15 november 2008 the evolution of global environmental commitments thomas bernauer, anna kalbhenn,...
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15 November 2008
The Evolution of Global Environmental Commitments
Thomas Bernauer, Anna Kalbhenn, Vally Koubi, Gabi Ruoff
International Political Economy Society Conference
Philadelphia, 14. - 15.11.08
2/1215 November 2008
Research Question
To what extent is the evolution of global
environmental commitments influenced by
Globalization Contingency effects Domestic factors?
Spatial and temporal dynamics of
international cooperation
3/1215 November 2008
Theoretical Framework
Economic Integration: Trade Openness
The more open a country, the greater the loss from a reduction in trade
Environmental regulation (like a tax on exports) increases the costs of exportables
The probability of ratification decreases
4/1215 November 2008
Theoretical Framework
Political Integration: Membership in International
Organizations
Countries that are “entangled” in a larger network of international cooperation are more likely to behave cooperatively in the realm of environmental politics too
The probability of ratification increases
5/1215 November 2008
Theoretical Framework
Contingency Effects
Countries are more likely to ratify if other countries, especially those in their “peer group”, have done so
- Number of countries ratified
- Number of countries in the same region
- Number of countries in the same income bracket
- Pivotal countries
6/1215 November 2008
Theoretical Framework
Domestic Factors: Democracy Demand Side:
- Democracies tend to have higher civil liberties
- better informed citizens can push governments and impose higher audience costs, hence likelihood of ratification increases
Supply Side:- According to median voter argument, democratic governments
(=better providers of public goods) are expected to ratify global environmental treaties more often than autocracies
- According to political myopia argument, democratic leaders (=interested in re-election) should be reluctant to ratify
ambiguous effect on ratification
7/1215 November 2008
Theoretical Framework
Domestic Factors: Income Non-linear effect (inverted U-shaped) between income
and likelihood of ratification
Controls: Power Environmental stringency Age of treaty Geographic region
8/1215 November 2008
Research Design
New dataset global environmental treaty
ratifications Time period 1950 - 2000 Unit of analysis: country-treaty-year
- Country-treaty pair in dataset from treaty existence until ratification by respective country
Binary-time-series-cross-sectional approach with cubic
time polynomial to approximate hazard (Carter and
Signorino 2008)
9/1215 November 2008
ResultsIGO membership 0.01 *** (0.00) Trade openness -0.14* * (0.05) # of other countries that rat ified
0.02 *** (0.00)
% of same income group that ratified
-0.00 (0.00)
% of countries in regio n that rat ified
0.03 *** (0.00)
Democracy (Polity) 0.02 *** (0.01) GD P p.c. 1.05 * (0.58) GD P p.c. ^2 -0.04 (0.04) SO2 p.c. 0.13 *** (0.03) GD P -0.11* (0.06) t -0.31** * (0.02) t2 0.01 *** (0.00) t3 -0.00** * (0.00) Cons tan t -10.25** * (2.61) Observat ions 74706 1
BTSCS logit regressions, robust standard errors in parentheses,clustered by country; *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
10/1215 November 2008
Simulated Probabilities Baseline ModelSimulated Probability Pr(ratification=1)
Mean to Max Min to Mean Min to Max
Trade openness -0.001 (0.000)
-0.005 (0.003)
-0.006 (0.003)
Democracy 0.001 (0.000)
0.001 (0.000)
0.002 (0.001)
IGO membership 0.006 (0.003)
0.002 (0.000)
0.008 (0.003)
Number of countries 0.138 (0.052)
0.001 (0.000)
0.139 (0.053)
% income group -0.000 (0.001)
-0.000 (0.000)
-0.000 (0.001)
% region 0.076 (0.016)
0.001 (0.000)
0.077 (0.016)
Robust Standard errors in parentheses; all other variables are kept a t their mean values
11/1215 November 2008
Approximation baseline hazard
12/1215 November 2008
Conclusions
Trade has indeed a negative effect
Democracy: only weak, though positive effect results driven by civil liberties
IGO membership and contingency variables increase likelihood of treaty ratification
contingency effects stronger than country-specific effects