Abstract
People, communities, states, and the world as a whole are today faced with the tough question of whether environmental threats can be brought under sufficient control to facilitate their management. The challenge of how to achieve and maintain sustainable development in which life on earth is improved without long-term damage to the environment is in reality a complex of multiple challenges, each of them serious, and all of them overlapping such that they are global in scope.
He is the author of over 100 articles and some 20 books on international affairs, including Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity and World Systems Structure.
This Chapter was originally prepared for the Conference on International Environmental Governance: Lessons, Patterns, and Prospects, sponsored by the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (Stockholm, August 17–18. 1994). Parts of this discussion are drawn from my recent book, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) and from four more recent papers: “Environmental Challenges in a Global Context” in Sheldon Kamienechi (ed.). Environmental Politics in the International Arena: Movements, Parties, Organizations, and Policy (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), pp. 257–74; “Environmental Challenges in a Turbulent World;” in Ronnie D. Lipschutz and Ken Conca (eds.). The State and Social Power in Global Environmental Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 71–93; “Governance in the 21st Century”, Global Governance, Vol. 1, No. I (forthcoming): and “Enlarged Citizen Skills and Enclosed Coastal Seas: Notes on the Delicacies of Governance and the Complexities of the Environment”, a paper presented at the Second International Conference on the Environmental Management of Enclosed Coastal Seas, sponsored by the Governor of the State of Maryland and the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy of the University of Maryland (Baltimore, November 11, 1993).
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References
Lawrence E. Susskind, Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements (New York: Oxford University Press. 1994), p. viii.
See, for example, Andrew Goude The Human Impact on the Natural Environment (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1990),
Joy Tivy and Greg O’Hare, Human Impact on the Ecosystem (New York: Longman Inc., 1981).
Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution: A Report of the Council of Rome (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), pp. 181–82 (italics added). For other inquiries that support the inclusion of small, seemingly local systems of rule in a broad analytic framework,
see John Friedmann, Empowerment: The Politics of Alternative Development (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992).
Robert Huckfeldt Eric Plutzer, and John Sprague, “Alternative Contexts of Political Behavior: Churches, Neighborhoods, and Individuals”, Journal of Politics, Vol. 55 (May 1993), pp. 365–81.
Steven A. Rosell et al., Governing in an Information Society (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1992), p. 21.
Rule systems have much in common with what has come to be called the ‘new institutionalism’. See, for example, Robert O. Keohane. “International Institutions: Two Approaches”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 32 (December 1988), pp. 379–96
James G. March and Johan P. Olsen. “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life”, American Political Science Review, Vol 78 (September 1984). pp, 734–49;
Oran R Young. “International Regimes: Toward a New Theory of Institutions”, World Politics. Vol 39 (October 1986), p, 104–22 For an extended discussion of how the concept of control is especially suitable to the analysis of both formal and informal political phenomena,
see James N. Rosenau, Calculated Control as a Unifying Concept in the Study of International Politics and Foreign Policy (Princeton: Research Mongraph No 15. Center of International Studies, Princeton University, 1963).
Cf. James N Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (eds.). Governance Without Govern-ment: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1992).
Also see the formulations in Peter Mayer, Volker Rittberger, and Michael Zurn, “Regime Theory: State of the Art and Perspectives”, in V Rittberger (Ed.), Regime Theory and International Relations (Oxford University Press 1993), and Timothy J. Sinclair, “Financial Knowledge as Governance”, a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies association. Acapulco, March 23–27, 1993.
For a discussion of the breadth and depth of the worlds authority crises, see James N. Rosenau. “The Relocation of Authority in a Shrinking World: From Tiananmen Square in Beijing to the Soccer Stadium in Soweto via Parliament Square in Budapest and Wencelas Square in Prague”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 24 (April 1992), pp. 253–72.
A vivid picture of the organizational explosion in the nongovernmental world is presented in Lester M. Salamon, The Global Associational Revolution: The Rise of the Third Sector on the World Scene (Baltimore: Institute for Policy Studies, Occasional Paper #15. 1993). As for the world of governments, a similar explosion here is compellingly described in Edward W. Soja. The Political Organization of Space (Washington D C: Association of American Geographers. Resource Paper No 8, 1971), p. 45.
Hugh C. Dyer, “Environmental Ethics and International Relations”, Paradigms, Vol. 8 (Summer 1994). pp. 61–62.
For an extensive discussion of the role of scientific proof in the conduct of global affairs, see James N. Rosenau. Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton University Press. 1990). pp. 198–209 and 425–429.
For a good example of an effort to cope with this dilemma, see Sam Fulwood III. “Study Urges ‘Revolution’ Dedicated to Global Cleanup”, Los Angeles Times (January 12, 1992). p. A4.
Geoffrey Hosking, “The Roots of Dissolution”, The New York Review of Books, Vol. XXXIX (January 16, 1992), pp. 35–36.
A lengthy discussion of each parameter and the transformation it has undergone can be found in Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics, Chaps. 8–14.
For an elaboration of this historical interpretation and the definition of turbulence on which it rests, see Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics, Chaps. 4 and 5.
Pauline Marie Rosenau, Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
A full analysis of the diverse sources of the bifurcation of global structures can be found in Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics, Chaps. 10–15.
For an explanation of why the terms ‘sovereignty-free’ and ‘sovereignty-bound’ seem appropriate to differentiate between state and nonstate actors, see Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics, p. 36.
For cogent discussions of the many other sources that have stimulated the growing relevance of ‘critical’ social movements, see R.B.J. Walker, One World, Many Worlds: Struggles for a Just World Peace (Boulder: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 1988),
Ron Everman and Andrew Jamison, Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach (Cambridge: The Polity Press 1991).
A summary of some recent efforts can be found in Susskind, Environmental Diplomacy, Chap 7, whereas a major assessment still underway is that of the Commission on Global Governance headquartered in Geneva.
Christopher D. Stone, The Gnat Is Older than Man: Global Environment and Human Agenda (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
Kal Raustiala. “States, Civil Actors, and Participation in International Efforts for the Environment”, a paper presented at the 1994 Meeting of the International Studies Association (Washington D.C., March 1994).
Susskind, Environmental Diplomacy.
Dyer, Environmental Ethics and International Relations.
The World Resources Institute, World Resources, 1994–95 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 235.
The World Resources Institute. World Resources, 1994–95, pp. 223–26.
Peter M. Haas, “International Environment Politics after Rio”, a paper presented at the ACUNS/ICRA Symposium (Tokyo, January 7–9, 1993).
Kenneth Waltz. Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 91.
Hillary E. French “After the Environmental Summit: The Future of Environmental Governance”, Worldwatch Paper No. 107 (Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute, 1992), p. 6.
Quoted in Haas, “Environmental Politics After Rio”, pp. 7–8.
For discussions of these data and alternative interpretations of the openness of publics to learning about environmental challenges, see Lester W. Milbrath, “The World Learns About the Environment”, International Studies Notes, Vol. 16 (Winter 1991), and Symposium, Environmental Problems, a Global Threat (Muscatine, Iowa, The Stanley Foundation, 1989), pp. 6–7 (the Harris quote is reproduced from p. 6).
Haas, “Environmental Politics After Rio”, p. 8.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “Global Environment Facility: The Pilot Phase and Beyond. Working Paper Series Number 1”, May 1992; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “The GEF NGO Small Grants Programme. Progress Report, 1992”, January 29, 1993; and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “The GEF NGO Small Grants Programme. Progress Report No. 3”, October 29, 1993.
The World Resources Institute, World Resources, 1994–95, p.229–31.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “The GEF NGO Small Grants Programme, Progress Report No. 3”, p. 19.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “Global Environment Facility: The Pilot Phase and Beyond”, p. 31.
Kirkpatrick Sale, Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 1985). p. 51 (italics in the original).
Viewed from this perspective, a proposal that people may be ready to pay special taxes in return for a cleaner environment is anything but farfetched. See Mary Durfee, “Increasing Citizen Participation: The Virtues of an Ecosystem Tax for the Great Lakes” (xerox, Michigan Technological University, September 15, 1993).
Sale, Dwellers in the Land. p. 51.
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Rosenau, J.N. (1997). Global Environmental Governance: Delicate Balances, Subtle Nuances, and Multiple Challenges. In: Rolén, M., Sjöberg, H., Svedin, U. (eds) International Governance on Environmental Issues. Environment & Policy, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8826-3_3
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