The Politics of Choice and Institutional Development in Global Environmental Regimes

What factors account for variation in institutional development in the direction of greater or lesser regime complexity? To answer this question, this dissertation develops a distributive historical theory that connects the micro-foundations of state choice to the macro-processes of institutional development. I argue that distributive conflict over the terms of cooperation in a regime provides dissatisfied states with incentives to pursue institutional change. Yet there are centripetal forces that can bias regime development towards the status quo. The ways in which these forces of change and stability interact result in variations of institutional development and regime complexity. From the distributive historical theory, I derive and test a set of hypotheses through cross-case analysis of the regimes constructed to address ozone depletion, the overfishing of global stocks, and climate change. Across the cases, I find that dissatisfied actors continuously contest the status quo institutional arrangements to gain distributive advantages. Still, regimes tend to develop in a strongly path-dependent manner because institutions are resistant to change and because the status quo beneficiaries employ strategies that blunt the impact of the dissatisfied actors’ actions.

Grantor dc:publisher

Temple University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Draguljic, Gorana

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Pollack, Mark A., 1966-

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Fioretos, Karl Orfeo, 1966-
• Bush, Sarah S.
• Graham, Erin

• Political science
• International relations
• Environment
• Institutional development
• International regimes
• Regime complexes

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Dc Identifier Other

974919031

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/2802