasons. This happens because Downloaded By: [ETH-Bibliothek] At: 15:09 18 December 2008 environmental treaties involve immediate costs in order to mitigate problems, but the benevolent eﬀects of mitigation are only realisable in the future. This means that future economic beneﬁts from environmental abatement cannot be used to oﬀset another’s present disproportionate gains. Therefore, Powell and Morrow’s models although useful for explaining trade cooperation, are diﬃcult to extrapolate to cases of environmental cooperation. Although this is true for most environmental agreements, Kyoto is an exception to the general rule, mostly due to the inclusion of ‘excludable goods’, such as emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism. These measures provide incentives to join for countries with emission credits to sell (Boehmer- Christiansen and Kellow 2002, p. 65). However, this does not aﬀect the position of the United States, which would be buying emissions; therefore, there would be no revenue available to oﬀset others’ disproportionate gains. Although the assumption that war is what constrains cooperation reﬂects neo-realist concerns fairly well, there are other reasons why states may care about relative gains that are not considered by Powell and Morrow’s analyses. Matthews (1996, p. 128), for example, makes no distinction between economic and security gains, because he alleges that states may be concerned over economic gains for the sake of dominating a market. According to Matthews (1996, p. 114), states’ concerns about relative gains depend on the issue area of cooperation in question. In other words, some issues are more contentious than others, for both economics and security. Matthews’ hypothesis is that relative gains matter to states when they create advantages that allow additional gains in future rounds. If they have no implications for future rounds, they are less important. Matthews uses four case studies to test the hypothesis and concludes that the theory is consistent with the empirical evidence. Matthews’ analysis can provide some insights for Kyoto, since its provisions allow for gains to ‘cumulate’. This is because Kyoto’s provisions will permit China to improve its relative (economic, and by default security) position towards the US because the US economy will slow down, while China will not face emissions reductions. Thus, even if absolute gains are not cumulative, relative gains are. 44 S.-E. Vezirgiannidou Another important study on relative gains by Glaser (1995, p. 75) argues that in the security realm, agreements which increase an adversary’s security more will give an incentive for non-cooperation. In the economic realm, Glaser makes a similar argument to those of Powell and Morrow, namely, that states are concerned over relative gains only if these are transferable to security advantages. He adds that economic gains can have security implications only if they stimulate economic growth (Glaser 1995, p. 77). Again, Glaser’s argument makes it theoretically possible that China can realise relative gains over the US through Kyoto. The agreement will supposedly stall US growth while it will leave China’s unscathed and maybe reinforced through a ‘migration’ of energy- intensive industries to the latter. These GDP increases may be used to strengthen the Chinese military and the country’s regional or global inﬂuence against US interests. Downloaded By: [ETH-Bibliothek] At: 15:09 18 December 2008 Finally, a signiﬁcant study on relative gains has been undertaken by Snidal, who argues that relative gains may be an obstacle to cooperation between two large (and competing) states, but not between states of diﬀerent size and power (1993, p. 199). In a two-actor world, relative gains concerns make cooperation diﬃcult by transforming other games into a Prisoner’s Dilemma (Snidal 1993, p. 186). He concludes that realism’s intuitions are conﬁrmed in a two-actor world, but in a multi-actor world, the impact of relative gains on cooperation drops dramatically (Snidal 1993, p. 197) because the cooperating states can realise relative gains over states that are not participating in the cooperative venture (1993, p. 193). Thus, according to Snidal, the realist claim that relative gains considerations hamper cooperation cannot be sustained in a multi-actor world. Snidal actually argues that relative gains considerations can give incentives for cooperation for two reasons: one is that states may choose to cooperate in order to avoid relative losses from other states’ cooperation (Snidal 1993, p. 201); the second is that states realise relative gains against non- parties in the cooperative agreement (Snidal 1993, p. 193). As with Powell and Morrow’s analyses, Snidal’s insights are helpful mostly for trade cooperation but not so much for environmental cases. This is because Snidal’s argument of relative gains against non-cooperating states assumes that beneﬁts from cooperation are excludable. However, the environmental beneﬁts of mitigating climate change are not excludable, therefore parties to Kyoto cannot achieve relative gains against non-parties (Grundig et al. 2001, p. 167). Thus, Snidal’s analysis cannot be applied to Kyoto, since it does not provide a model for public goods. The model for public goods developed by Grundig indicates that, ceteris paribus, when relative gains are important, cooperation concerning public goods is more diﬃcult to be achieved than in the case of excludable goods, because the discount factor needed for cooperation is always greater in the public good case (Grundig 2003, p. 38).7 This is because states cannot achieve any indirect relative gains over non-cooperating states. Therefore, the theory concerning public goods and relative gains supports the hypothesis that the US decision to refute Kyoto could have been explained by relative gains concerns, if the US cares about relative gains. Environmental Politics 45 It is evident from the discussion so far that the debate on relative gains has moved from whether they matter at all, to when and why they matter. It has also superseded the realism – liberalism divide, as even neo-liberals acknowl- edge that relative gains matter under some circumstances. In general, the above mentioned analyses indicate that relative gains matter and can therefore impede cooperation if one or more of the following conditions are met: the states involved in the cooperation are not on friendly terms (Grieco 1993); the issue involves security rather than economic well-being (Grieco 1993); payoﬀs are easily converted into advantages in the issue area in question (e.g. market domination for trade; military advantages for security cooperation) (Grieco 1993); payoﬀs are easily transferable to other issue areas and especially security (Grieco 1993, Glaser 1995, Morrow 1997); relative gains have a cumulation eﬀect (Matthews 1996); the costs of ﬁghting are low (Powell 1993); the world is Downloaded By: [ETH-Bibliothek] At: 15:09 18 December 2008 bipolar rather than multipolar (Snidal 1993); cooperation involves public goods rather than excludable goods (Grundig 2003). What is evident from the debate is that relative gains matter in some situations and not in every case, that is, they are conditional. It is interesting to see whether Kyoto fulﬁls these conditions. The relative

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