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‘Problems in International Environmental Governance’ or ‘A Policy Analyst Looks at the World…. this Being a Tale of How the Hopes of Mice and Men in Geneva Are Dashed in Canberra’
Author(s) -
Kellow Aynsley
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
australian journal of public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-8500
pISSN - 0313-6647
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8500.1997.tb01546.x
Subject(s) - corporate governance , power (physics) , reductionism , environmental policy , process (computing) , distribution (mathematics) , public administration , environmental governance , economics , sociology , political science , public economics , law and economics , business , environmental economics , management , epistemology , computer science , mathematical analysis , quantum mechanics , operating system , philosophy , physics , mathematics
Concern about international environmental governance has shifted from the problems in having multilateral environmental agreements adopted to trying to ensure that the agreements which are negotiated are implemented, and that they produce positive environmental outcomes. This article argues that features of the international policy process which assist domestic policy adoption, especially scientific reductionism and moral suasion, can undermine the chances of policy implementation. This is often because business interests which are marginalised during policy adoption are more influential at the domestic level at which policy must be implemented. This asymmmetry is explained by suggesting that — rather than their being ‘two‐level games’ (as Putnam suggested) — there are (in Lowi's terms) distinctive arenas of power at the the international and national levels. Improving policy effectiveness requires the distribution of power in each arena to be made more symmetrical.