IDGEC-Science-Plan by Louise Smith

IHDP Report No. 16

S CIENCE P LAN

IHDP Report No. 16

I NSTITUTIONAL D IMENSIONS G LOBAL E NVIRONMENTAL C HANGE

International Human Dimensions Programme

Institutional Dimensions

on Global Environmental Change

of Global Environmental Change

IHDP Report No. 16 Bonn, Germany First edition: April 1999 Revised edition: July 2005 ÂŠ IHDP

IHDP Report Series The IHDP Report Series is published as part of the IHDP publication programme. All IHDP publications are distributed free of charge to scientists involved in global change research.

Science Plan This document is an IHDP Science Plan approved by the Scientific Committee of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.

Cover Illustrations: Photo top: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, third session of the Conference of the Parties, Kyoto, Japan, courtesy of the UNFCCC Secretariat, Bonn, Germany Photo middle: Yamal Peninsula, Russia, helicopter delivers supplies to a Nenets reindeer herders camp, courtesy of Prof. Oran R. Young Photo bottom: Rural areas of Alighar, India, village community meeting, courtesy of Ike Holtmann

ISSN 1814-7925 Edited by H. Schroeder Layout by U. Lohoff-Erlenbach Printed by KĂśllen Druck + Verlag GmBH, Buschdorf, Germany Printed on 100% recycled paper

International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) Walter-Flex-Str. 3 53113 Bonn Germany Tel.: +49 (0)228-73-9050 Fax: +49 (0)228-73-9054 E-mail: ihdp@uni-bonn.de Internet: http://www.ihdp.org

SCIENCE PLAN OF

INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSIONS GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE *

Oran R. Young, with contributions from Arun Agrawal, Leslie A. King, Peter H. Sand, Arild Underdal, and Merrilyn Wasson Revised edition prepared by Heike Schroeder

* IDGEC is a long-term international research project developed under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) with significant initial financial support from the ENRICH programme of the European Union, Sweden, Norway and COSSA (USA). The project is financed with funds from the National Science Foundation (USA) under Grant Number BCS-0324981.

International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change

Institutional Dimensions of of Global Environmental Change

| Members of the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee

Members of the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee Present and Past Present: Oran R. Young (Chair) (1999 -) University of California, Santa Barbara, USA young@bren.ucsb.edu Joyeeta Gupta (2004 -) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands joyeeta.gupta@ivm.vu.nl Song Li (2003 -) Global Environment Facility, USA sli@thegef.org Jyrki Luukkanen (2003 -) Finland Futures Research Center, Finland jyrki.luukkanen@tukkk.fi Yasuko Matsumoto (2005 -) University of Kyoto, Japan ymatsumoto@gsges.mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp Sebastian Oberthür (2005 -) University of Bamberg, Germany sebastian.oberthuer@sowi.uni-bamberg.de Agus P. Sari (2000 -) Pelangi, Indonesia apsari@pelangi.or.id Simon Tay (2005 -) Singapore Institute of International Affairs, Singapore chairman@siiaonline.org Past: Elena Andreeva (1999 - 2002) Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia vniisi@isa.ac.ru Daniel G. Arce (2003 - 2005) Rhodes College, USA arce@rhodes.edu Scott Barrett (2001 - 2002) John Hopkins University, USA sbarrett@jhu.edu Angela Cropper (2001 - 2002) The Cropper Foundation, Trinidad and Tobago a.cropper@trinidad.net Alf Håkon Hoel (1999 - 2005) University of Tromsø, Norway hoel@sv.uit.no Leslie A. King (1999 - 2005) University of Manitoba, Canada lking@cc.umanitoba.ca | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Members of the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee |

Paul Mathieu (1999 - 2003) Food and Agricultural Organization, Italy paul.mathieu@fao.org Madiodio Niasse (1999 - 2003) World Conservation Union, Burkina Faso madiodio.niasse@iucn.org Suparb Pasong (1999 - 2005) United Nations Development Programme, Thailand suparb.pasong@undp.org Russell Reichelt (1999 - 2005) CRC Reef Research, Australia r.reichelt@bigpond.com Peter H. Sand (1999 - 2002) University of Munich, Germany p.sand@jura.uni-muenchen.de Taishi Sugiyama (2002 - 2005) Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Japan sugiyama@criepi.denken.or.jp Merrilyn Wasson (1999 - 2005) Australian National University, Australia merrilyn@coombs.anu.edu.au Yoshiki Yamagata (1999 - 2002) National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan yamagata@nies.go.jp

Members of the IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee (1996 - 1998) Leslie A. King, University of Manitoba, Canada (Chair) Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan, USA Peter H. Sand, University of Munich, Germany Arild Underdal, University of Oslo, Norway Merrilyn Wasson, Australian National University, Australia Oran R. Young, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Members of the IDGEC Synthesis Planning Group (2004 -) Frank Biermann, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands Leslie A. King, University of Manitoba, Canada Song Li, Global Environment Facility, USA Agus Sari, Pelangi, Indonesia Oran R. Young, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change |

| IDGEC Project Timeline

IDGEC Project Timeline September 1995

Feasibility Study presented to the Scientific Committee of the Human Dimensions Program (HDP SC)

January 1996

Initial Planning Workshop held in Hanover, NH, USA

December 1996

IHDP SC reviews IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee Scoping Report and authorizes the formation of the Scientific Planning Committee (SPC)

June 1997

IHDP SC authorizes preparation of an IDGEC Science Plan

December 1997

Workshop held in Stockholm, Sweden, to develop an IDGEC Science Plan

March 1998

Draft IDGEC Science Plan presented to IHDP SC in Bonn, Germany

June 1998

External reviews submitted to IHDP

July 1998

IDGEC SPC meets to prepare final draft of the Science Plan in Townsville, Australia

November 1998

IHDP SC approves IDGEC Science Plan

June 1999

SSC-1 held at Shonan Village, Japan (decision to launch an Implementation Strategy with flagship activities, partnerships, and an IDGEC Network)

July 1999

IDGEC International Project Office (IPO) established at Dartmouth College, USA

May 2000

First issue of IDGECnews published

June 2000

SSC-2 held in Oslo, Norway (review of Implementation Strategy)

March 2001

Scoping Report on “The Institutional Dimensions of Carbon Management” published

May 2001

Scoping Report on “The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests” published

July 2001

SSC-3 held in Hanover, NH, USA (review of Implementation Strategy)

July 2001

Scoping Report on the “Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones” published

September 2001

First Biennial Report published

June 2002

SSC-4 held in Bali, Indonesia (review of Implementation Strategy)

January 2003

IDGEC IPO relocates to the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

September 2003

Second Biennial Report published

October 2003

SSC-5 held in Montreal, Canada (review of Implementation Strategy)

June 2004

SSC-6 held in Santa Barbara, USA (decision to launch a synthesis process and establishment of a Synthesis Planning Group)

December 2004

First meeting of the IDGEC Synthesis Planning Group

June 2005

Second meeting of the IDGEC Synthesis Planning Group and SSC-7 held in Bali, Indonesia (planning of synthesis process)

| Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Table of Contents |

Table of Contents Foreword Preface to the Revised Edition Preface IDGEC Publications List Executive Summary 1. Institutions and Global Environmental Change

8 10 12 14 23 27

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

The Nature of Institutions The Effects of Institutions The Performance of Institutions Scientific and Policy Objectives Structure of the IDGEC Science Plan

27 29 31 32 33

Research Foci

2.1

Research Focus 1: What roles do institutions play in causing and controlling global environmental changes? What is the role of environmental and resource regimes in causing and controlling global environmental changes? What is the role of other institutions (e.g., trade and investment regimes) in causing and controlling global environmental changes? What factors determine the resilience of institutions in the face of global environmental changes? Research Focus 2: Why are some institutional responses to global environmental changes more successful than others? Are there common features or elements of (un)successful institutional responses? What factors threaten the development or the survival of institutional responses? What unintended consequences do institutional responses produce? Research Focus 3: What are the prospects for (re)designing institutions to confront environmental changes? What are the (dis)advantages of creating new institutions versus reforming existing institutions? How can we incorporate flexibility, self-correcting procedures, and social learning processes into environmental institutions? What are the relative merits of a range of institutional attributes including (1) formal arrangements vs. informal social practices, (2) hard-law vs. soft-law arrangements, (3) alternative decision rules, and (4) alternative funding mechanisms? Can we integrate environmental regimes with other institutional arrangements, and especially economic arrangements, at different stages of societal development?

2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.3

2.3.4

35 39 41 43 45 45 47 48 50 51 53

54 55

Analytic Themes

3.1 3.2 3.3

The Problem of Fit The Problem of Interplay The Problem of Scale

57 60 65

Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change |

| Table of Contents

Regional Applications

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.3.4

Southeast Asia Circumpolar North Common Themes Large Marine Ecosystems Forest Ecosystems Indigenous Peoples Interplay of External and Internal Forces

71 75 78 78 80 80 81

Models and Methods

5.1 5.2 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3

Conceptual Concerns Matters of Methodology Alternative Knowledge Claims Research Tools Data Requirements

82 85 85 86 88

Implementation

6.1 6.2.

Role of the IDGEC Science Plan Implementation Plans

89 89

Programmatic Links

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

Links Links Links Links

91 95 95 96

Flagship Activities

to to to to

Other Global Change Projects Regional Research Programs â&#x20AC;&#x153;Parallel Universesâ&#x20AC;? the Policy Community

8.1 Carbon Management Research Activity (CMRA) 8.1.1 CMRA Priorities: The Administration and Adjustment of the Climate Change Regime 8.1.2 Analytical Approaches and Methodological Concerns 8.1.3 Organization and Linkages 8.1.4 Future Steps 8.1.5 Notes 8.1.6 References 8.2 Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones (PEEZ) 8.2.1 Rationale for Research on EEZs as Institutional Phenomena 8.2.2 Assessing the Effects of EEZs 8.2.3 Analytical Approaches and Methodological Concerns 8.2.4 Policy Implications 8.2.5 Next Steps 8.2.6 Notes 8.2.7 Selected References 8.3 The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests (PEF) 8.3.1 Research Themes 8.3.2 Toward Good Forest Governance: The Research Agenda 8.3.3 Methodology 8.3.4 Notes 8.3.5 Bibliography

9. 10. 11.

Conclusion Key References Acronyms and Abbreviations

| Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

97 98 99 106 106 107 107 110 113 114 116 120 123 123 124 124 127 131 139 139 142 144

147 148 156

Tables, Figures, Maps, and Boxes |

Tables, Figures, Maps, and Boxes Tables 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Examples of Environmental/Resource Regimes 28 IDGEC Research Foci 37 Ecosystem Properties Relevant to Sustainability 59 Design Principles for Long-Enduring Common Pool Resource (CPR) Institutions 68 Regional Comparisons: Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North 70 Arctic Institutions and Organizations 79 Collective-Action vs. Social-Practice Models of Social Institutions 84 Forest Cover and Forest Cover Change in Southeast Asia and the Boreal Region 128

Figures 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Institutions and Organizations Hierarchy of IDGEC Research Foci Institutions and Their Effects on Global Environmental Change Primary Focus of the IDGEC Project Ecosystem and Human System Linkages Institutional Interplay Approaches to Scale Southeast-Asian Fluvial Sediment Flows ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Programmatic Links Analytical Scheme Conceptual Framework

29 36 38 39 62 64 66 73 74 92 121 130

Maps 1. 2.

Southeast Asia Circumpolar North

71 76

Boxes A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. K. L. M.

Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons Controlling Air and Water Pollution International Trade and Environmental Destruction in Indonesia North American Air Pollution Fisheries Management in the Bering Sea Region Mismatched Land-Use Practices in America Alien Invaders in Australia Institutional Interplay in the Himalayas Southeast-Asian Fluvial Sediment Flows Arctic Trace Gas Fluxes Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Great Barrier Reef The Siberian Taiga Tourism in Remote Areas of Southeast Asia and the Arctic

33 34 41 49 51 61 63 65 72 75 78 80 81

Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change |

| Foreword

Foreword Institutions play an important role in both causing and addressing largescale environmental changes. Scientists and policymakers are increasingly realizing the need for a better understanding of institutions and how they frame global environmental change (GEC). The continuing demand for copies of the Science Plan of IHDP’s core project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) has further demonstrated this rising interest in the role of institutions and GEC. Institutions constitute a crosscutting element of human/environment interactions. Whether we are concerned with land use, industrial transformation, human activities in the coastal zone, or the impacts of cities, institutions are always part of the equation. We can be sure, therefore, that enquiries touching on institutional issues will remain an important concern of the IHDP throughout the foreseeable future. During the intervening years, IDGEC has become a highly productive project. As the publications list included in this new edition of the Science Plan makes clear, the project has generated a steady flow of scientific results both by launching research under its own auspices and by catalyzing and endorsing research on IDGEC concerns carried out by others. The analytic themes of fit, interplay, and scale particularly have struck a responsive chord. Research on these themes has become a growth industry in the field, and it is fair to say that IDGEC has taken the lead in fostering this important stream of analysis. Just as this plan became the first major new Science Plan approved by the IHDP Scientific Committee (SC), IDGEC has become the first of the projects initiated wholly under the auspices of the IHDP to enter a full-scale synthesis process. This process, culminating in a major conference at the end of 2006, is designed to harvest the major scientific results of the project, to ensure that IDGEC’s scientific legacy is properly framed and disseminated, and to explore in what ways the crosscutting theme of institutions should be treated in the ongoing work of the IHDP, including in new endeavors like the emerging project on urbanization. Because the synthesis process will focus explicitly on contributions to knowledge relating to the research foci and the analytic themes set forth in the Science Plan, access to this expanded version of the plan will be particularly important for all those participating in or generally interested in the IDGEC synthesis process. We wish to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge all those who have contributed to the preparation and publication of this new edition of the IDGEC Science Plan. Professor Oran Young, Chair of the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), has provided study leadership for the project since its inception. Dr. Heike Schroeder, IDGEC’s current Executive Officer, contributed the lion’s share of the work required to prepare this edition of the Science Plan for publication. Essential financial support has come both from grants made by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to support the IDGEC International Project Office (IPO) and from a number 8 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Foreword |

of supporters of the IHDP, particularly the German Ministry for Science, Research and Technology (BMBF). IHDP is very proud of the accomplishments of IDGEC and will continue to support work on institutional issues relating to global environmental change during the IDGEC synthesis process and beyond. Professor Coleen Vogel Chair, IHDP SC

Dr. Barbara Gรถbel Executive Director, IHDP

January 2005

Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 9

| Preface to the Revised Edition

Preface to the Revised Edition The project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) is now in its seventh year of operation. The project is well into the implementation phase and has produced a significant body of literature. At its most recent meeting in June 2004, the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) decided to launch a synthesis process to identify systematically, formulate concisely, and disseminate effectively the main findings resulting from IDGEC research. The process will culminate in a Synthesis Conference at the end of 2006. The IDGEC Science Plan reflects the state of knowledge about the institutional dimensions of environmental change as it stood at the outset of the project. The research questions elaborated in the Science Plan remain timely, and its research agenda has proven fruitful. It continues to guide cutting-edge research on the institutional dimensions of environmental change. This revised version of the Science Plan contains a current version of the continually growing IDGEC Publications List and a new section on three flagship activities that were launched at the first meeting of the IDGEC SSC in 1999. The aim of these flagship activities is to provide empirical domains to derive knowledge about institutions to implement the research agenda set forth in the Science Plan. The Science Plan introduces three research foci and three analytic themes that constitute the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scientific agenda. The research foci direct attention to matters of causality, performance, and design. The aim is to examine the degree to which institutions make a difference as determinants of human/environment interactions. We have come to understand that institutions are crosscutting factors that can account for a portion of the variance in a wide range of outcomes. However, they normally operate as components of causal clusters that include a number of interactive factors encompassing not only institutions but also biophysical, demographic, economic, social, and technological forces. Interactions among the elements of these clusters hinder the use of ordinary statistical procedures (e.g., multiple regression) designed to tease out the relative weights of individual driving forces. The project has played an influential role in the development of a collection of methodological tools to identify the consequences of institutional arrangements. IDGEC research has shown that there is no single, preferred method for analyzing the causal significance of institutions. Applying a combination of distinct methods has proven most effective. When the results converge, there can be increased confidence in the findings. Diverging results, on the other hand, signal problems and indicate the need for additional study. While the IDGEC research foci raise fundamental concerns that are pervasive throughout the New Institutionalism in the social sciences, IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s analytic themes of fit, interplay, and scale point to cutting-edge issues that were just coming into focus when the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Science Plan was drafted. These themes have provided a basis for fruitful research. IDGEC has played a 10 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Preface to the Revised Edition |

central role in the development of growing streams of research dealing with each of the themes. The complexity of individual institutions has attracted intensive scholarly interest without a great deal of attention being paid to the context in which these arrangements operate. IDGEC studies, however, have demonstrated that any effort to understand fully the role of institutions in causing and addressing large-scale environmental issues cannot succeed without taking seriously the problems of fit, interplay, and scale. IDGEC has used a number of strategies to generate new knowledge regarding its research foci and analytic themes. Among the most successful of these is the development of flagship activities that are linked to theoretical concerns but that also provide empirical domains useful in deriving knowledge about institutions and bringing it to bear on policy-relevant matters. These flagships are (i) the Carbon Management Research Activity or CMRA, (ii) the Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones or PEEZ, and (iii) the Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests or PEF. Each flagship provides rich opportunities to address a number of IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research foci and analytic themes: PEF has lent itself particularly well to studies of the basic causal issues; PEEZ has given rise to systematic research on the performance issues; and CMRA has gravitated toward the design issues. Overall, IDGEC has passed the middle of its lifecycle in good shape; the project is on track to achieve excellent results by the end of its lifecycle. Professor Oran R. Young Chair, IDGEC SSC

Dr. Heike Schroeder Executive Officer, IDGEC

January 2005

Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 11

| Preface

Preface The Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change represent a critical cross-cutting human dimensions issue of special policy relevance in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world. The Scientific Committee of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP SC) is therefore especially pleased that this is the first major new Science Plan approved by the IHDP SC. The development of a well-crafted Science Plan is a pivotal step in the lifecycle of a global project as it must provide a clear framework and guide for priority research over a 5-10 year period. To be successful, it must evolve from a free and open collaboration of scientists from around the world committed to establishing - and implementing - such a research framework. This Science Plan is the product of a lengthy consultative process which first began within the original Human Dimensions Programme (HDP) when they commissioned a memorandum on research opportunities in the field of institutions in 1995 and later requested the preparation of a full Scoping Report on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Change. In December 1996, the new IHDP SC reviewed the Scoping Report prepared by Oran Young and Arild Underdal and authorized the establishment of a Scientific Planning Committee (SPC) for the project. The SPC, under the leadership of Oran Young, has guided the process of formulating the Science Plan, seeking inputs from members of the relevant science and policy communities, commissioning background papers on key issues, and organizing an international workshop held in Stockholm in December 1997. This workshop brought together 30 participants from a wide variety of disciplines and parts of the world to engage in four days of extensive discussions regarding the scope and content of the Science Plan. It was funded by EU-ENRICH, USA-COSSA, Norway and Sweden. Following an extensive drafting process, the draft Science Plan was circulated to the Workshop participants, submitted to the IHDP Scientific Committee and others in the IHDP and Global Environmental Change research network. The draft was discussed at the IHDP SC Session in March 1998. Following modest revisions, the IHDP SC sought further advice reflecting the perspectives of researchers, policymakers and potential end-users and placed the draft plan on the IHDP web pages with a request for comments from all interested parties. Following a meeting of the SPC in Australia in July 1998, further useful revisions have been made to the Draft and the Science Plan was approved by the IHDP SC in November 1998. The IHDP SC is convinced that this Science Plan and the IDGEC Project will become one of the most critical global environmental change activities of the future. This project will also provide critical insights and support to the IHDPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s global environmental change research programme partners, i.e. World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), International Geosphere - Biosphere Programme (IGBP), International Programme of Biodiversity Science (DIVERSITAS) and SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training (START). Institutions represent a driving force which may both cause global environmental change and/or facilitate our response to global environmental change. They influence not only the implementation of major global 12 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Preface |

environmental conventions such as those dealing with climate, desertification and biodiversity, but as well the multitude of other environmental change issues which have consequences for people and societies from the very local to the global scale. Our ability to more effectively manage and adapt our institutions to meet the environmental, economic and social objectives of sustainable development will be one of the most important policy challenges confronting society. The research agenda set out in this Science Plan should make a significant contribution to help us meet those challenges. The Scientific Committee would like to express its appreciation and thanks to all those who have collaborated in the design, development, drafting and reviewing of this Science Plan. The key to the future success of the IHDP is indeed the voluntary and collaborative action of the highly qualified and committed researchers involved in its Science Projects. Those who have collaborated in the IDGEC process are too numerous to mention individually, but we must extend our special appreciation to the members of the Scientific Planning Committee and its Chair, Prof. Oran Young, who have all worked so hard over the past two years to complete this Plan. We would also like to acknowledge the special contributions made by Prof. Abram Chayes (Harvard Law School), Dr. Narpat Jodha (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, ICIMOD) and Ms. Joke Waller-Hunter (Director of the Environment Department, OECD); and who provided extremely useful advice at the final review stage aimed at enhancing the policy relevance and value-added of the proposed research activities. We also would like to acknowledge the special assistance provided throughout this process by Prof. Arild Underdal, Vice-Chair of the IHDP SC and Prof. J. H. Opschoor, who serves as IHDP SC liaison member for this project. Finally, we would also like to express our appreciation for the essential financial support we received from ENRICH, Norway, Sweden and COSSA for the IDGEC Workshop as well as the special financial support provided to IHDP particularly by the German Ministry for Science, Research and Technology (BMBF), the National Science Foundation of the United States (NSF) and several others which has enabled the IHDP to support this process. Completing a Science Plan, however, is not the end of a process. It is actually the first major step towards the launching of a long and challenging implementation process. The success of this process is dependent on the IDGEC Science Plan attracting the support of highly qualified researchers who will offer to integrate under the IDGEC umbrella their on-going and past research activities in this field. It will also require researchers to prepare and submit new research proposals through national, regional and global funding mechanisms in order to carry out the new research priorities identified within the Science Plan. We are confident that future collaboration between human dimensions researchers and global environmental change donors (e.g., through support from the members of the International Group of Funding Agencies (IGFA)) and the policy communities will lead to mutually beneficial and significant research results. The IHDP will continue to support this process with a view to ensuring that this Science Plan is effectively implemented. Professor Eckart Ehlers Chair, IHDP SC

Dr. Larry R. Kohler Executive Director, IHDP

6 December 1998 Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 13

| IDGEC Publications List

IDGEC Publications List The IDGEC Publications List was put together to enhance the visibility of the body of literature that has contributed to the development of the IDGEC science. In doing so, the publications list seeks to draw as accurately as possible the dividing line between work that deserves to be merited for contributing to the IDGEC science and work that IDGEC cannot claim to have inspired. This body of literature is continuously growing, and is regularly updated on IDGEC’s website at http://fiesta.bren.ucsb.edu/~idgec/ publications/idgecpub.html.

General Work Barrett, Scott. 2002. Environment and Statecraft: The Strategy of Environmental Treaty-Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Breit, Heiko, et al., eds. 2003. How Institutions Change: Perspectives on Social Learning in Global and Local Environmental Contexts. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Breitmeier, Helmut, Oran R. Young, and Michael Zürn. The Analysis of International Environmental Regimes: From Case Study to Relational Database. Forthcoming. Mitchell, Ronald, et al., eds. Global Environmental Assessments: Information, Institutions and Influence. MIT Press. Forthcoming. Sand, Peter H. “Réforme de la Gouvernance Internationale de l’Environnement: Perspectives Actuelles.” Environmental Policy and Law 34. Forthcoming. Young, Oran R. 2003. “Environmental Governance: The Role of Institutions in Causing and Confronting Environmental Problems.” International Environmental Agreements 3: 377-393. Young, Oran R. 2002. The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Young, Oran R. 2002. “Can New Institutions Solve Atmospheric Problems? Confronting Acid Rain, Ozone Depletion, and Climate Change.” Challenges of a Changing Earth, edited by Will Steffen et al. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Young, Oran R. 1999. Governance in World Affairs. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Young, Oran R., with contributions from Arun Agrawal, Leslie A. King, Peter H. Sand, and Merrilyn Wasson. 1999, 2005. Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) Science Plan. IHDP Report No. 9. Bonn: IHDP.

Research Foci – Causality, Performance, and Design Mizuta, Hideyuki, and Yoshiki Yamagata. 2002. “Agent-Based Simulation and Gaming System for International Emissions Trading.” Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems, edited by Akira Namatame et al. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Mizuta, Hideyuki, and Yoshiki Yamagata. 2001. “Agent-Based Simulation for Economic and Environmental Studies.” New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, edited by A. Namatame, T. Terano, and K. Kurumatani. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Underdal, Arild. 2002. “Patterns of Regime Effectiveness. “ Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory and Evidence, edited by Edward L. Miles et al. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Underdal, Arild, and Oran R. Young, eds. 2004. Regime Consequences: Methodological Challenges and Research Strategies. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Young, Oran R. 2003. “Regime Effectiveness: A Commentary on the Oslo-Potsdam Solution.” Global Environmental Politics 3: 97-104. 14 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

IDGEC Publications List |

Young, Oran R. 2002. “Evaluating the Success of International Environmental Regimes: Where Are We Now?” Global Environmental Change 12: 73-77. Young, Oran R. 2002. “Are Institutions Intervening Variables or Basic Causal Forces? Causal Clusters versus Causal Chains in International Society.” Millennium Reflections on International Studies, edited by Michael Brecher and Frank Harvey. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Young, Oran R. 2001. “Evaluating the Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes.” Global Environmental Politics 1: 99-121. Young, Oran R. 2001. “The Behavioral Effects of Environmental Regimes: CollectiveAction vs. Social-Process Models.” International Environmental Agreements 1, 1: 9-29. Young, Oran R. ed. 1999. The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Young, Oran R., and Eric Lambin et al. 2005. “Beyond Regression: Methods for Analyzing Complex Human-Environment Interactions.” PNAS. In review.

Analytic Themes – Fit, Interplay, and Scale Fit Cleveland, Cutler, et al. 1996. “A Framework for Modeling the Linkages between Ecosystems and Human Systems.” Beijer Discussion Paper Series No. 76. Stockholm: Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics. Ebbin, Syma. 2002. “Enhanced Fit through Institutional Interplay in the Pacific Northwest Salmon Co-management Regime.” Marine Policy 26, 4: 23-29. Myint, Tun. “’Problem of Fit’ between Institutions and Environment: Empirical Evidences from the Rhine.” Under review. Pritchard, Lowell, John Colding, Fikret Berkes, Uno Svedin, and Carl Folke. 1998. “The Problem of Fit between Ecosystems and Institutions.” IHDP Working Paper No. 2. Bonn: IHDP. Young, Oran R. 2002. “Matching Institutions and Ecosystems: The Problem of Fit.” Institut du Developpement Durable et des Relations Internationales (IDDRI).

Interplay Berkes, Fikret. 2002. “Cross-Scale Institutional Linkages: Perspectives from the Bottom Up.” The Drama of the Commons: Institutions for Managing the Commons, edited by Elinor Ostrom et al. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Cash, David et al. “Scale and Cross-scale Dynamics: Governance and Information in a Multi-level world.” Ecology and Society, Special Issue. Forthcoming. Fogel, Cathleen. 2004. “The Local, the Global, and the Kyoto Protocol.” Earthly Politics: Local and Global Environmental Governance, edited by Marybeth Long Martello and Sheila Jasanoff. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lebel, Louis. 2005. “Institutional Dynamics and Interplay: Critical Processes for Forest Governance and Sustainability in the Mountain Regions of Northern Thailand.” Global Change and Mountain Regions: An Overview of Current Knowledge, edited by Uli M. Huber et al. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. Forthcoming. Hoel, Alf Håkon. 2003. “Marine Biodiversity and Institutional Interplay.” Coastal Management 30, 25-36. Karlsson, Sylvia. 2004. “Agricultural Pesticides in Developing Countries – A Multilevel Governance Challenge.” Environment 46, 4: 22-41. Karlsson, Sylvia. 2002. “Governance of the Local, the Global and Linkages in Between.” The Common Property Resource Digest 63, December 8-9. King, Leslie A. 1997. “Institutional Interplay: Research Questions.” Background paper prepared for the IDGEC project. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 15

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Moltke, Konrad von. 1997. “Institutional Interactions: The Structure of Regimes for Trade and the Environment.” Global Governance: Drawing Insights from the Environmental Experience, edited by Oran R. Young. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Oberthür, Sebastian. 2001. “Linkages between the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols: Enhancing Synergies between Protecting the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate.” International Environmental Agreements 1, 3: 357-377. Oberthür, Sebastian, and Thomas Gehring. Interactions between EU and International Environmental Institutions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Forthcoming. Oberthür, Sebastian, and Thomas Gehring. 2004. “Reforming International Environmental Governance: An Institutional Critique of the Proposal for a World Environment Organization.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 4: 359-381. Rosendal, G. Kristin. 2001. “Overlapping International Regimes: The Case of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) between Climate Change and Biodiversity.” International Environmental Agreements 1, 4: 447-468. Sand, Peter H. 2001. “A Century of Green Lessons: The Contribution of Nature Conservation Regimes to Global Governance.” International Environmental Agreements 1, 1: 33-72. Schroeder, Heike. “The IDGEC Approach to Analyzing Institutional Interplay in the Biosafety and Trade Regimes.” Institutional Interplay: The Case of Biosafety, edited by W. Bradnee Chambers and Joy A. Kim. Tokyo: UNU Press. Forthcoming. Stokke, Olav Schram, ed. 2001. Governing High Seas Fisheries: The Interplay of Global and Regional Regimes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stokke, Olav Schram. 2001. “The Interplay of International Regimes: Putting Effectiveness Theory to Work.” FNI Report 14/2001. Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Lysaker. Stokke, Olav Schram. 2000. “Managing Straddling Stocks: The Interplay of Global and Regional Regimes.” Ocean and Coastal Management 43: 205-234. Sydnes, Are K. 2002. Institutional Interplay in International Fisheries Governance: The Evolution of the Role of Regional Fishery Organisations. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Tromsø. Young, Oran R. 2002. “Institutional Interplay: The Environmental Consequences of Cross-Scale Interactions.” The Drama of the Commons: Institutions for Managing the Commons, edited by Elinor Ostrom et al. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Young, Oran R. 1996. “Institutional Linkages in International Society.” Global Governance 2: 1-23.

Scale Alcock, Frank. 2002. “Scale Crisis and Sectoral Conflict: The Fisheries Development Dilemma.” Global Environmental Change and the Nation State: Proceedings of the 2001 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, edited by Frank Biermann, Rainer Brohm, and Klaus Dingwerth. Potsdam: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Gibson, Clark, Elinor Ostrom, and Toh-Kyeong Ahn. 2000. “The Concept of Scale and the Human Dimensions of Global Change: A Survey.” Ecological Economics 32: 217-239. Gupta, Aarti. 2004. “When Global is Local: Negotiating Safe Use of Biotechnology.” Earthly Politics, Worldly Knowledge: Local and Global in Environmental Governance, edited by Sheila Jasanoff and Marybeth Long-Martello. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 16 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

IDGEC Publications List |

Gupta, Aarti. 2002. “Global Norms to Bridge National Difference? The Case of Biotechnology.” Global Environmental Change and the Nation State: Proceedings of the 2001 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, edited by in Frank Biermann, Rainer Brohm and Klaus Dingwerth. Potsdam: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Lebel, Louis. 2005. “The Politics of Scale in Environmental Assessment.” Bridging Scales and Epistemologies: Linking Local Knowledge and Global Science in Environmental Assessments, edited by F. Berkes, T. Wilbanks, D. Capistrano. Island Press: Washington, DC. USER Working Paper, WP-2004-07. Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University. Forthcoming. Lebel, Louis, and P. Garden. 2004. “The Politics of Scale, Place and Position in the Management and Governance of Regional Water Resources.” USER Working Paper, WP-2004-16. Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University. McGinnis, Michael, and Elinor Ostrom. 1996. “Design Principles for Local and Global Commons.” The International Political Economy and International Institutions, edited by Oran R. Young. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, Vol. 2. Ostrom, Elinor, et al. 1999. “Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges.” Science 284: 278-282. Sand, Peter H. 2004. “Sovereignty Bounded: Public Trusteeship for Common Pool Resources?” Global Environmental Politics 4: 47-71. Young, Oran R. 1994. “The Problem of Scale in Human/Environment Relations.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 6: 429-447.

Flagship Activities – PEF, PEEZ, and CMRA PEF Contreras, Antonio. 2003. The Kingdom and the Republic: Forest Governance and Political Transformation in Thailand and the Philippines. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Contreras, Antonio, Louis Lebel, and Suparb Pas-ong. 2001. “The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests.” IDGEC Scoping Report No. 3. Dartmouth, IDGEC. Kanowski, Peter, and Merrilyn Wasson. 2003. The Potential of the Kyoto Protocol Flexibility Mechanisms to Support Sustainable Forest Management in the Asia-Pacific Region. Canberra: Australian Government Press. Lebel, Louis, and Suparb Pas-ong, eds. Institutional Interplay and the Governance of Forests of Southeast Asia. Forthcoming. Lebel Louis, Antonio Contreras, Suparb Pasong, and P. Garden. 2004. “Nobody Knows Best: Alternative Perspectives on Forest Management and Governance in Southeast Asia.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 2: 111-127.

PEEZ Alcock, Frank. 2004. “The Institutional Dimensions of Fisheries Stock Assessments.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 2: 129-141. Alcock, Frank. 2002. “Bargaining, Uncertainty and Property Rights in Fisheries.” World Politics 54, 4: 437-61. Alcock, Frank et al. Assessing the Performance of EEZs: Fisheries Management, Trade, and Human Livelihoods. Forthcoming. Ebbin, Syma A. 2005. “The Impact of the EEZ on Salmon Management in the US Pacific Northwest Region: An Examination of Institutional Change and Vertical Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 17

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Interplay.” A Sea Change: The Exclusive Economic Zone and Governance Institutions for Living Marine Resources, edited by Syma A. Ebbin, Alf Håkon Hoel, and Are K. Sydnes. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. Ebbin, Syma, Alf Håkon Hoel, and Are Sydnes, eds. 2005. A Sea Change: The Exclusive Economic Zone and Governance Institutions for Living Marine Resources. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. Ebbin, Syma. 2004. “The Anatomy of Conflict and the Politics of Identity in Two Cooperative Salmon Management Regimes.” Policy Sciences 37, 1: 71-87. Ebbin, Syma. 2003. “Swimming Upstream: Institutional Dimensions of Asymmetrical Problems in Two Salmon Management Regimes.” Marine Policy 27, 5: 441-448. Ebbin, Syma. 2002. “Dividing the Waters: Cooperative Management and the Allocation of Pacific Salmon.” The Tribes and the States, edited by Brad A. Bays and Erin Hogan Fouberg. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Ebbin, Syma. 2002. “What’s Up: The Transformation of Upstream-Downstream Relationships on Alaska’s Kuskokwim River.” Polar Geography 2: 147-166. Hoel, Alf Håkon. 2005. “The Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones: The Case of Norway.” A Sea Change. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Governance Institutions for Living Marine Resources, edited by Syma A. Ebbin, Alf Håkon Hoel, and Are K. Sydnes. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. Hoel, Alf Håkon, Are K. Sydnes, and Syma A. Ebbin. 2005. “Ocean Governance and Institutional Change.” A Sea Change. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Governance Institutions for Living Marine Resources, edited by Syma A. Ebbin, Alf Håkon Hoel, and Are K. Sydnes. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. Hoel, Alf Håkon, Are K. Sydnes, and Syma A. Ebbin. 2005. “Changing Seas, Changing Institutions: Charting New Courses into the Future.” A Sea Change. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Governance Institutions for Living Marine Resources, edited by Syma A. Ebbin, Alf Håkon Hoel, and Are K. Sydnes. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. Hoel, Alf Håkon, with contributions from Elena Andreeva, Russell Reichelt, Virginia Walsh, and Oran R. Young. 2000. “Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones.” IDGEC Scoping Report No. 2. Dartmouth: IDGEC. Stokke, Olav S., Lars Gulbrandsen, Alf H. Hoel, and Jonette Braathen. 2004. “Ecolabeling of Sustainable Management of Forestry and Fisheries: Does it Work?” FNI Report 4/2004. The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Lysaker. Sydnes, Are K. 2002. Institutional Interplay in International Fisheries Governance: The Evolution of the Role of Regional Fishery Oranisations. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Tromsø. Sydnes, Are K. 2002. “Regional Fishery Organisations in Developing Regions: Adapting to Changes in International Fisheries Law.” Marine Policy 26: 373-381. Sydnes, Are K. 2001. “Regional Fishery Organizations: How and Why Organizational Diversity Matters.” Ocean Development and International Law 34: 349-372. Sydnes, Are K. 2001. “Establishing a Regional Fisheries Management Organization in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.” Ocean and Coastal Management 44: 787-811. Sydnes, Are K. 2001. “New Fisheries Management Regimes: Establishing the Southeast Atlantic Fisheries Organization.” Marine Policy 25: 353-364. Sydnes, Are K., Alf Håkon Hoel, and Syma A. Ebbin. 2005. “Changing Seas, Changing Institutions: Charting New Courses into the Future.” A Sea Change. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Governance Institutions for Living Marine Resources, edited by Syma A. Ebbin, Alf Håkon Hoel, and Are K. Sydnes. Dordrecht: Springer Verlag. 18 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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CMRA Kaivo-oja, Jari, and Jyrki Luukkanen. 2004. “The European Union balancing between CO2 reduction commitments and growth policies.” Energy Policy 32: 1511-1530. Kaivo-oja, Jari, and Jyrki Luukkanen. 2002. “Energy and CO2 Efficiency Dynamics in the World Regions.” International Journal of Global Energy Issues 18, 2/3/4: 274-293. Luukkanen, Jyrki, and Jari Kaivo-oja. 2003. “G-7 Countries on the Way to Sustainable Energy Systems?” International Journal of Global Energy Issues 20, 1: 58-74. Luukkanen, Jyrki, and Jari Kaivo-oja. 2002. “Meaningful Participation in Emission Reductions and Global Climate Policy: Comparative Analysis of the Key Developing Countries Energy and CO2 Efficiency Dynamics in the Years 19711997.” Global Environmental Change 12: 117-126. Luukkanen, Jyrki, and Jari Kaivo-oja. 2002. “ASEAN Tigers and Sustainability of Energy Use: Decomposition Analysis of Energy and CO2 Efficiency Dynamics.” Energy Policy 30: 281-292. Luukkanen, Jyrki, and Jari Kaivo-oja. 2002. “Comparison of Nordic Energy and CO2 Efficiency Dynamics in the Years 1960-1997.” Energy - The International Journal 27, 2: 135-150. Sewell, Granville, Merrilyn Wasson, and Yoshiki Yamagata. 2000. “The Institutional Dimensions of Carbon Management.” IDGEC Scoping Report No. 1. Dartmouth: IDGEC. Sugiyama, Taishi, ed. 2005. “Scenarios for the Global Climate Regime after 2012.” International Environmental Agreements, Special Issue. Forthcoming. Sugiyama, Taishi. 2001. “Enforcement or Management? Two Schools of Thought in the Institutional Design of the Kyoto Regime.” Energy and Environment 12: 7-22. Yamagata, Yoshiki, and Georgii Alexandrov. 2001. “Would Forestation Alleviate the Burden of Emission Reduction? An Assessment of the Future Carbon Sink from ARD Activities.” Climate Policy 1: 27-40. Young, Oran R. 2003. “Taking Stock: Management Pitfalls in Fisheries Science.” Environment 45, 3: 24-33. Young, Oran R. 2002. “Review of ‘The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol’.” American Journal of International Law 96: 736-741. Young, Oran R. 2002. “Can New Institutions Solve Atmospheric Problems? Confronting Acid Rain, Ozone Depletion, and Climate Change.” Challenges of a Changing Earth, edited by Will Steffen et al. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Crosscutting Issues Contreras, Antonio P. 2004. “Civil Society, Environmental Security and Knowledge: Forest Governance in Thailand and the Philippines in the Context of ASEAN.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 2: 179-193. Ebbin, Syma, ed. 2004. Institutions and the Production of Knowledge for Environmental Governance: Empirical Evidence from Marine and Terrestrial Systems. International Environmental Agreements, Special Issue, 4, 2. Ebbin, Syma. 2004. “Black Box Production of Paper Fish: An Examination of Knowledge Construction and Validation in Fisheries Management Institutions.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 2: 143-158. Fogel, Cathleen. “Biotic Carbon Sequestration and the Kyoto Protocol: the Construction of Global Knowledge by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” International Environmental Agreements. Forthcoming. Fogel, Cathleen. 2004. “The Local, the Global and the Kyoto Protocol.” Earthly Politics: Local and Global Environmental Governance, edited by Marybeth Long Martello and Sheila Jasanoff. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 19

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Karlsson, Sylvia I. 2004. “Institutionalized Knowledge Challenges in Pesticide Governance — The End of Knowledge and Beginning of Values in Governing Globalized Environmental Issues.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 2: 195-213. Karlsson, Sylvia I. 2002. “The North/South Knowledge Divide: Consequences for Global Environmental Governance.” Strengthening Global Environmental Governance: Options and Opportunities, edited by Daniel C. Esty and Maria Ivanova. Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, New Haven. King, Leslie. 2004. “Competing Knowledge Systems in the Management of Fish and Forests in the Pacific Northwest.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 2: 161-177. Sand, Peter H. 2002. “The Right to Know: Environmental Information Disclosure by Government and Industry.” Knowledge for the Sustainability Transition: The Challenge for Social Science. Proceedings of the 2002 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, edited by Frank Biermann and Sabine Campe. Potsdam: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Walsh, Virginia M. 2004. Global Institutions and Social Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Young, Oran R. 2004. “Institutions and the Growth of Knowledge: Evidence from International Environmental Regimes.” International Environmental Agreements 4, 2: 213-226.

Other Work Alcock, Frank. 2001. “Embeddedness and Influence: A Contrast of Assessment Failure in New England and Newfoundland.” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) Discussion Paper 2001-19. Environment and Natural Resources Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Arce, Daniel. 2004. “Asymmetric Leadership and International Public Goods.” Public Finance Review 32, 5: 528-558. Arce, Daniel, and Todd Sandler. 2003. “Pure Public Goods versus Commons: BenefitCost Duality.” Land Economics 79, 3: 355-368. Arce, Daniel, and Todd Sandler. 2003. “Health-Promoting Alliances.” European Journal of Political Economy 19, 2: 355-75. Arce, Daniel, and Todd Sandler. 2002. Regional Public Goods: Typologies, Provision, Financing, and Development Assistance. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Arce, Daniel, and Todd Sandler. 2002. “A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Global and Transnational Public Goods for Health.” Fiscal Studies 23, 2: 195222. Barrett, Scott. 2001. “International Cooperation for Sale.” European Economic Review 45:1835-1850. Grafton, Quentin, Frank Jotzo, and Merrilyn Wasson. 2004. “Financing Sustainable Development: Country Undertakings and Rights for Environmental Sustainability (CURES).” Journal of Ecological Economics 51, 1-2: 65-78. Gupta, Aarti. 2001. Searching for Shared Norms: Global Governance of Biosafety. Ph.D. Dissertation, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yale University. Gupta, Aarti. 2000. “Creating a Global Biosafety Regime.” International Journal of Biotechnology 2, 1/2/3: 205–230. Gupta, Aarti. 2000. “Governing Trade in Genetically Modified Organisms: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.” Environment 42, 4: 23–33. 20 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Gupta, Aarti. 1999. “Framing Biosafety in an International Context: The Biosafety Protocol Negotiations.” Discussion Paper E-99-10. Environment and Natural Resources Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Hirono, Ryokichi, and Heike Schroeder. 2004. “The Road to and from the Kyoto Protocol: The Perspectives of Germany and Japan.” International Review for Environmental Strategies, Special Issue, 5, 1. Ishii, Atsushi. 2001. “Merging the EU Acidification Strategy: Evaluating the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone.” Review of European Community and International Environmental Law 10: 210-226. Karlsson, Sylvia. 2000. Multilayered Governance. Pesticides in the South: Environmental Concerns in a Globalised World. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University. Lebel, Louis, and Bach Tan Sinh. 2005. “Too much of a good thing: how better governance could reduce vulnerability to floods in the Mekong region.” USER Working Paper, WP-2005-01. Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University. Lebel, Louis, Xu Jianchu, and Antonio Contreras, eds. 2004. Politics of the Commons: Institutional Dynamics and Stasis: How crises alter the way common pool natural resources are perceived, used and governed in Asia. Regional Centre for Social Sciences and Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University. Lebel, Louis, et al. 2002. “Industrial Transformation and Shrimp Aquaculture in Thailand and Vietnam: Pathways to Ecological, Social and Economic Sustainability?” Ambio 31, 4: 311-323. Manuta Jesse, Supaporn Khrutmuang, Darika Huaisai, Louis Lebel. 2004. “Institutionalized Incapacities: The Politics of Redistributing Risks and Altering Vulnerabilities to Floods in Thailand.” USER Working Paper, WP-2004-16. Regional Centre for Social Sciences and Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University. Mitchell, Ronald, et al. 2002. Information as Influence: How Institutions Mediate the Impact of Scientific Assessments on International Environmental Affairs. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Myint, Tun. 2003. “Democracy in Global Environmental Governance: Issues, Interests, and Actors in the Mekong and the Rhine.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 10, 1: 287-314. Myint, Tun. 2003. “Advancing Environmental Governance in Burma.” Advancing Environmental Governance: Perspective from the Regional Environmental Forum for Mainland Southeast Asia, edited by Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, Thailand Environmental Institute, and World Resources Institute. Myint, Tun. 2002. “Harnessing Governance for Democracy and Sustainability: Empirical Evidence from the Rhine.” International Experiences on Sustainability, edited by Walter L. Filho. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Pasong, Suparb, and Louis Lebel. 2000. “Political Transformation and the Environment in Southeast Asia,” Environment 42, 8: 8-19. Sand, Peter H. 1999. Transnational Environmental Law: Lessons in Global Change. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Schroeder, Heike. 2004. “Japans Beitrag zur Internationalen Klimapolitik.“ Japan 2004. Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde. Schroeder, Heike. 2004. „Der japanische Toprunneransatz im Klimaschutz.“ Ökologisches Wirtschaften 3-4. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 21

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Schroeder, Heike. 2003. From Dusk to Dawn: Climate Change Policy in Japan. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Free University of Berlin. Wasson, Merrilyn. 2003. “Water, Women and Climate Change: Institutional Exclusion and Insecurity in Timor Leste and Indonesia. Fluid Bonds, edited by K. Lahiri Dutt. Canberra: Pandanus Press. Wasson, Merrilyn, and Matthew Rimmer. “Genetic Resource Ownership Issues: Jurisdictional and institutional anomalies between the Australian Constitution, the Biodiversity Convention, and the TRIPS Agreement.” Bioscience Law Review. Forthcoming. Young, Oran R. 2002. “Can the Arctic Council and the Northern Forum Find Common Ground?” Polar Record 38, 207: 289-296. Young, Oran R. 2001. “Transboundary Protected Areas: Why Plans that Seem Attractive on Paper Can Go Awry on the Ground.” The Common Property Resource Digest 59: 1-4.

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Executive Summary |

Executive Summary This document constitutes the Science Plan for the project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC), which in turn is part of a larger science planning enterprise taking place under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The core of the IDGEC project is an analysis of the roles that social institutions play as determinants of the course of human/environment interactions. Institutions are systems of rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that give rise to social practices, assign roles to participants in these practices, and guide interactions among the occupants of the relevant roles. Unlike organizations, which are material entities that typically figure as actors in social practices, institutions may be thought of as the rules of the game that determine the character of these practices. Institutions loom large as causes of large-scale environmental problems that are both systemic (e.g., climate change, ozone layer depletion) and cumulative (e.g., loss of biological diversity) in nature. Faulty structures of property rights, for example, can lead to severe depletions of stocks of living resources or to excessive uses of ecosystems for the disposal of airborne and waterborne pollutants. Conversely, institutions often figure prominently in efforts to solve or manage environmental problems. The establishment of limited-entry arrangements to prevent the ravages of overfishing and of regulatory regimes to control emissions of ozone-depleting substances or greenhouse gases are examples of obvious relevance to global environmental change. Four sets of priorities define the scope of the IDGEC project and give it a distinct identity within the family of projects addressing issues of global environmental change. A fifth priority was added after the inauguration of the project. These priorities encompass: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Research Foci, Analytic Themes, Regional Applications, Programmatic Partnerships, Flagship Activities.

Research Foci The research foci spelled out in the IDGEC Science Plan all involve the roles that social institutions play in causing and confronting global environmental changes. They single out for particular attention the roles of environmental and resource regimes, defined as institutional arrangements concerned explicitly with human/environment relations. Taken together, the IDGEC research foci form a hierarchical sequence that moves from broadly theoretical to applied concerns by addressing matters of: 1. Causality (how much of the variance in collective outcomes is attributable to institutions?), 2. Performance (why are some institutional responses to environmental problems more successful than others?), 3. Design (how can we structure institutions to maximize their performance?). Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 23

| Executive Summary

Research Focus 1: Causality What roles do institutions play in causing and confronting global environmental changes? This focus encompasses three more specific themes: 1. What is the role of environmental and resource regimes in global environmental change? 2. What is the role of other institutions (e.g., trade and investment regimes) in global environmental change? 3. What factors determine the resilience of institutions in the face of global environmental change? As a group, these themes address the fundamental causal connections linking institutions to collective outcomes in the realm of human/environment relations.

Research Focus 2: Performance Why are some institutional responses to global environmental changes more successful than others? This focus directs attention more to a circumscribed set of issues in order to deepen our understanding of factors that determine the results arising from human efforts to solve or manage environmental problems through institutional responses. It, too, includes three specific themes: 1. Are there common features or elements of (un)successful institutional responses? 2. What factors threaten the development or the survival of institutional responses? 3. What unintended consequences do institutional responses produce?

Research Focus 3: Design

What are the prospects for (re)designing institutions to confront environmental challenges? The goal of this most applied focus is to derive policy-relevant conclusions from the study of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change. This effort involves four specific themes: 1. What are the (dis)advantages of creating new institutions in contrast to reforming existing institutions? 2. How can we incorporate flexibility, self-correcting procedures, and social learning processes into environmental and resource regimes? 3. What are the relative merits of a range of institutional attributes, including formal arrangements versus informal social practices, hard-law versus soft-law arrangements, different types of decision rules, and alternative funding mechanisms in conjunction with environmental and resource regimes? 4. Can we integrate environmental and resource regimes with other institutional arrangements, especially economic arrangements, at different stages of national development?

Analytic Themes Running through these substantive concerns are several analytic threads dealing with factors that determine the performance of institutions governing human/environment relations that are poorly understood at present. They constitute analytic priorities for research carried out under the auspices of the IDGEC project. Two clusters of factors arise repeatedly 24 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Executive Summary |

in efforts to understand variations in the performance of specific institutional arrangements. One cluster - referred to in the IDGEC project as the problem of fit - centers on issues pertaining to the match between institutional arrangements and biogeophysical systems; it directs particular attention to sources of institutional mismatches. The second cluster - known in the project as the problem of interplay - draws attention to linkages among distinct institutional arrangements both at the same level of social organization and across levels of social organization. It has become clear as well that studies of the effectiveness of institutional arrangements at different levels of social organization raise questions about the extent to which the causal mechanisms through which institutions affect behavior are generalizable from one level to another. Known to the IDGEC project as the problem of scale, this cluster of concerns parallels a topic well-known to students of biogeophysical systems.

Regional Applications Some institutional arrangements, such as the regimes dealing with the protection of stratospheric ozone and the control of greenhouse gases, are global in scope. They call for research efforts to deal with issues arising in international society and global civil society. Yet many institutions relevant to systemic as well as cumulative environmental changes operate at lower levels of social organization, so that a large fraction of the research required to understand the institutional dimensions of global change will need to focus on processes at work at the regional, national, and even local levels. Only after we understand these processes will it be possible to aggregate and synthesize the results in the interests of arriving at broader conclusions that parallel and complement the findings of natural scientists concerned with changes in biogeophysical systems that are global in scope. The IDGEC project will operate on an inclusive basis. An explicit effort will be made to incorporate research conducted in all parts of the world that addresses the substantive and analytical concerns of the project. At the same time, the IDGEC Science Plan identifies two major regions of the world as priority areas for research on the institutional dimensions of global environmental change.

Southeast Asia This region encompassing eleven countries and half a billion people contains a large portion of the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s moist tropical forests and generates the largest land-to-ocean sediment flows in the world. Heavily influenced by international economic institutions, debates regarding alternative paths to economic development, and domestic political turmoil, Southeast Asia offers an appropriate setting for analyses of many of the institutional forces that impact human/environment relations in the world today.

Circumpolar North This region covers parts of eight countries, including both Russia and the United States. The Russian taiga contains approximately as much carbon as the rain forests of the Amazon Basin, and the Circumpolar North as a whole is undergoing a transition from sink to source of greenhouse gases. Because global environmental changes are already occurring in this region and are Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 25

| Executive Summary

expected to impact the high latitudes with particular force, the Far North offers exceptional opportunities to analyze both the impacts of large-scale environmental changes and institutional responses to these impacts. Despite their obvious differences, the two regions share a number of attributes that are particularly relevant to the institutional dimensions of global change. The most significant of these involve the roles of large marine ecosystems, forest ecosystems, indigenous peoples, and the interplay of external and internal forces.

Programmatic Partnerships From the perspective of global environmental change, institutions constitute a crosscutting theme, emerging as an important dimension of an array of substantive concerns ranging from changes in patterns of land use to shifts in human activities in the coastal zone and the transformation of industrial systems. Taking advantage of this aspect of the project, the IDGEC implementation strategy features the establishment of partnerships with other projects as a means to foster strong institutional components in the work programs guiding the activities of these projects. The production of insights flowing from these partnerships and dealing with matters such as the institutional drivers of changes in land-use practices and institutional responses to coastal zone problems will constitute one important measure of the value added as a result of research sponsored by the IDGEC project. Fruitful exchanges have occurred already with scientists participating in other global change projects, especially Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE), Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ), and Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC). The IDGEC project has forged cooperative links with regional partners as well, including the Southeast Asian Regional Committee for START (SARCS) and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). Somewhat similar links are expected to develop with some national global change research programs and with the leaders of a variety of other projects dealing with largescale environmental issues. In addition, IDGEC seeks to produce results that are directly relevant to the concerns of members of the policy community seeking to understand issues such as the causes of unsustainable uses of living resources or to design regulatory systems capable of controlling problems like the emission of ozonedepleting substances or greenhouse gases. In this connection, the leaders of the IDGEC project will seek to stimulate mutually beneficial dialogues with key individuals associated with policy-making bodies (e.g., UNEP, UNDP, FAO, the GEF) responsible for devising and implementing responses to largescale environmental problems. The success of these dialogues will constitute another measure of the performance of the IDGEC project.

Flagship activities IDGEC has used a number of strategies to generate new knowledge regarding its research foci and analytic themes. Among the most successful, launched at SSC-1 in 1999, is the development of flagship activities that are linked to theoretical concerns but that also provide empirical domains useful in analytic terms and helpful in bringing knowledge about institutions to bear 26 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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on policy-relevant matters. The flagships are know as the Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests (PEF), the Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones (PEEZ), and the Carbon Management Research Activity (CMRA). Each flagship provides rich opportunities to address a number of IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research foci and analytic themes. In this regard, we have seen that PEF lends itself particularly well to studies of the basic causal issues; PEEZ gives rise to systematic research on the performance issues, and CMRA gravitates toward the design issues.

Institutions and Global Environmental Change Institutions figure prominently as determinants of the course of human/ environment relations. Faulty institutional arrangements frequently cause largescale environmental problems, such as severe depletion of living resources resulting from unrestricted access to common pool resources or air and water pollution occurring as externalities of the use of privately owned resources. Conversely, institutional arrangements often play a role in solving environmental problems, as in cases featuring the creation of limited-entry regimes to avoid the ravages of unsustainable harvesting of living resources or international regimes intended to prevent environmental problems such as the destruction of stratospheric ozone resulting from emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and related chemicals. In both cases, the fundamental premise is the same: the operation of institutions accounts for a sizable proportion of the variance in human behavior affecting biogeophysical systems. The project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) directs attention to these institutional matters and seeks to answer a set of specific questions pertaining both to anthropogenic sources of global environmental changes and to human responses to these largescale environmental changes. In the process, the project aims to produce insights that are directly relevant to the work of those charged with creating, implementing, and evaluating a variety of institutional arrangements.

1.1

The Nature of Institutions All institutions share a set of defining characteristics. They are systems of rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that give rise to social practices, assign roles to the participants in these practices, and guide interactions among the occupants of the relevant roles. Institutions arise in all areas of human endeavor. Where they arise to deal explicitly with matters involving human/ environment relations, it is normal to speak of institutions as environmental or resource regimes. For instance, both local arrangements dealing with the operation of smallscale irrigation systems and international arrangements pertaining to human activities involving shared lakes or river basins are regimes that are rather narrowly focused in spatial and functional terms. Other arrangements, such as systems of commonfield agriculture in traditional societies or the modern arrangements that comprise the law of the sea in international society, are cast in broader terms. Table 1, p. 28 provides an illustrative list of regimes operating at different levels of social organization. Institutions vary along a number of significant dimensions, including types of members, size of membership, degree of role differentiation, functional scope, geographical domain, extent of formalization, mix of formal and Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 27

| Institutions and Global Environmental Change

informal elements, density of rules and programs, structure of administrative organizations, stage of development, and links to other institutions. Both the polar bear regime and the regime aimed at protecting biological diversity, for instance, are arrangements based on hard law agreements whose members are states. But the regime for polar bears includes only the five range states and applies just to the areas where polar bears live. The biodiversity regime, on the other hand, includes 165 parties and covers habitat important to living resources all over the world. All institutions operate in larger settings characterized by material conditions, like the nature of available technologies and the distribution of power in the material sense, and cognitive conditions, such as prevailing values, norms, and beliefs, that affect the consequences flowing from their operation. Institutions are never static; they change continuously in response to both endogenous and exogenous forces. Table 1

Examples of Environmental/Resource Regimes at Different Levels of Social Organization Local Institutions • commonfield agriculture systems • local water management systems

Subnational Institutions • Alaskan limited-entry fishery regime • Australian Great Barrier Reef regime

National Institutions • fishery conservation regimes • Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) regimes

Regional Institutions • Mekong River Basin regime • polar bear regime

Global Institutions • ozone layer protection regime • climate change regime Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

Although casual discussions sometimes use the terms interchangeably, institutions as understood in the IDGEC project are not to be confused with organizations treated as material entities possessing offices, personnel, equipment, budgets, and legal personality (see Figure 1, p. 29) (Young 1994). The U.S. Department of the Interior, for example, is an organization; the regime for hardrock mining articulated in the Mining Act of 1872 is an institution. Corporations, such as British Petroleum and DuPont, are organizations. But the world trade regime embodied in the provisions of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) (and associated agreements) is an institution now administered by an organization called the World Trade Organization (WTO). Similarly, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) is an organization whose function is to administer the institutional arrangements set forth formally in the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA). As a rough approximation, we can say that organizations are players, while institutions constitute the rules of the game that structure their roles and 28 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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guide their interactions with one another. In many cases, organizations (e.g., the Multilateral Fund in the case of the ozone regime or the secretariat of the International Whaling Commission in the case of the regime for whales and whaling) play significant roles in administering or operating institutions (Parson and Greene 1995, Peterson 1993). Yet some institutional arrangements (e.g., the polar bear regime) operate effectively in the absence of organizations or with the bare minimum of administrative apparatus. The point of drawing this distinction between institutions and organizations is not to assert that institutions are more important than organizations or vice versa. On the contrary, the distinction opens up a rich research agenda focusing on the relationships among institutions and organizations. What is the role of organizations, such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) or the Global Environment Facility (GEF), in creating international environmental regimes, like the arrangements designed to protect stratospheric ozone and to regulate climate change and in administering them once they are in place? Do different types of environmental and resource regimes require particular kinds of organizations to operate successfully on a day-to-day basis? Figure 1

Institutions and Organizations Institutions No

Organization

Yes

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

1.2

The Effects of Institutions A key analytic objective of the IDGEC project is to understand how institutions influence or affect outcomes arising from interactions among human actors in various social settings and why some institutions are more effective than others in the sense that they exert more influence over the course of human interactions (Levy, Young, and Z端rn 1995). Because institutions are not actors in their own right, they must influence the behavior of those subject to their rules, decision-making procedures, and programs in order to Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 29

| Institutions and Global Environmental Change

become effective. Nothing in this formulation should lead us to assume that effective institutions always operate according to the expectations of their designers or serve to solve the problems that lead actors to establish them in the first place. Institutions frequently produce unintended consequences and become vehicles for a variety of actors to promote their own interests. Understandably, studies of effectiveness often direct particular attention to those impacts of institutions that are pertinent to efforts to solve or manage the problems that lead to their establishment in the first place. But comprehensive accounts of effectiveness must consider the unintended consequences of institutions as well. No one expects institutions to account for all the variance in large-scale environmental processes - ranging from land degradation to climate change - at any level of social organization. Rather, institutions constitute a crosscutting factor: their operation explains a significant proportion of the variance in a wide range of human/environment interactions occurring at most levels of social organization. The challenge before us is to devise ways to assess the proportion of the variance in environmental occurrences significant at the global level that is attributable to the effects of institutions and to understand how institutions interact with other forces to affect the course of human/environment relations. In this sense, the study of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change differs from the analysis of phenomena, such as patterns of land use or industrial transformations, that are central to the activities of other global change projects. Shifts in patterns of land use, for example, can be construed as a dependent variable, a fact that leads to a search for the range of factors that play some role in causing such occurrences. Institutional arrangements, by contrast, constitute a particular type of driving force. They encompass one among a number of forces that play a role in causing and confronting a wide range of large-scale environmental changes. Whether our concern is to identify the institutional causes of environmental change or the roles institutions play in solving environmental problems, it is helpful to draw a distinction between direct and indirect institutional effects. Direct effects arise from the operation of environmental or resource regimes or, in other words, those institutions explicitly created to deal with human/ environment relations. Traditional systems of land tenure or water rights that have developed informally over long periods in small-scale agrarian societies belong to this category. So also do international regimes dealing with large-scale problems such as stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change that have emerged from negotiations leading to the conclusion of formal conventions and treaties. All such arrangements may be more or less effective, more or less conducive to the achievement of sustainability, and more or less robust in terms of their ability to endure or maintain their integrity in the face of perturbations. But in every case, the impacts of these arrangements are direct in the sense that they involve institutions intentionally developed to regulate human interactions with biogeophysical systems. Much of the research effort associated with the IDGEC project is expected to center on studies of conditions that determine whether resource regimes produce sustainable or unsustainable results and of options for creating more effective regimes in the future. 30 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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At the same time, it is important to consider the indirect effects of institutions on human/environment relations. These are unintended - and often unforeseen - environmental byproducts or side effects of institutional arrangements that were established to deal with problems arising in other issue areas. Recently, for instance, we have witnessed a dramatic rise of interest in the environmental side effects of economic arrangements, such as trade and investment regimes (Runge 1994). Does the increase in regional trade regimes, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Area (AFTA), or global trade regimes, such as the GATT, impede efforts on the part of individual countries to protect important ecosystems? Does the growth of arrangements designed to guide investment flows, such as the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI), force countries to engage in environmentally destructive practices in order to service their foreign debts? Indirect effects arise from the operation of other types of institutions as well. A lively debate has emerged, for instance, regarding the extent to which different types of polities (e.g., democracies vs. authoritarian systems) encourage the adoption of distinct environmental policies and generate characteristic environmental impacts (Jaenicke and Weidner 1997). The IDGEC project is designed to encourage studies of these indirect effects, even while it devotes particular attention to analyses of the direct effects of institutions on human/environment relations.

1.3

The Performance of Institutions The IDGEC project is concerned, in the first instance, with the effectiveness of institutions. In the most general sense, effectiveness is a measure of the extent to which institutions matter or, in other words, the extent to which the outcomes of human/environment interactions differ from what would have occurred in the absence of these arrangements. To this, most analysts would add a particular concern for impacts that are positive in the sense that they contribute to solving - or at least managing - the problems that lead to the establishment of particular institutions. Construed in this way, effectiveness is a variable. Institutions range from highly effective arrangements that have profound impacts on the course of human/environment relations to dead letters that have little or no impact in these terms. Note also that institutions that prove highly effective under some conditions may be ineffective under other circumstances and that the same institution may become more or less effective over the course of time. So defined, the concept of effectiveness does not address a variety of normative concerns that surface regularly in efforts to assess the performance of institutions. Accordingly, the IDGEC project seeks to move beyond effectiveness to investigate a number of other aspects of institutional performance. Among these, the project devotes particular attention to assessing institutional contributions to the achievement of sustainability defined in ecological terms. Thus, an institution achieves a high score in terms of sustainability to the extent that it bolsters the capacity of relevant ecosystems to maintain themselves over time. Institutions vary as well with regard to the production of outcomes that promote socioeconomic objectives, including efficiency and fairness. Efficiency, in this context, is a measure of the extent to which goals like sustainability Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 31

| Institutions and Global Environmental Change

are achieved with a minimum expenditure of resources. Fairness refers to the extent to which outcomes conform to normative standards relating to matters of distribution. Finally, the project explores variations in institutional robustness treated as a matter of the extent to which institutions themselves are durable or stable over time. Institutions created to cope with specific problems often generate both side effects whose impacts are felt in other arenas and broader consequences that affect the character of the larger social systems in which they operate. A regime that leads to the closing of a major fishery, for instance, may affect fisheries located elsewhere through the displacement of harvesters from the closed fishery as well as other industries through increases in the number of workers seeking alternative forms of employment. Similarly, an international regime such as the arrangement created to protect stratospheric ozone can promote innovations (e.g., an enlarged role for nonstate actors or the use of trade measures to pursue environmental goals) that subsequently spread to other sectors of international society. Although concerns of this sort are obviously important to students of institutions operating at all levels of social organization, they are of interest to the IDGEC project mainly when they trigger feedback processes affecting key biogeophysical systems.

1.4

Scientific and Policy Objectives The IDGEC project belongs to a larger family of projects developed under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). As such, it has both scientific and policy objectives. Scientifically, the challenge is to answer a set of basic questions about the roles institutions play in causing and confronting large-scale environmental changes. For example, to what extent is climate change a result of structures of property rights that allow actors to emit greenhouse gases without penalty or of jurisdictional arrangements that lead to mismatches between environmental problems and the regulatory regimes available to solve them? Do the rules associated with sovereignty and related concerns about environmental imperialism block serious efforts to safeguard habitat vital to the protection of biological diversity? This aspect of the project promotes analyses that fit squarely within the broader research programs of the various social sciences concerned with institutions. Nonetheless, the IDGEC project is motivated more by a commitment to bringing the cumulative resources of the social sciences to bear on a specific set of environmental problems of current interest to society than by a desire to expand our understanding of the nature and role of institutions as an end in itself. As a result, research that produces results applicable to specific problems - either in the form of design principles that will enhance our efforts to create effective new institutions or in the form of insights that will improve our capacity to diagnose institutional sources of large-scale environmental problems and to reform or adjust existing institutions - will receive priority in the implementation phase of the project. Ultimately, the IDGEC project will succeed to the extent that it helps to produce useful answers to questions about matters such as the development of regulatory mechanisms to control emissions of greenhouse gases; the use of trade measures in environmental regimes in ways that do not interfere with the operation of trade regimes; or

32 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Box A

Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons Common pool resources (CPRs), ranging from local fish stocks to the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s climate system, whose supply is limited run the risk of being severely depleted or disrupted through a process that has become known as the tragedy of the commons (Hardin 1968). In the absence of well-defined property rights, individual users have little incentive to leave - much less to husband - supplies of resources such as fish that will simply be harvested by other users. Initially, most observers believed the tragedy could be averted only through privatization or intervention on the part of government. In recent years, however, researchers have shown that common property regimes have led to sustainable results in managing the use of living resources, water, and grazing lands in numerous societal settings (McCay and Acheson eds. 1987). Current research focuses on delineating the conditions under which different strategies for managing CPRs are likely to yield preferred outcomes.

the construction of financial mechanisms that allow international regimes to operate on a secure basis without running afoul of rules designed to protect the sovereign rights of individual states.

1.5

Structure of the IDGEC Science Plan The remainder of this document is divided into a number of distinct parts. Sections 2, 3, and 4 set forth the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key priorities and form the heart of the plan. Section 2 on Research Foci lays out the substantive priorities of the project in the form of a series of key science questions that the project seeks to answer. It singles out the study of environmental and resource regimes as the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s primary focus, with research on the environmental effects of other institutions (e.g., trade and investment regimes) figuring as a secondary focus. Section 3 then identifies a number of analytic themes that are cutting-edge concerns among social scientists interested in institutions and that the project treats as priority themes in an effort to improve our understanding of the role of institutions in causing and confronting large-scale environmental change. These themes - labeled fit, interplay, and scale in the plan - are not the only issues requiring attention in studies of the impacts of institutions on human/environment relations. But the consultative process that produced this Science Plan led to the conclusion that these themes deserve particular attention in the context of the IDGEC project. Section 4 argues that a focus on identifiable regions will be necessary to understand many facets of the role of institutions in causing and confronting large-scale environmental changes. It singles out Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North as particularly promising regions in which to pursue in-depth studies designed to yield generic insights about the operation of institutions at regional and subregional levels. Similar issues arise in other regions, and the project naturally welcomes studies grounded in the realities of other parts of the world. Taken together, the priorities set forth in Sections 2, 3, and 4 give the IDGEC project a distinct intellectual identity within the larger family of research projects dealing with global environmental change. Section 5 addresses conceptual and methodological issues that require attention from members of the science community involved in the conduct Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 33

| Research Foci

of research under the terms of this Science Plan. Because all the social sciences have made major contributions to the study of institutions, for example, there is a need to find ways to integrate insights derived from a range of theoretical perspectives or models employed by researchers trained in different disciplines. Similarly, those who share an interest in institutions are engaged in lively debates about the applicability of different methodologies to the search for insights relating to the role of institutions in causing and confronting large-scale environmental changes. A particular concern in this realm is the need to strike a proper balance between quantitative and predictive analyses on the one hand and qualitative and interpretive analyses on the other. The many distinct groups of researchers conducting studies of institutions have raised important questions as well about the development of research partnerships designed to maximize the contributions of the IDGEC project to our understanding of global environmental change. Box B

Controlling Air and Water Pollution Early efforts to control air and water pollution relied almost exclusively on commandand-control regulations, that is, on prohibitions and requirements applying uniformly to all members of the relevant subject group. Researchers studying environmental regimes subsequently pointed out a serious drawback in this approach. Some subjects are able to comply with environmental standards more easily and cheaply than others. This raises important questions about the use of command-andcontrol regulations from the point of view of maximizing social welfare. Since then, researchers and members of the policy community have worked together to explore a variety of mechanisms for solving this problem, including systems of charges and tradable permits (Opschoor and Turner 1994). Such measures are increasingly familiar in domestic initiatives, like the provisions dealing with emissions trading in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 in the United States (Kerr 1998). Today, they are being considered in efforts to deal with global problems such as regulating emissions of greenhouse gases in order to meet the targets established in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Sections 6, 7, and 8 complete the substance of the IDGEC Science Plan. They provide an initial account of implementation strategies appropriate to the IDGEC project - above all the three flagship activities (Section 8) - and identify a range of programmatic partnerships through which those working on the project can join forces with others who have compatible interests. We include at the end of the plan a listing of contributions from the vast social science literature on institutions that are most relevant to the concerns of the IDGEC project.

Research Foci The core of the IDGEC Science Plan is a series of substantive themes identified through a consultative process as cutting-edge concerns that should prove interesting simultaneously to members of the science community and to members of the policy community charged with coming to terms with specific environmental problems that bear on global environmental 34 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Research Foci |

change. Each focus is framed initially in broad terms to avoid the pitfalls of particularism and to emphasize the appeal of this agenda to researchers coming from all the social science disciplines. But we also describe concrete examples relating to each focus not only to provide guidance for members of the science community seeking to frame research questions, but also to help members of the policy community understand how research on the institutional dimensions of global environmental change can contribute to efforts to deal with specific problems. Taken together, the research foci form a hierarchical sequence that moves from broadly theoretical to more applied concerns (see Figure 2, p. 36) by addressing matters of: 1. Causality - how much of the variance in human/environment relations is attributable to institutions? 2. Effectiveness - why are some institutional responses to environmental problems more successful than others? 3. Design - how can we structure institutions to enhance their performance? The result is an analytic structure that highlights a set of specific themes for priority attention, even though the phenomena in question often run together under real-world conditions (see Table 2, p. 37 for a summary). A number of criteria governing the selection of examples used in the discussion of research foci have emerged from the consultations underlying the IDGEC Science Plan. These include: 1. Ecological criteria (overall relevance to the global change problematique, focus on cumulative as well as systemic changes, recurrence in many parts of the world). 2. Social criteria (the existence of linkages across levels of social organization, the presence of variance on one or more of the key institutional dimensions, the operation of institutions both as drivers of environmental changes and as responses to such changes, urgency in the sense of situations featuring heavy human dependence on natural systems). 3. Scientific criteria (opportunities for interdisciplinary work among social scientists, clear links to studies of the relevant biogeophysical systems, issues of interest to other global change projects, relevance of findings to priority policy concerns). Naturally, individual examples need not meet all these criteria to make them interesting from the IDGEC perspective. Yet the criteria do serve to indicate where the project is headed in substantive terms.

2.1

Research Focus 1: What roles do institutions play in causing and confronting global environmental changes? Institutions figure prominently both as sources of large-scale environmental problems and as elements in the responses humans make to actual or anticipated environmental problems. Climate change is attributable in part to the prevalence of rules and decision-making procedures, such as systems of land tenure that allow owners to cut trees for wood products or to clear land for agricultural purposes without regard to the release of Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 35

| Research Foci

Figure 2

Hierarchy of IDGEC Research Foci

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

carbon into the atmosphere associated with these activities. Depletions of fish and animal stocks often result from the operation of access rules that produce few if any incentives for users to harvest stocks selectively as a means of ensuring a steady supply of these living resources over time (McGoodwin 1990). Conversely, debates regarding the relative merits of different responses to environmental problems frequently center on institutional matters. Recent discussions about the virtues of systems of rules and decision-making procedures featuring incentive mechanisms in contrast to command-and-control regulations constitute a clear case in point. So also do the protracted debates of recent years concerning the incorporation of mandatory targets and timetables into the international regime dealing with climate change. Institutions are not stand-alone arrangements immune to other forces at work in human societies. Rather, they operate within economic, political, and social settings that can and often do affect the outcomes they produce. In extreme cases, specific institutions are established by ruling elites to promote their own interests or manipulated by powerful interest groups that have little concern for the public interest. The annals of crony capitalism in developing societies and regulatory capture in advanced, industrial societies are full of cases in which rules in use bear little resemblance to the institutional arrangements intended by designers. Yet institutions can also serve as significant constraints on the exercise of power by individuals or groups that would otherwise be free to pursue their own interests in the 36 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Research Foci |

Table 2

IDGEC Research Foci Focus 1:

What roles do institutions play in causing and confronting global environmental changes? 1.1 What is the role of environmental and resource regimes in causing and confronting global environmental changes? 1.2 What is the role of other institutions (e.g., trade and investment regimes) in causing and confronting global environmental changes? 1.3 What factors determine the resilience of institutions in the face of global environmental changes?

Focus 2:

Why are some institutional responses to global environmental changes more successful than others? 2.1 Are there common features or elements of (un)successful institutional responses? 2.2 What factors threaten the development or the survival of institutional responses? 2.3 What unintended consequences do institutional responses produce?

Focus 3:

What are the prospects for (re)designing institutions to confront environmental changes? 3.1 What are the (dis)advantages of creating new institutions versus reforming existing institutions? 3.2 How can we incorporate flexibility, self-correcting procedures, and social learning processes in environmental institutions? 3.3 What are the relative merits of (1) formal arrangements vs. informal social practices, (2) hard law vs. soft law arrangements, (3) alternative decision rules, and (4) alternative funding mechanisms? 3.4 Can we integrate environmental and economic institutions at different stages of societal development? Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

absence of any mechanisms of social control. A goal of the IDGEC project is to examine both the manipulation of institutions and the regulatory force of institutions with particular reference to large-scale environmental changes. Once formed institutions rarely become static, unchanging social structures. On the contrary, they set in motion highly dynamic social practices that change continually in response to both endogenous forces and exogenous pressures. Although day-to-day changes ordinarily involve relatively specific features of existing arrangements, some changes affect constitutive provisions in ways that lead to institutional transformation. Changes in one institution may also set in motion a chain reaction leading to significant modifications of other institutions. Any effort to enhance our understanding Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 37

| Research Foci

Figure 3

Institutions and their Effects on Global Environmental Change A Framework for Study

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

of the role of institutions in connection with global environmental changes, therefore, must direct sustained attention toward the implications of institutional dynamics for the emergence and subsidence of large-scale environmental problems. The research challenge before us with respect to this most theoretical of the IDGEC foci is two-fold. We need to improve our knowledge of the determinants of institutional performance by analyzing the causal mechanisms through which these arrangements affect the behavior of a variety of individual actors and through which these behavioral impacts affect the outcomes flowing from interactions among actors. At the same time, we must recognize that any institution is typically only one of a number of forces affecting the dynamics of highly interactive systems that give rise to global environmental changes. Accordingly, we must not only devise ways to distinguish that portion of the variance in outcomes attributable to the operation of institutions but also to trace the combined effects arising from the interplay among institutions and other forces, such as the dynamics of the biogeophysical and cultural systems, with which specific institutions interact. Although it will not lead to simple prescriptions for solving problems of global environmental change, such an effort will help to build the intellectual capital required to come to terms with problems of this sort. The general logic of this research program is presented diagrammatically in Figure 3, p. 38. 38 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Research Foci |

Figure 4

The Primary Focus of the IDGEC Project

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

2.1.1 What is the role of environmental and resource regimes in causing and confronting global environmental changes? Environmental and resource regimes are ubiquitous at all levels of social organization. Historically, some societies have been defined in large measure by the character of the institutional arrangements they have devised to regulate human interactions with key biogeophysical systems. These include the harvesting practices that constitute dominant features of hunter/gatherer societies and the water management systems of the hydraulic societies that developed over long periods of time in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, and Yellow Rivers (Wittfogel 1957; Worster 1985). Even in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advanced industrialized societies, environmental and resource regimes play a prominent role in shaping human/environment relations. Not only do such regimes guide human uses of living resources, such as fish and forest products, but they also exert a considerable influence on industrial practices by regulating a wide range of pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, ozone-depleting substances, and greenhouse gases (Haas, Keohane, and Levy 1993). Unlike the simple systems of earlier times in which relatively self-contained arrangements focused on a single resource complex (e.g., harvesting systems in hunter/gatherer societies or irrigation systems in agrarian societies), modern societies typically feature a wide range of environmental and resource regimes that interact with one another in ways that sometimes prove complementary but that often impede the operation of individual regimes within their own domains. As Figure 4, p. 39 indicates, the interactions between these environmental and resource regimes and largescale environmental changes constitute a Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 39

| Research Foci

primary focus of interest for the IDGEC project. The international regimes that have been created to phase out the production and consumption of ozonedepleting substances, to cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases, and to protect biological diversity, for example, are all arrangements created at the international level expressly to cope with prominent issues on the global environmental change agenda. But it is important to recognize that many other environmental and resource regimes operating at various levels of social organization are of great importance as well to studies of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change. With a few prominent exceptions (such as the global regime dealing with climate change), human/environment relations are guided by an array of regimes that are local, national, or regional in scope and that, taken together, produce results that are relevant from the perspective of global environmental change. Even in connection with systemic phenomena such as climate change, overall trends (e.g., rising levels of carbon dioxide in the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s atmosphere) are aggregate outcomes flowing from human actions affected by a wide range of environmental regimes. This pattern is even more striking in conjunction with large-scale environmental changes that are cumulative in nature (e.g., the loss of biological diversity) and that are outgrowths of many smaller-scale phenomena occurring in a wide range of locations. It follows that while global regimes constitute an important area of interest, any proper study of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change must devote a large proportion of its energy to the study of regimes operating at lower levels of social organization. There is great variance within the universe of environmental and resource regimes. Perhaps the most important dimensions of variance for IDGEC purposes center on 1. the rights of different categories of actors to use natural resources and environmental services in pursuit of their own goals, and 2. the rules imposed by society in order to restrict or guide the actions of these rights holders. Use rights may run with the individual, the community, or the state, and they may or may not be transferable or subject to serious restrictions imposed by society. For their part, the rules may command actors to behave in prescribed ways or seek to achieve results by altering the incentives of users of natural resources and environmental services. Similarly, they may be seen largely as devices designed to correct market failures (for example, making corporations internalize the costs of environmental impacts arising from their production decisions) or as means to pursue other social goals (for example, achieving some measure of equity in the enjoyment of natural resources). In a sense, this is good news from the perspective of a project on the institutional dimensions of global environmental change. The universe of resource and environmental regimes is not only large but it also encompasses enough variance in institutional terms to allow for sustained efforts to explore the consequences of different arrangements or combinations of arrangements for the operation of large biogeophysical systems. Variance is also very much in evidence with regard to the performance of resource and environmental regimes, measured in the first instance in 40 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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terms of the criterion of sustainability or, in other words, the stability of key ecosystems over time. As numerous commentators have observed, some agrarian communities have devised hydraulic regimes lasting for centuries, while others have come to grief in relatively short order as a result of soil erosion, waterlogging, or salinization (Ponting 1991). Much the same can be said of other arrangements. Hunter/gatherers have created sustainable practices featuring subsistence harvesting of living resources in some settings but have overstepped the bounds of sustainability in other settings (Gowdy 1998). Modern nations have taken a serious interest in conservation in some cases but exploited nonrenewable resources to drive processes of industrialization with little regard for sustainability in other cases. In fact, the same nation may pioneer in the development of sustainable arrangements in one area (e.g., the establishment of protected natural areas), while displaying little ability to curb unsustainable practices in other areas (e.g., the emission of greenhouse gases resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels). What is more, institutional arrangements established to deal with one problem (e.g., the sustainable harvest of inshore fish stocks) can easily precipitate behavioral changes that lead to serious problems in other areas (e.g., unsustainable harvests of fish stocks located beyond the boundaries of coastal state jurisdictions). This, too, constitutes an opportunity for those interested in the institutional dimensions of global environmental change. Where there is a sizable universe of cases featuring substantial variance with regard to a key performance indicator (such as sustainability), there is hope for efforts both to pinpoint sources of problems with existing arrangements and to reform or restructure existing arrangements in the interests of improving performance. Box C

International Trade and Environmental Destruction in Indonesia Keen observers are beginning to make connections among international trade regimes, economic collapse, and environmental destruction in Southeast Asia. Vandana Shiva, for example, describes how economic breakdown in Indonesia is aggravating the „catastrophe that led to the forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra.“ The Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) estimates that at least 2 million hectares of forests and other land were burned in 1997. Eighty percent of the fires started in intensive palm oil or timber plantations, a smaller number in forests and (contrary to widespread belief) even fewer as a result of local farmers routinely burning off small one or two hectare plots. „The IMF package of free trade and direct investment in palm oil and wood will accelerate the conversion of humid ecosystems into plantations, increasing the ecological catastrophe of forest fires which has translated into death and disease throughout the South East Asia region“ (Shiva 1998).

2.1.2 What is the role of other institutions (e.g., trade and investment regimes) in causing and confronting global environmental changes? It is natural to focus attention on environmental and resource regimes in thinking about the institutional dimensions of global environmental change, and the IDGEC project properly directs attention in the first instance to the study of these regimes. Nonetheless, it requires little imagination to see that other types of institutions can influence human actions in ways that have farScience Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 41

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reaching consequences for human/environment relations. For the most part, these impacts are unintended - and often unforeseen - in the sense that they are byproducts of arrangements created to deal with other concerns. This does nothing to diminish the significance of these non-environmental arrangements. In fact, it poses a particularly important challenge for those interested in human/environment relations precisely because it is often difficult to control the impacts of actions taken by those who have little interest in their side effects and who may even be unwilling to acknowledge responsibility for the role of their actions in causing these effects. Much has been written in recent years about the environmental effects of trade regimes operating at the regional level (e.g., NAFTA, AFTA) and at the global level (e.g., GATT/WTO). This is a fruitful line of enquiry that will undoubtedly continue to yield insights of interest to those concerned with global environmental change (Runge 1994). Yet there is much to be said in connection with the IDGEC project for a research strategy that probes more deeply into the environmental impacts of free enterprise systems based on a complex of institutional arrangements involving property rights and regulatory and liability rules. Are environmental externalities such as air and water pollution inevitable byproducts of exchange relationships based on private ownership of the means of production (that is, will corporations seeking to minimize costs rely excessively on environmental services that are available at no cost)? Is there any evidence that such environmental side effects are less severe when major factors of production such as land and natural resources are publicly owned but made available for use by private corporations on the basis of some system featuring long-term leases? Do intermediate arrangements involving mechanisms such as public or crown corporations generate fewer environmental externalities than private corporations or purely governmental arrangements? How effective are liability rules designed to compel corporations to internalize environmental impacts such as air and water pollution in calculations of production costs that guide the development of corporate strategies? At stake here is a suite of questions that pertain to basic economic institutions rather than to environmental or resource regimes as such. We have chosen examples that involve free enterprise arrangements that lie at the heart of the capitalist mode of production ascendant in much of the world today. But similar questions concerning environmental side effects are in order regarding subsistence systems based on common property arrangements and socialist systems in which both natural resources and the means of production are owned by the state. Just as we want to understand the environmental impacts of key economic institutions like market systems, it is relevant to pose questions concerning the environmental consequences of different types of political systems. A number of scholars have asked whether polities that can be classified as democracies are likely to behave in ways that are more benign environmentally than polities that are authoritarian in character. While there is some evidence to suggest that democracies are particularly sensitive to environmental concerns, it is easy to show that there are no simple relationships in this area. The United States, Australia, and Canada, for example, have the highest national levels of greenhouse gas emissions per capita. But Russia also has among the highest levels, and China is on a course leading to a rapid rise in 42 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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terms of this environmental criterion. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that democracies are especially sensitive to the environmental consequences (including loss of biodiversity and release of stored carbon) associated with the destruction of mature forests (Hurst 1964). This does not mean that there is no association between democracy and a concern for environmental protection. But it will surely require a more fine-grained analysis to determine just what relationships do hold in this realm. The implications of other features of political institutions may prove equally important for large-scale environmental change. Weak states, or states whose capacity to guide - much less to drive - society is limited, will have difficulty controlling human/environment relations in the interest of avoiding global environmental changes. But their weakness also means that they are unlikely to emerge as major sources of behavior leading to large-scale environmental problems. Somewhat similar observations are in order regarding differences between centralized or unitary states and political systems that are more decentralized in the sense that they accord considerable power and authority to lower levels of government. Unitary states have the competence to take decisive action regarding environmental concerns. But they often exhibit little sensitivity to subnational or local variations in environmental conditions, and they have little ability to benefit from experiments relating to human/environment relations initiated by lower levels of government enjoying sufficient autonomy to act on their own in this realm. Beyond this, political systems differ greatly in the extent to which they are subject to pressures from special interests such as industry, labor, or even environmental groups. In cases where the relationship between public policy makers and industrial leaders is unusually close, for example, it may prove particularly difficult to alter existing rules of the game in the interests of curtailing or regulating externalities that are harmful to the environment. 2.1.3 What factors determine the resilience of institutions in the face of global environmental changes? Much has been written in recent years about the resilience and vulnerability of ecosystems or, in other words, their capacity to withstand various types of stresses (Pritchard et al. 1998). It is now apparent that it is appropriate to ask the same sorts of questions about the capacity of institutions to maintain their integrity in the face of various types of environmental stresses (Holling and Sanderson 1996). Two dimensions or types of resilience are worth distinguishing in this connection. One is the capacity to cope with sharp shocks of short duration. An institution that cannot hold up in the face of such shocks (such as a sudden change in the abundance of some living resource as a consequence of El Ni単o-Southern Oscillation effects) is said to be brittle. At the same time, some stresses build up slowly over time, gradually becoming a heavy burden on the operation of existing institutional arrangements. The waterlogging and salinization of soils that occurred over decades - perhaps centuries - and that eventually led to the collapse of ancient Mesopotamian societies exemplify this type of vulnerability. There is no basis for assuming that the two types of resilience always go together. Regimes that are good at coping with slowly accumulating stresses may collapse when hit by a sudden shock and vice versa. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 43

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What is the relevance of this distinction to a study of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change? In fact, it is a source of one of the major differences of opinion among those who are concerned with the implications of global environmental change (Myers and Simon 1994). Some observers, including many ecologists and others who think in terms of complex interdependent systems, believe that large-scale environmental changes could trigger a relatively sudden collapse in one or more of the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life-support systems. These observers are apt to favor strategies of mitigation in which concerted efforts are made to prevent the occurrence of a sudden collapse. Others, including many economists and those who think in more piecemeal terms, are inclined to assume that the impacts of largescale environmental changes will take the form of incremental problems that can be dealt with case by case as they arise and make their way onto public agendas. These analysts generally favor strategies featuring adaptation in contrast to mitigation or, in other words, adjustments intended to render environmental changes harmless in contrast to more costly efforts to prevent the occurrence of serious environmental problems in the first place. The relative merits of these alternative perspectives depend on an assessment of factors that contribute to the resilience of institutional arrangements. There is no reason to believe that all institutions are alike in these terms. Among those factors that seem particularly relevant are a capacity to engage in monitoring that can provide early warning of impending changes in key biogeophysical systems; the existence of mechanisms that promote social learning; and the flexibility to introduce institutional adjustments to cope with changes in biogeophysical systems in a timely manner. Much of the concern among those who study such matters centers on the observation that institutions are often slow to adjust to changes occurring in their environments and that such lags may prove extremely costly where the changes in question (such as climate change) involve dramatic - perhaps non-linear - shifts in systems of great importance to human welfare. Yet this is a matter that calls for much more careful analysis. The problem may not stem so much from the immobility of institutions as from the difficulty in guiding or steering institutional change in the interests of solving specific problems. If this is true, we will need to build self-correcting mechanisms (e.g., monitoring and assessment mechanisms) into institutions that not only make it possible to detect important changes in biogeophysical systems but that also trigger institutional adjustments in a timely manner. In the decades that have elapsed since the Great Depression of the 1930s, considerable progress has been made in incorporating self-correcting mechanisms into economic institutions in order to dampen the severity of business cycles. Today, we face a similar challenge with regard to the adaptation of institutions that play important roles as determinants of the course of human/environment relations.

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2.2

Research Focus 2: Why are some institutional responses to global environmental changes more successful than others? It would be incorrect to suppose that humans have shown little capacity to adjust prevailing institutional arrangements in an effort to come to terms with largescale environmental changes. As environmental historians have often noted, in fact, the history of many great civilizations constitutes a record of continual efforts to regulate natural forces or to adjust resource regimes in the wake of profound shifts in important biogeophysical systems. The current era is no exception in these terms. We have now embarked on well-publicized efforts at the global level to devise institutional solutions to largescale environmental problems, like the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer and changes in the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s climate system. At the same time, numerous experiments are underway at national and local levels featuring both adjustments in existing environmental and resource regimes (e.g., energy taxes and tradable emissions permits) and alterations of broader economic and political structures (e.g., the systems now being put in place in Eastern Europe) that have implications for large-scale environmental changes. In short, the world is highly dynamic in institutional terms. How have the resultant innovations fared in terms of their stated goals? More specifically, what can we say about the successes and failures of institutional innovations introduced with the intention of guiding human/environment relations in such a way as to produce sustainable outcomes? By contrast with the largely theoretical concerns of the first focus, the research challenge of this second IDGEC focus centers on a systematic effort to appraise or evaluate specific innovations launched at different times and places and at various levels of social organization in an effort to influence the trajectory of human/environment relations. It is important not only to ask why the outcomes flowing from seemingly similar institutional innovations vary so greatly but also to inquire whether there are alternative institutional responses that can be expected to yield generally acceptable solutions to specific environmental problems. In such cases, it becomes particularly relevant to move beyond problem solving per se to consider matters of efficiency and equity in assessing the performance of institutions and to evaluate the likelihood that adjusting existing institutions would trigger unintended and generally unforeseen side effects that would give rise to a new round of environmental problems.

2.2.1 Are there common features or elements of (un)successful institutional responses? To ask about sources of success and failure is to launch an enquiry into the effectiveness of institutional innovations in solving the specific problems that lead to their introduction or in altering the behavior of key actors whose activities give rise to these problems. Even in connection with global problems like changes in the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s climate system, it is apparent that institutional innovations must address behavior at a number of distinct levels to succeed in solving environmental problems. Greenhouse gas emissions, for example, are sensitive to the actions of national governments that may or may not take steps to discourage uses of fossil fuels or to encourage the development of alternative fuels. But emissions are also sensitive to the investment Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 45

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decisions of corporations and even to the choices of individual consumers regarding such matters as the purchase of automobiles and the improvement of insulation in private homes. Much the same is true of the release of carbon associated with the destruction of trees (e.g., the rain forests of Indonesia and Malaysia and the taiga of Russia), which is also influenced in most cases by the actions of outsiders (e.g., Japanese consumers) who have little or no concern for the environmental conditions they leave behind after the harvesting is over. Why, then, are some institutional innovations, such as the regime dealing with stratospheric ozone, relatively successful, while others, such as the climate change regime, face an uphill struggle to achieve their goals? Although there are no simple answers to this question, a number of insights are beginning to emerge from studies of the effectiveness of resource and environmental regimes. In the first instance, it seems clear that some problems are simply more difficult to solve than others (Underdal 1999). Although the chemicals implicated in the depletion of stratospheric ozone had a number of significant uses, they did not go to the heart of modern industrial economies. Greenhouse gas emissions, by contrast, arise from activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels that lie at the core of these economies. At the same time, some regimes are endowed with greater capacity than others to solve problems. Whereas the ozone protection regime features mandatory targets and timetables that have been tightened repeatedly at Meetings of the Parties, the Conference of the Parties of the climate regime has struggled to find a formula for mandatory targets and timetables that is both significant relative to the problem to be solved and acceptable to the major interest groups or blocs participating in the process. In cases where effectiveness requires costly alterations in existing practices or expensive revisions in future plans, the availability of adequate funding mechanisms, like the Multilateral Fund of the ozone regime, is clearly an important determinant of success. Beyond this, institutional innovations are sensitive to various features of the socioeconomic and political settings in which they operate. Arrangements intended to deal with large-scale environmental problems whose solution requires costly alterations of existing practices will fare better during periods of economic well-being than during periods of recession. Environmental concerns are apt to fall by the wayside completely during major wars. The success of institutional innovations directed toward large-scale environmental problems depends on the extent to which they fit or match the major features of the biogeophysical systems to which they pertain (Cleveland et al. 1996). A regime designed to conserve highly migratory species, for instance, cannot succeed unless it covers the full geographical ranges of the species in question. Similarly, a successful regime for the protection of forests must address the demand for wood products on the part of consumers as well as the supply of these products on the part of producers. Because these arrangements typically cover behavior at several levels of social organization, it is important to inquire about the extent to which they are characterized by institutional complementarity across levels. International regimes including key provisions that clash with mechanisms of social control in place at national and even local levels, for example, 46 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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are unlikely to prove successful. This raises questions about the extent to which we can scale up and scale down in thinking about the effectiveness of institutional arrangements (Keohane and Ostrom 1995). Do design principles derived from the study of smallscale arrangements dealing with common pool resources apply to the design of international regimes, despite the fact that the actors in international society are large collective entities such as states in contrast to single individuals (McGinnis and Ostrom 1993)? Do recent studies of the determinants of effectiveness at the international level suggest lessons that will prove interesting to those seeking to understand small-scale systems featuring some variety of common property? 2.2.2 What factors threaten the development or the survival of institutional responses? Even the most carefully crafted institutional innovations often fall prey to forces that are beyond the control of those responsible for administering them. Environmental and resource regimes operate in settings that include an array of cultural, economic, and political arrangements that have some bearing on the behavior these regimes address. There is growing evidence to suggest that prevailing beliefs, norms, and values are important determinants of the effectiveness of institutional innovations. Thus, a new institutional arrangement that is generally accepted as legitimate among those subject to its prescriptions will fare better than the same arrangement that is unable to command this kind of respect on the part of subjects. Similar observations are in order regarding the power structure prevailing in the broader social setting. For instance, an institutional innovation introduced in a setting in which there is a ruling elite that regards itself as exempt from the rules of the game applying to ordinary actors will stand less chance of becoming effective than the same innovation operating in a more egalitarian setting. More specifically, arrangements that require actors to behave as rational utility maximizers are likely to run into trouble if they are expected to operate effectively in settings featuring shame or guilt cultures. Regimes that feature tradable permits or other mechanisms intended to create markets or marketlike processes will perform poorly in larger settings in which the conditions needed for markets to operate smoothly are not in place. Regimes that depend on national governments to implement key provisions at the domestic level can easily founder in settings where governments of important member states are lacking in capacity because of the operation of systems of checks and balances that lead to policy gridlock, the existence of constitutional structures in which authority over the relevant issue is highly decentralized, or the occurrence of a simple inability to mobilize the resources needed to implement a regimeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s provisions domestically (Weiss and Jacobson 1998; Underdal 1998; Victor, Raustiala, and Skolnikoff 1998). Unanticipated changes in these societal conditions can either improve or undermine the performance of institutions created to deal with environmental concerns. In some cases, the mechanisms involved are dramatic and easy to understand. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, for example, led to sharp economic declines and consequent reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases (Darst 1997). The capture of control of the U.S. Congress by the Republican Party in 1994 has greatly Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 47

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reduced short-term prospects for American ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity, much less the Kyoto Protocol agreed to during the third Conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997. In other cases, the mechanisms involved are more subtle, but no less significant for that. Shifts in public beliefs, attitudes, or values, for instance, often occur gradually and almost imperceptibly, but over time they can make a major difference in the behavior of those subject to the prescriptions of environmental regimes. Similarly, new technologies developed for reasons having little or nothing to do with environmental concerns can have major impacts on the success of institutional innovations. It is perfectly possible, for instance, that the development of the Internet and video-conferencing will lead to significant reductions in commuting and business travel and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the process. Conversely, the creation of an apparent “need“ for computers and related technologies may trigger increased consumption of these ecologically expensive products. Most environmental and resource regimes also interact with biogeophysical processes that are beyond their control. In some cases, the extent to which environmental problems are anthropogenic in origin or attributable to biogeophysical forces is difficult to determine. There is considerable debate, for instance, regarding the relative roles of overharvesting and changes in water temperatures as causes of the recent collapse of cod stocks in the Northwest Atlantic (Symes 1998). Typically, however, environmental regimes are aimed at the anthropogenic component of complex systems in which human behavior interacts with other forces to determine overall outcomes. Biogeophysical changes can undermine the effectiveness of regimes that worked well under the conditions prevailing at the time of their creation. Climate change constitutes a striking example. It is clear that the Earth’s climate system is affected by a range of non-anthropogenic forces capable of producing substantial swings that have little or nothing to do with emissions of greenhouse gases resulting from human activities. This does not make the climate regime irrelevant. But it does mean that any global warming arising from greenhouse gas emissions may be accelerated, retarded, or simply overwhelmed by the impact of non-anthropogenic forces. In effect, institutional arrangements constitute only one factor in the complex equations that govern the behavior of large biogeophysical systems such as the Earth’s climate system. 2.2.3 What unintended consequences do institutional responses produce? Environmental and resource regimes, like other human constructs, can and often do produce side effects or externalities that are unintended and frequently unforeseen by those who create them. Such externalities can yield positive results. The pressure to comply with the ozone protection regime, for example, has led to the development of substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons in some applications that have yielded considerable cost savings. Nonetheless, much of the concern about the unintended consequences of institutional innovations centers on negative externalities or, to be more specific, on costs to certain interest groups that flow from the implementation of new environmental regimes. There is much speculation, for instance, about the extent to which various sectors of the energy industry are likely to emerge as losers in connection with 48 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Box D

North American Air Pollution The Clean Air Act - adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1970 as Public Law 90-604 - required polluters to „reduce emissions sufficiently to bring local conditions into compliance with federal clean air targets“ (Ackerman and Hassler 1981: 10). But it did not specify how polluters, especially those burning coal to generate electricity, were to conform to this requirement. Faced with this situation, many polluters found that they could fulfill the requirements of the Clean Air Act by constructing tall smokestacks capable of dispersing emissions into the upper air currents and that this option was cheaper than installing scrubbers or burning more expensive low sulfur coal. The result was a dramatic increase in the long-range transport of airborne pollutants, the emergence of what we now know as the problem of acid rain, and the advent of a new class of environmental problems. In effect, a change in the rules gave polluters an incentive to alter their behavior in such a way as to cause a new environmental problem in the process of „solving“ an existing problem.

the development of a climate regime involving substantial reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. As these examples suggest, moreover, the externalities associated with institutional innovations may be confined to environmental concerns or may extend well beyond such concerns into other realms. When efforts to curb local air pollution in the United States led to the construction of tall smokestacks and the growth of long-range air pollution, the unintended consequences were environmental in nature. But much of the current opposition to the development of new arrangements, like a climate regime with mandatory targets and timetables, is rooted in fears about the potential side effects of such arrangements for industry and labor or even for the economy as a whole. Granted that unintended consequences occur with some regularity and that their consequences are often significant, can we identify conditions that determine the frequency and magnitude of such effects? For starters, it makes sense to draw a distinction between unintended consequences that cross issue area boundaries and such consequences whose effects are felt only within the relevant issue area. Institutional innovations are apt to generate unintended consequences affecting other issue areas when the problems they address are deeply embedded in larger socioeconomic systems. For example, a regime created to deal with the threat of global warming, which involves activities that are important right across the economy, is likely to produce unintended consequences that are more farreaching than those associated with the ozone protection regime, which involves only a few economic sectors such as refrigeration, air conditioning, and cleaning solvents. Similarly, institutional innovations can produce unintended consequences that are particularly far-reaching when they involve the development of rights and rules that are applicable to a variety of situations. The current debate about intellectual property rights intended to cover the products of biotechnology, for example, is fueled in part by concerns that the establishment of such rights would create a precedent applicable in other areas or alter existing terms of trade to the detriment of suppliers of plant genetic materials located in the developing world. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 49

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2.3

Research Focus 3: What are the prospects for (re)designing institutions to confront environmental changes? A principal motivation for many of those who take an interest in the institutional dimensions of global change is the prospect that research in this area will enhance our ability to reform existing institutions or to create new ones to solve a variety of environmental problems. Since this prospect is such an appealing one, it is well to emphasize at the outset the limits of institutional design (Young 1982). Because institutional changes normally arise from interactive decision-making featuring some sort of bargaining process and involving many compromises, we are seldom in the position of a social engineer possessing the authority and the capacity to devise coherent instituNenets women prepare fishing nets for winter fishery, tional blueprints and to Yamal Peninsula, Russia. Photo by Gail Osherenko implement them in an orderly fashion (Goodin 1996). Even when it is possible to overcome these problems of interactive decision-making, the facts that institutions are complex in their own right and that they are expected to operate in a setting featuring the presence of numerous other institutions make it extremely difficult to predict in advance how specific institutional arrangements will perform in practice. Nonetheless, it is apparent that institutional design is and should be a major concern of those interested in global environmental change and that this interest is destined to grow. Japanese fishing vessel in port at Kodiak Island, Alaska. As with the first focus, Photo by Oran R. Young the research challenge presented by this most applied of the IDGEC foci is two-fold. On the one hand, many analysts seek to assess the relative merits of design features on the assumption that they can be implemented successfully and will function according to the intentions of their designers. What are the pros and cons, for

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Box E

Fisheries Management in the Bering Sea Region To prevent the depletion of fish stocks, the State of Alaska acted in 1974 to establish a limited-entry system covering the most valuable commercial - mainly salmon fisheries located in coastal waters under state jurisdiction. Distributed initially without charge under a complex formula, permits to use specified gear types in designated management areas can be bought and sold on the condition that holders of these permits use them personally. In some areas, market prices for permits rose dramatically creating a valuable asset for those who received them in the initial distribution. This arrangement has led to two unforeseen and unintended consequences of considerable significance. Because the number of permits is fixed and permit holders must use them personally, fishers now compete primarily by investing more resources in upgrading the capacity of their boats, thereby exacerbating problems of overcapitalization in the fisheries. Additionally, poor fishers in need of liquid assets have sometimes sold permits to raise cash, despite the adverse consequences for them of such actions over time. This accounts for a gradual decline in the number of permits held by (often Native) residents of rural communities.

instance, of pollution control mechanisms that feature markets in tradable permits in contrast to pollution charges? What sorts of “policies and measures” might be introduced to increase the bite of the climate change regime, and must such initiatives be linked to specific “targets and timetables” in order to work? At the same time, there is sustained interest in the processes of adopting and operationalizing design features deemed attractive in principle. Are there circumstances in which features that seem no more than second best in principle are to be preferred on the grounds that they are less likely to fail or to become corrupted in practice? A major goal of the IDGEC project is to draw lessons from broader studies of results produced by institutional design features that can be framed in the form of prescriptions useful both to policy makers and to those responsible for administering environmental and resource regimes. 2.3.1 What are the (dis)advantages of creating new institutions versus reforming existing institutions? At the most general level, it is important to enquire about the relative merits of adjusting existing institutions or creating new ones to deal with large-scale environmental problems. There is no shortage of proposals for institutional reforms or innovative experiments dealing with large scale environmental problems. Many of these involve efforts to work out the proper role of the United Nations System in dealing with environmental concerns and, in the process, to forge suitable connections among institutions and organizations in the realm of environment and development. An interesting example involves the work of the Task Force on Environment and Human Settlements, chaired by the Executive Director of UNEP, which has recently completed a review of existing structures and arrangements dealing with environmental matters within the UN System. This line of inquiry suggests a range of questions that can be framed in both generic and specific terms. What are the advantages and disadvantages, for Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 51

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instance, of nesting focused resource regimes within overarching institutional arrangements, as in the decisions to include a regime for deep seabed mining as a component of the law of the sea, to develop the regime for straddling stocks and highly migratory species of fish as a supplement to the overall law of the sea, and to create arrangements for specific marine regions as elements of a family of regimes tied together in the UNEP Regional Seas Programme? When does it make sense to rely on the existing Global Environment Facility (GEF) as a funding mechanism for new regimes dealing with functionally specific concerns (e.g., persistent organic pollutants or POPs) in contrast to creating separate funding mechanisms tailored to the specific features of individual regimes? More broadly, would it be useful to encourage changes in the UN System - already occurring in some areas - designed to enhance its role in dealing with the interplay among specific regimes addressing a range of functional problems? As the evolving regimes dealing with the problems of ozone layer protection and climate change suggest, many policy makers would prefer to tackle individual environmental issues on their own terms. Although the ozone and climate regimes are loosely nested into the UN System, each has a life of its own rooted in the provisions of an international convention and one or more substantive protocols. Similar debates are familiar to those concerned with national and subnational responses to environmental problems. Thus, many governments have faced the question of whether to create new regimes to manage coastal fisheries and outer continental shelf lands in the aftermath of the creation of Exclusive Economic Zones in contrast to a simple procedure of extending preexisting regimes to cover activities taking place in these zones. Much the same can be said of the heated arguments that arise in debates over whether to reform nineteenth century arrangements governing activities like hardrock mining or to start over with regimes that are more reflective of contemporary knowledge and values. As at the international level, these questions are typically linked to matters of organizational responsibilities and funding. What are the relative merits of creating a separate agency responsible for administering a variety of environmental regimes, for instance, and is it better to elevate this agency to the status of a separate ministry, as most European governments have done, or to deny it this status, as the U.S. government has done? Is there merit in the idea of allowing environment ministries to retain revenues derived from the collection of user fees or fines imposed on those who violate regulations in contrast to more conventional systems in which such revenues accrue to the general fund and environment ministries receive an annual budget determined through legislative action? We can expect a continuing pattern featuring a combination of institutional reform and the creation of new institutions at various levels of social organization to deal with environmental problems. This suggests a need to think carefully about questions of interplay among elements in the resultant mosaic of environmental arrangements. Is the emerging division of labor at the international level a sensible one, or is it merely a product of political infighting surrounding developments in individual issue areas, such as ozone depletion, climate change, and the loss of biological diversity? Is there a case for developing an overarching law of the atmosphere that would parallel the 52 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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existing law of the sea? Are initiatives taken under the auspices of the UN crafted in such a way that they dovetail with national initiatives, especially in the countries of the developing world that stand in need of capacity building to cope with a variety of environmental problems? In short, we can expect a tableau in which many initiatives involving institutional reform, the creation of new institutions, and the development of organizations to administer them appear at the same time. The debate about the relative merits of reforming existing institutions and creating new ones must therefore address a complex system of institutional linkages rather than focusing exclusively on specific institutions seen as isolated arrangements. 2.3.2 How can we incorporate flexibility, self-correcting procedures, and social learning processes into environmental institutions? As many observers have noted, one of the distinguishing features of largescale environmental problems is that they involve complex systems that are both poorly understood in scientific terms and subject to rapid - sometimes nonlinear - change over time. This puts a premium on creating institutional arrangements that are, at one and the same time, resilient and open to adjustment or even substantial restructuring on the basis of new information or advancing knowledge regarding the biogeophysical systems in question. The effort to protect stratospheric ozone constitutes a classic case in point (Benedick 1991, rev. 1998). At the time of the adoption of the 1985 Vienna Convention, little consensus existed within the science community regarding the processes leading to the depletion of stratospheric ozone. By 1987, when the Montreal Protocol was adopted, a consensus had emerged within the science community, but it was not based on definitive evidence regarding the mechanisms through which chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and related chemicals destroy ozone molecules located in the stratosphere. Over the last decade, advancing scientific knowledge has led to a succession of amendments to the Montreal Protocol accelerating phaseout schedules for chemicals already regulated, adding new chemicals to the list of those to be phased out, and providing material assistance for developing countries seeking to avoid becoming dependent on CFCs, halons, and other regulated chemicals (Gehring 1994). Yet this striking case does not offer a simple model that can be used in a wide range of issue areas without significant adjustments. In fact, selfcorrection and social learning involve several distinct functions that can be handled variously. These include monitoring and information gathering, scientific analysis, the adjustment of key institutional provisions, and the implementation of revised provisions on the part of those who are subject to them. What is needed at this juncture is a comparative examination of experience with a variety of arrangements designed to perform these functions and especially arrangements that have proven particularly successful. Why has the Environmental Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP), a monitoring system dealing with transboundary air pollution in Europe, yielded such impressive results (diPrimio 1996), and is it a source of lessons that can be applied elsewhere? What are the relative merits of a separate mechanism like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in contrast to a built-in mechanism like the Scientific Committee of the whaling regime as sources of unbiased assessments of the state of scientific knowledge relevant Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 53

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to environmental regimes? How is it possible to avoid the need for ratification by individual member countries in making significant changes in existing regimes, such as placing a moratorium on the harvesting of great whales or accelerating the phaseout schedule for certain CFCs? What are the prospects for experimenting with a variety of â&#x20AC;&#x153;policies and measuresâ&#x20AC;? to determine effective procedures for meeting targets regarding emissions of greenhouse gases? These few examples are intended merely to illustrate the range of questions that need to be addressed in thinking about self-correcting procedures and social learning processes. But they should suffice to make it clear that we are in need of a much stronger grasp of such matters in solving a range of largescale environmental problems. 2.3.3 What are the relative merits of a range of institutional attributes including (1) formal arrangements versus informal social practices, (2) hard-law versus soft-law arrangements, (3) alternative decision rules, and (4) alternative funding mechanisms in conjunction with environmental and resource regimes? Some institutional arrangements simply arise spontaneously and operate on a de facto basis without the benefit of formalization (Axelrod 1984, 1997). Economists who believe in the invisible hand as a mechanism for the creation and adjustment of competitive markets often espouse such self-generating arrangements (Hayek 1973). They are inclined to argue that there is no need to engage in institutional design as a conscious process or, at most, that such efforts should be limited to the minimal interventions required to eliminate market failures. Other analysts are unimpressed by this logic, especially when it comes to dealing with large-scale environmental problems in situations where property rights are deficient and the issues in question feature common pool resources or public goods (Hanna, Folke, and MĂ¤ler 1996). They are convinced that solutions to large-scale environmental problems will require conscious interventions in virtually every case. There are surely good reasons to avoid doctrinaire defenses of one or the other of these views. The challenge for those concerned with large-scale environmental issues is to probe the limits of spontaneous institutional responses on the one hand and to explore the options for designing incentive-compatible interventions appropriate to specific environmental problems on the other. Similar debates have arisen among those who believe that effective regimes need to rest on hard law in the sense of legally binding conventions or statutes and those who argue that there is considerable scope for soft law in the sense of instruments that are typically explicit but not legally binding. The case of those who call for hard-law initiatives rests on the ideas that policy makers will be loath to ignore or discard commitments that are legally binding and that hard law is therefore easier to enforce than soft law. Advocates of soft-law arrangements, by contrast, argue that it is easier to reach agreement on the provisions of soft-law instruments, that actors will accept more far-reaching provisions if they are not legally binding, and that soft-law arrangements are easier to adjust to changing circumstances than hard-law arrangements. Again, there is clearly merit to both these views and much to be learned from a study of ways to reconcile them (Sand 1990). To make matters more complex, it is important to recognize that both hardlaw and soft-law arrangements typically give rise to informal interpretations 54 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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or extensions, so that rules in use commonly differ from the formulations included in constitutive agreements regardless of their legal status. The task before us, then, is to understand the conditions under which hard-law and soft-law arrangements are to be preferred or combined rather than to make the case for one type of arrangement to the exclusion of the other. Regardless of form and the formation processes giving rise to regimes, these institutional arrangements generally feature a variety of attributes that play a role in determining the degree to which they succeed in solving environmental problems. Among the most important of these are the decision rules they employ in making collective decisions and the funding mechanisms they rely on to carry out their functions. It is often assumed that international regimes require unanimity or something approaching unanimity in making collective decisions and rely exclusively on voluntary contributions and that these features distinguish them from their counterparts at other levels of social organization. But this assumption does not correspond with reality in a number of domains. Many international regimes allow collective decisions to be made on the basis of qualified majorities or some flexible consensus procedure. A number of them have trust funds of their own or have access to funds available through arrangements such as the GEF (Sand 1996a). Nor is it the case that national and especially local arrangements can count on the effectiveness of simple majorities and the authority to raise revenues through taxation. In fact, studies of small-scale regimes that employ consensual practices in dealing with common pool resources suggest that there are many parallels between these common property systems and environmental regimes operative at the international level (Keohane and Ostrom 1995). We have much more to learn about the effects of different combinations of regime attributes and their adjustment to the character of specific problems in order to build up a knowledge base that is useful to those responsible for designing regimes under a variety of conditions. 2.3.4 Can we integrate environmental regimes with other institutional arrangements, and especially economic arrangements, at different stages of societal development? Today, it is widely understood that environmental regimes do not operate in a vacuum. Especially in cases where environmental problems are side effects of industrial activities (e.g. emissions of greenhouse gases) or consequences of unregulated or insufficiently regulated uses of natural resources (e.g. depletions of fish stocks, overharvesting of wood products), there is little prospect of finding solutions that do not deal consciously and explicitly with the links between environmental and economic institutions. Recently, many observers have acknowledged the importance of these links at the international level. This has led to a variety of institutional experiments that will bear watching by those concerned with large-scale environmental problems (von Moltke 1997). The revised international trade regime emanating from the Uruguay Round provides for a Committee on Trade and Environment to function as a component of the World Trade Organization. The World Bank has made a substantial effort to restructure its operations in the interests of paying more attention to the environmental impacts of its loans (Reed 1997). The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) includes a side agreement that establishes a North American Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 55

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Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC) to draw attention to environmental problems arising from the operation of this regional trade regime. Although they constitute a good beginning, there is no reason to conclude that any of these arrangements is adequate to solve the problems arising from the trade/environment nexus. Similar observations are in order regarding links between investment and the environment, though institutional developments in this area have not yet advanced as far as those dealing with trade and environment links. There will undoubtedly be many more experiments involving these matters before effective solutions to such linkage issues emerge. This is another area where there is a need for an improved knowledge base to provide support for efforts to design or redesign institutions to confront environmental changes. While there is an understandable tendency to focus on arrangements operative at the international level in addressing this research focus, it is important to bear in mind that problems of integrating environmental and economic institutions arise at all levels of social organization. Advanced industrial societies must find ways to conserve energy and to dematerialize their lifestyles in the interests of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and various other pollutants without undermining their economies. Developing countries need to devise ways of to raise their standards of living without going through the environmentally destructive phase that is a common feature of the economic histories of the industrialized countries. Regions and even individual communities must find ways to maintain some control over their destinies to avoid becoming environmental sacrifice zones for powerful industrial centers. Obviously, these concerns are not exclusively institutional in nature. They raise questions about consumer tastes and preferences, industrial organization, and advances in technology, among others. Nonetheless, institutional concerns dealing with rights (e.g., the content of property rights available to industrial enterprises) and rules (e.g., regulations applying to the behavior of individuals as well as businesses) will surely be an important component of effective strategies devised to deal with these linkages between environmental and economic concerns. What is more - and this is where the interests of the IDGEC project come into play - efforts to integrate environmental and economic institutions at the international level in the interests of solving problems like climate change cannot succeed in the absence of parallel efforts to integrate such arrangements within the domestic systems of the individual states that are major actors in international society.

Analytic Themes Running through all these substantive themes is a concern with the performance of institutions and, more specifically, with several clusters of factors that constitute critical determinants of the performance of institutions that govern human/environment relations. We know that institutions are not by and large actors in their own right. To become effective, therefore, they must influence the behavior of those - states, corporations, individuals - who are actors in a variety of social situations. A sizable number of factors ranging from material conditions, such as the distribution of structural power, to cognitive conditions, such as prevailing 56 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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beliefs, norms, and values, play some role in determining the effectiveness of institutions (Young 1998). The effort to improve our understanding of forces influencing effectiveness constitutes a major theoretical challenge for researchers from all the social science disciplines interested in the place of institutions in society. Researchers can and should cast a wide net in thinking about the determinants of institutional performance. Within this broad range of concerns, however, the IDGEC project emphasizes the study of three clusters of factors that have surfaced repeatedly in discussions of the effectiveness of institutions created to solve problems pertaining to human/environment relations but that are poorly understood at present. One cluster, referred to in the IDGEC project as the problem of fit, centers on issues relating to the match or congruence between institutional arrangements and biogeophysical systems and emphasizes sources of institutional mismatches. A second cluster, known to the project as the problem of interplay, draws attention to the linkages among distinct institutional arrangements both at the same level of social organization and across levels of social organization. Beyond this, it has become clear in the development of the IDGEC project that studies of the performance of institutional arrangements at different levels of social organization raise important questions concerning the extent to which the causal mechanisms through which institutions affect behavior are generalizable across space and time. Known to the project as the problem of scale, this third cluster of concerns parallels a range of issues that are well-known to those whose research deals with biogeophysical systems. Just as the research foci set forth in the preceding section make up the substantive priorities of the IDGEC project, the problems of fit, interplay, and scale constitute the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s analytic priorities. Taken together, they should ensure that the project remains relevant to those who have theoretical as well as applied interests in the performance of social institutions.

3.1

The Problem of Fit The problem of fit revolves around one fundamental idea; it asserts that the effectiveness of social institutions is a function of the match between the characteristics of the institutions themselves and the characteristics of the biogeophysical systems with which they interact. The better the match or fit between an institution and the relevant biophysical system(s), the more effective the institution will be. It is clear from this proposition that fit is a variable that can range widely from one situation to another and even from one time period to another with respect to the same institution. But beyond this conceptualization of fit as a variable, there are a number of concerns relating to the idea of fit that will require careful consideration in any effort to devise a fruitful research program dealing with this problem. Not only is it hard to establish the bounds of fit treated as a variable, but questions also arise about how to organize thinking about the characteristics of institutions and biogeophysical systems in this context (see Figure 5, p. 62). At one level, the significance of the fit between institutions and biophysical systems is easy to grasp. Regimes concerned with the conservation of living resources that do not cover the entire geographical ranges of migratory Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 57

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species (e.g., fish, marine mammals, birds) have built-in weaknesses that impede their ability to fulfill their goals. Conservation regimes that regulate the harvesting of particular species (e.g., the regime for whales and whaling) or trade in living resources (e.g., the Endangered Species Convention-CITES) but that do not contain adequate provisions for protecting habitats that are critical to the survival of the relevant species cannot guarantee that the resources in question will be conserved, no matter how effective they are in controlling harvesting or trade. Regimes governing the extraction of nonrenewable resources (e.g., nonfuel minerals) that fail to provide explicit rules dealing with the treatment of wastes are likely to trigger large-scale changes in surrounding ecosystems. Regimes that regulate the production of oil and gas but do not deal with the shipment of these resources to markets are apt to jeopardize terrestrial systems located along pipeline corridors or marine systems located along tanker routes. Nor are these concerns limited to the operation of regimes dealing with environmental or resource issues in any narrow sense of those terms. Arms control arrangements, for instance, need to be sensitive to matters that involve the biogeophysical setting. A comprehensive nuclear test ban that failed to come to terms with physical conditions affecting efforts to monitor the occurrence of underground explosions would have little chance of success. Similar observations are in order regarding economic arrangements. A regime that regulates commercial fishing but fails to control the competition among fishers to acquire ever more advanced harvesting technologies, for example, will lead to outcomes that are highly inefficient from an economic point of view, not to mention in ensuring sustainable yields. Several larger questions related to fit arise as a consequence of adopting a systems perspective in thinking about the biogeophysical context. Increasingly, we are aware that social institutions interact with biological and physical systems that are large, complex, and interdependent rather than with separable components of these systems (e.g., individual species of fish) that can be managed in isolation from the more extended systems to which they belong (Sherman 1992). It is impossible to remove a sizable proportion of the biomass of one or a few species from an ecosystem, for instance, without triggering cascades or expanding cycles of change that affect sometimes dramatically - the dynamics of the whole system (U.S. National Research Council 1996). Similarly, injecting wastes (e.g., chemicals such as carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide) into large aquatic, terrestrial, or atmospheric systems can trigger chain reactions leading to profound alterations in the overall systems. This realization has given rise over the last several decades to a growing interest in critical loads, the dynamics of bioregions, and whole ecosystem perspectives. Intellectually, this development has much to recommend it. Yet it also poses problems in thinking about the fit between institutions and the biogeophysical contexts within which they operate. Linkages extend in all directions, both spatially and temporally, and no simple procedure can be devised for determining appropriate system boundaries for purposes of dealing with management concerns in specific cases. Equally important is the fact that complex biogeophysical systems often feature nonlinear processes that are poorly understood and difficult to 58 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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predict. Whereas a focus on individual species typically produces models (e.g., sustainable yield models) that are analytically tractable but of limited use for management purposes, approaches dealing with large biogeophysical systems in more holistic terms yield models that are more relevant but less tractable in analytic terms. Conditions of this sort put a premium on the development of institutional arrangements that are flexible, include selfcorrection mechanisms, and encourage social learning. Systems thinking suggests the value of an approach that features efforts to identify key properties of biogeophysical systems and then to match them with parallel attributes of institutional arrangements in the interests of developing social practices likely to produce results that are sustainable (Cleveland et al. 1996; Costanza and Folke 1996). Just as we speak of attributes such as flexibility, adaptiveness, and resilience in thinking about regimes, we can consider properties like diversity, productivity, and regenerative capacity in examining biogeophysical systems (see Table 3, p. 59). Fit then becomes a Table 3

Ecosystem Properties Relevant to Sustainability 1. Closed vs. open systems links to other systems

2. Heterogeneity/homogeneity endogenous variation

3. Interdependencies among subsystems tightly vs. loosely coupled systems

4. Simplicity/complexity levels and links

5. Productivity/metabolism levels of productivity/harvestable surplus rates of (re)generation

6. Cyclicity/periodicity regularity vs. acyclicity short vs. long cycles magnitude of swings

7. Resilience brittleness-vulnerability to sharp shocks critical loads-vulnerability to cumulative pressures

8. Equilibria single vs. multiple stability flips and triggers

9. Dynamics change: gradual/episodic/chaotic path dependence sensitivity to stimuli Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

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matter of structuring institutions in ways that maximize compatibility between institutional attributes and biogeophysical properties. It makes sense, for example, to institute particularly strict regulations governing the harvest of living resources that belong to ecosystems whose biological productivity is low. In the same way, there are good reasons to exercise particular care in dealing with systems in which discontinuities or nonlinear changes - in contrast to restoration of some preexisting state - are high probabilities. For instance, much of the concern expressed by those endeavoring to strengthen the climate regime rests on a judgment that the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s climate system may be subject to dramatic transitions of this sort. This way of thinking suggests the importance of analyzing institutional mismatches or, in other words, situations in which institutional arrangements are more or less incompatible with the biogeophysical systems to which they apply. As the history of the opening of the public domain for private use in the United States attests clearly, institutional mismatches are both common and persistent (Stegner 1954). Why do such mismatches arise in the first place and why do they persist so long even in the face of mounting evidence regarding problems of sustainability, in some cases contributing to the occurrence of major disasters like the Dust Bowl in the American Southwest during the 1930s (Worster 1979)? A number of factors, sometimes operating in tandem, appear to play important roles in the occurrence and persistence of institutional mismatches. An initial list would include: ignorance of relevant ecological processes, reliance on false analogies, the power of special interests, the influence of dominant paradigms, the operation of inappropriate norms or principles, the influence of institutional path dependence, and jurisdictional problems. The topic of institutional mismatch requires much more systematic and sustained attention in the interests of broadening and deepening our knowledge of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change.

3.2. The Problem of Interplay Whereas the problem of fit revolves around a single core idea, the problem of interplay involves a collection of interrelated ideas. Much research on social institutions focuses on individual cases as self-contained or standalone arrangements that can be understood either in terms of endogenous attributes or in terms of the match between institutional attributes and the characteristics of the particular problems they are intended to regulate or manage. Assessing an institution in isolation is a simplification that enhances analytic tractability and thus can help us to identify its principal mechanisms and reveal its functional logic more easily than if we had to deal with complex external interdependencies. Sometimes it is perfectly sensible to argue that little is lost by adopting this acontextual approach. Even though no institution operates in a vacuum, some arrangements can be understood reasonably well without examining their relationships to other institutions. Yet it is clear that this approach has serious limitations as a way to think about the institutional dimensions of global environmental change. The effectiveness of specific institutions often depends not only on their own features but also on their interactions with other institutions. Environmental damages typically occur as side effects of other, perfectly legitimate activities, 60 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Box F

Mismatched Land-Use Practices in America The regime articulated initially in the Homestead Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1862, guided the transfer of western lands from the public domain into private hands throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Founded on the premise that a family could make a living on 160 acres of land, this regime produced tolerable results when applied to a large proportion of the Great Plains. When applied to the southern plains and beyond them to the arid lands of the southwest, however, this system contributed to the degradation of large tracts of land and eventually to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s (Worster 1979). A system that produced sustainable results in areas with an average annual rainfall of twenty inches or more forced farmers to engage in unsustainable agricultural practices in the arid areas of the southwest. This institutional mismatch is attributable in part to ecological ignorance on the part of policy makers in the national capital. In part, however, it was a product of the interests of regional politicians and private interests who perpetrated the myth that â&#x20AC;&#x153;rain follows the plowâ&#x20AC;? as a means of attracting settlers to the West (Stegner 1954).

such as the production and consumption of various goods or services. By implication, institutions designed to regulate the environmental byproducts of these economic activities will have important ramifications for the economic activities themselves. It follows that institutional arrangements designed to protect the environment cannot simply be added to other institutions. In order to be effective, they must penetrate the activities that cause damage to the environment in the first place and redirect the institutional superstructure associated with these activities. Clearly, an analysis of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change cannot be limited to the subset of social institutions that deal explicitly with matters of environmental management. Moreover, key players often act deliberately to forge links between activities and institutions that are not substantively interdependent. This may be a matter of managerial efficiency arising from opportunities to benefit from economies of scale, particularly in areas where institutional density is high. Actors may also treat some institutions as models in their efforts to design others, especially in cases involving (perceived) similarities in the fundamental character of the problems at stake. Similarity of this sort is a basis for simple learning or copying, and institutions regarded as successful are more likely to be emulated than those perceived as failures. Efforts to apply the American experience with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures in other settings are striking cases in point. Over time, we can identify distinct waves or generations of institutions, each of which is characterized by recurring features that are best understood in terms of the diffusion of ideas giving rise to standard solutions to environmental problems. Processes featuring strategic interaction can also generate linkages of their own. For reasons of political expediency, actors may combine institutional arrangements concerned with distinct problems into some sort of package Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 61

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deal to satisfy the needs of a number of different groups or factions. In other cases, actors may treat two or more distinct arrangements as components of a larger institutional project. Even if it is hard to argue that the regime established to protect stratospheric ozone and the regime regulating the use of deep seabed minerals are linked in a functional sense, for instance, actors may treat both arrangements as parts of a new international economic order and demand consistency between them in terms of overarching principles of fairness or equity. Institutions subject to such political linkages must be understood in their wider, socially constructed context. Attempts to alter or reform an existing institution without paying attention to such political linkages can trigger a variety of unexpected difficulties. We can think of the problem of interplay in terms of a two-dimensional space. One dimension involves functional linkages, in the sense that the operation of one institution directly influences the effectiveness of another through some substantive connection among the activities involved. Thus, land reforms instituted at the national level often prove disruptive to local arrangements pertaining to the use of common pool resources; national arrangements featuring various types of incentive mechanisms frequently prove unimplementable at the local or site-specific level. The other dimension features political linkages that arise when actors decide to consider two or more arrangements as parts of a larger institutional complex. While functional linkages are facts of life, political linkages are subject to deliberate manipulation on the part of those concerned with particular problems. Such linkages are most often considered in connection with bargaining pertaining to the (re)formation of institutions, but they can arise in conjunction with the management or administration of institutions as well. Figure 5

Ecosystem and Human System Linkages Ecosystems Characteristics Stocks Species and Organisms

Interaction Characteristics

Flows External Inputs and outputs Internal Flows

Flows Harvest Pollution Enhancement Non-consumptive Uses

Controls Physical & Behavioral Laws Natural Selection Ecological Relationships

Controls Transformations Transactions Ecological Relationships

Attributes Heterogenity Predictability Resilience Decomposability Extent in Space and Time Productivity

Attributes Excludability Observability Knowledge Enforceability Divisibility Sustainbility Equity Efficiency

Human System Characteristics Stocks Human Actors Human-Made Capital Flows External Inputs and outputs Internal Flows Controls Physical & Behavioral Laws Selection Mechanisms Rules in Use Attributes Heterogenity Predictability Resilience Decomposability Extent in Space and Time Productivity Source: Cleveland at al. 1996

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The existence of functional linkages may constitute a sufficient reason for forging political linkages, but their occurrence does not constitute a necessary condition for doing so. Thus, actors may couple distinct institutions for reasons of managerial efficiency or political expediency when there is no compelling functional reason for proceeding in this way. At any given level of social organization, however, the overall pattern is likely to be one of covariance between the two types of institutional linkages. Major incongruities in these terms are likely to give rise to anomalies that become contested issues in various policy arenas. Along both of these dimensions, it is useful to distinguish between vertical linkages and horizontal linkages. Vertical linkages are those that cut across levels of social organization. To take a prominent example, a central proposition of dependency theory is that the rules and decision-making procedures of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;world capitalist systemâ&#x20AC;? determine a set of constraints and (perverse) opportunities that profoundly affect both economic and political development and the occurrence of environmental problems at the micro-level (e.g., in rural communities in the third world). The accumulation of wealth in the core or center and the perpetuation of poverty and onset of environmental problems in the peripheries are seen as inextricably linked through the allocation mechanisms characteristic of contemporary capitalism (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1989). Looking at vertical links from a top-down perspective, moreover, we encounter the well-known observation that many international environmental regimes require a certain minimum of institutional capacity at lower levels of social organization to be implemented successfully. A number of recent studies, for instance, suggest that the problem of non-compliance with international environmental commitments may be as much a matter of inadequate domestic capacity to ensure implementation as one of deliberate defection on the part of those seeking to become free riders (Chayes and Chayes 1995). Box G

Alien Invaders in Australia In 1995, a Rembarronga man walking over his traditional lands in Central Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia found a plant that he immediately identified as Mimosa pigra, a rapidly spreading invasive weed threatening Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inland waterways and wetlands. Despite his attempts to alert the federal government to the danger, no commitment to control the weed was forthcoming at the national level. Subsequently, the traditional owners applied for and successfully obtained interim listing of the area for protection under the Ramsar Convention. They fear, however, that in the absence of a positive response from territorial and federal governments, local efforts to control the invaders, combined with international recognition, may not be adequate to preserve the 400 km2 Arafura wetland, a part of an aboriginal land trust. Actions of the federal and territorial governments to build and upgrade roads through the area will work at cross purposes to these initiatives by increasing tourism and further exacerbating the spread of alien species including Mimosa pigra. Institutional responses at the local level (based on intimate knowledge of the ecosystem) and the international level may be stymied by quite different institutional responses at the federal and territorial levels.

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Horizontal linkages, by contrast, are those among institutional arrangements operating at the same level of social organization. In the context of environmental change, the most important horizontal connections are those that link institutions designed to regulate human activities causing environmental damage - primarily economic activities involving the production and consumption of goods or services - and institutional arrangements established to protect environmental values (e.g., the regime designed to protect biodiversity). Regimes created to deal with distinct environmental problems also may develop horizontal linkages with one another. The international regime established to restrict the dumping or incineration of toxic wastes at sea, for instance, has obvious implications for arrangements designed to control the disposal of similar wastes on land. Any comprehensive approach to the problem of dealing with toxic wastes would have to encompass both land-based disposal and disposal at sea. For those seeking to understand the human dimensions of global environmental change, the challenge posed by the problem of interplay (summarized in Figure 6, p. 64) involves three distinct issues. We must improve our ability to 1. understand the relationship between functional linkages and political linkages, 2. determine the significance of specific types of linkages for the performance of the institutions involved, and

Figure 6

Institutional Interplay

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

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Box H

Institutional Interplay in the Himalayas In the central Himalayan mountain region, a multiplicity of institutions operate at the local, national, and eco-regional levels. Local institutions, developed by traditional hill people, have often been diluted-or even replaced-by externally implanted institutions that work at cross purposes with local arrangements. A variety of sectorally organized institutions dealing with forestry, agriculture, animal husbandry, water resources, energy, and tourism coexist with village councils. But there is little coordination among these sectoral arrangements, much less between these arrangements and the traditional local councils. With respect to forestry alone, a range of local agencies coexist with the State Forestry Department and provoke conflicts of interest. In some areas, national boundaries interfere with efforts to manage mountain systems on an eco-regional basis. The result is an inability to resolve conflicts relating to matters such as timber extraction and deforestation, hydroelectric projects, and development opportunities for mountain people (Ives and Messerli 1989).

3. distinguish linkages that are generally positive in the sense of mutually reinforcing from those that are negative in the sense that they lead to mutual interference among distinct institutions. An ability to identify and work with the full range of institutional linkages becomes particularly important when we move from the substantive questions that constitute the core of Research Focus 1 to the design concerns featured in Research Focus 3.

3.3

The Problem of Scale The problem of scale differs in one important respect from the problems of fit and interplay. It deals with the generalizability of knowledge pertaining to institutions rather than with attributes of institutions themselves or features of the relationship between institutions and relevant biogeophysical systems. Nonetheless, scale is a subject that arises repeatedly in thinking about the institutional dimensions of global environmental change and that requires systematic attention in the research program outlined in this Science Plan. In essence, the problem of scale refers to the transferability of both empirical generalizations and causal inferences from one level to another in the dimensions of space and time. Human activities of relevance to global environmental change occur at various levels of social organization (see Figure 7, p. 66). Scaling up in space, then, concerns the applicability of findings derived from an analysis of smallscale or micro-level systems to meso-scale and even macro-scale systems. Conversely, scaling down is a process of bringing findings about largescale systems to bear on the analysis of meso-level or micro-level systems. The problem associated with scale arises from the fact that while scaling up and scaling down are relatively straightforward procedures under some conditions, this is not the case under other conditions. It is therefore an important challenge both to identify circumstances under which generalizing across Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 65

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scales is hazardous and to develop procedures for adapting propositions and models to allow for scaling up and scaling down in such cases. Natural scientists have long regarded the problem of scale as critical to determining the scope of the validity of propositions about biogeophysical systems and to developing integrated theories about such systems (Ehleringer and Fields 1993). By contrast, social scientists have devoted comparatively little attention to this problem. Yet it is easy to see that this problem is just as relevant to the study of social or human systems as it is to the analysis of biogeophysical systems. Analyses of the effectiveness of social institutions constitute a clear case in point. We want to know, for instance, whether and to what extent the causal mechanisms through which institutions affect behavior at one level of social organization, such as smallscale or micro-level societies, also play key roles at other levels of social organization, including national (meso-level) societies and international (macro-level) society and vice versa. Similar comments are in order about the relationship between the dynamics of relatively short-term phenomena and what social scientists often call long cycles. One obvious matter of interest in this realm concerns the relative weight of endogenous factors and exogenous forces as determinants of institutional effectiveness. Students of micro-level and meso-level institutions typically Figure 7

Approaches to Scale

Source: Adapted from Gibson et al. 1998:54

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take it for granted that institutions make a difference and set about analyzing those features of institutions themselves that account for variations in the results these arrangements produce. To some extent this is a matter of the fit between a particular institution and the problem it is created to solve. But beyond this, a focus on endogenous determinants of effectiveness leads naturally to a consideration of design principles. A particularly well-known example of such thinking, based on an extensive analysis of micro-level systems, appears in Elinor Ostromâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s discussion of long-enduring regimes dealing with common pool resources (Ostrom 1990; Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker 1994). No doubt, there is room for debate about the persuasiveness of the resultant design principles even at the micro-level. But the critical question for this discussion concerns the extent to which these principles summarized in Table 4, p. 68 - can be scaled up to apply to higher levels of social organization. This question is particularly important when it comes to understanding macro-level systems. Thus, researchers concerned with international institutions have devoted more attention to the role of exogenous forces as determinants of institutional effectiveness than have their colleagues analyzing small-scale systems. They ask whether certain conditions relating to the distribution of material resources, the configuration of actor interests, and the content of broader cognitive factors, including both beliefs and values, are required to allow institutions to operate successfully. A major theme of this stream of analysis concerns the extent to which the presence of a dominant actor - in the sense of a member of the relevant group able to control a preponderance of the material resources in the issue area in question - is needed for international regimes to succeed in solving problems (Keohane 1984). But other arguments pointing to the role of exogenous forces are easy enough to formulate. Some analysts, looking to the configuration of interests among the actors, emphasize the importance of the existence of one or more equilibria yielding Pareto optimal outcomes - in the sense that no individual actor can be made better off without reducing the welfare of at least one other member of the group - as a determinant of the effectiveness of institutions (Snidal 1985). Others direct attention to factors such as the presence of an epistemic community or, in other words, a group of experts possessing both a common understanding of the problem and an agreed approach to solving it as a condition for success (Haas 1997). Still others point to broader cognitive forces, such as common beliefs or compatible value systems, as determinants of the success of international regimes (Cooper 1989). Quite apart from the relative importance of endogenous and exogenous forces as determinants of effectiveness, important questions exist about the extent to which differences in the nature of the actors pose problems for scaling up and scaling down across levels of social organization. Those who have examined collective-action problems at the micro-level typically assume that the players are individuals who can be modeled as unitary actors conforming in some general sense to the postulates of rational utility maximizing or behavior that maximizes net benefits. Some critics have questioned the validity of this practice, even at the micro-level. But more serious reservations arise regarding the use of similar assumptions about the Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 67

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Table 4

Design Principles Illustrated by Long-Enduring Common Pool Resource (CPR) Institutions 1. Clearly defined boundaries Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself.

2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money.

3. Collective-choice arrangements Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying operational rules.

4. Monitoring Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriate behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators.

5. Graduated sanctions Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.

6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to lowcost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.

7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external government authorities. Source: Ostrom 1990:90

actors in efforts to scale up to the macro-level, where the parties are large collective entities such as states or multinational corporations. Not surprisingly, some researchers make this leap in the interests of developing analytically tractable models with which to examine the formation and effectiveness of international environmental regimes (Sandler 1997). But mounting evidence suggests that the assumptions of the micro-level models leave much to be desired in efforts to understand phenomena such as the two-level games that loom large in international society (Putnam 1988) and the processes involved in implementing international regulatory arrangements at the domestic level (Chayes and Chayes 1995; Weiss and Jacobson 1998). Somewhat similar observations are in order about connections between effectiveness and the social settings within which specific institutions operate. One common theme in this realm centers on the relationship between institutions and what is generally referred to as â&#x20AC;&#x153;community.â&#x20AC;? Many analysts of microlevel systems see social institutions as culturally embedded arrangements and treat the existence of supportive beliefs, norms, and values, or a sense of 68 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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community, as a necessary condition for the effectiveness of institutions. In a commentary on Ostrom’s work, for example, Sara Singleton and Michael Taylor (1992) argue that a group’s capacity to solve collective-action problems endogenously or, in other words, in the absence of an external public authority able and willing to impose rules on group members, is a function of the presence of community. But what exactly is a community in this sense, and can this argument about the importance of community at the micro-level be generalized to apply to meso-scale and macro-scale settings? Recently, a number of analysts have begun to argue that the term “community” has been used in so many different ways that it has lost its value as a variable to be used in efforts to understand the outcomes arising from collective-action problems. The meaning of the concept of community is particularly difficult to pin down at the level of international society (Claude 1988). Accordingly, we need to review this line of thinking not only at individual levels of social organization but especially for purposes of cross-level comparisons. It would be easy to match these issues relating to scaling up and scaling down in space with similar issues relating to time. A particularly important concern in this connection involves what are sometimes called “fast” variables and “slow” variables. Social scientists often attempt to distinguish between long cycles and short cycles. Long cycles associated with shifts in the underlying configuration of power in international society often occur over decades or even centuries (Modelski 1987a and 1987b). By contrast, short cycles span periods of years to decades. Business cycles ordinarily extend over a few years; what some observers have called issue-attention cycles are apt to be even shorter (Downs 1972). The question that arises, then, is whether there are common features of the dynamics of these cycles, despite their differences in temporal scale. The overarching point to ponder in connection with the study of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change is whether we can transfer findings pertaining to the effectiveness of institutions across levels in the dimensions of space and time. Needless to say, this issue takes on even greater importance in situations in which institutional interplay gives rise to functional or political linkages between levels of social organization.

Regional Applications Some global environmental changes are systemic in character (e.g., climate change, ozone layer depletion) in the sense that they involve alterations in the Earth system; others are cumulative in nature (e.g., losses of biological diversity) in the sense that similar developments in many parts of the world add up to a global pattern (Turner et al. 1990). In both cases, there is a clear need to examine global processes in thinking about the institutional dimensions of large-scale environmental changes. Some institutional drivers, such as international trade and investment regimes, are also global in scope. Taken together, these drivers constitute a major institutional component of what is often described as globalization, and they clearly have important implications for the fate of biogeophysical systems. In addition, some human responses to large-scale environmental problems (e.g., the creation of the ozone, climate, and biodiversity regimes) are best understood in global terms. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 69

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Table 5

Regional Comparisons: Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North Similarities • importance of marine and coastal ecosystems • significance of forest ecosystems • prominence of indigenous peoples • diversity of political and economic institutions operating in similar biogeophysical settings • influence of external forces

Differences • low latitude vs. high latitude locations • tropical vs. polar ecosystems • inclusion of whole countries vs. parts of countries • dense vs. sparse human populations Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

At the same time, a sizable proportion of the human behavior involved in causing and confronting global environmental changes occurs in regional or subregional settings. As a result, much of the research required to understand the institutional dimensions of global change will need to direct attention to processes at work at the regional, national, and even local levels. Analyses framed in these terms will facilitate assessments of the interplay among a variety of distinct institutions and of the fit between institutions and their biogeophysical settings that are sufficiently detailed to yield results that are nontrivial and not intuitively obvious. Only after we understand the forces at work at regional and subregional levels will it be possible to aggregate the results to reach global conclusions of particular interest to natural scientists concerned with changes in biogeophysical systems that are global in scope. The conduct of research dealing with institutional issues at different levels of social organization is also essential for grappling with the problem of scale. The IDGEC research agenda is structured so that it can be pursued profitably not only by those interested in international institutions but also by those concerned with institutional arrangements operative at lower levels of social organization in every region of the world. The project is intended to operate on an inclusive basis and seeks the active involvement of scientists located in all the major regions of the world as a means to enhance our understanding of variations in the links between institutions and environmental change. To facilitate in-depth analyses of processes occurring at regional, national, and even local levels of social organization, however, the IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee has concluded that there is merit in directing particular attention to several specific regions in developing an effective implementation strategy for the project. Criteria employed in the selection of these regional foci involve both scientific and pragmatic factors, including the prevalence of large ecosystems that are fragile or easily disrupted, the existence of evidence that systemic or cumulative environmental changes are already 70 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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producing significant impacts on regional systems, the occurrence of substantial variance in institutions operating under similar socioeconomic and biogeophysical conditions, the presence of a complex mix of both regional and subregional institutions and organizations, the existence of considerable variance in cultural systems, and the presence of established and scientifically compatible research programs at the regional level that are interested in joining forces in pursuing the IDGEC research agenda.

4.1

Southeast Asia Map 1

Southeast Asia

Source: Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/map_collection/map_collection.html

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B0x I

Southeast-Asian Fluvial Sediment Flows Southeast Asia is the world’s leading source of fluvial sediment flux. Together, „[s]outhern Asia and Oceania contribute about 70% of the world flux although they account for only about 15% of the land area draining into the oceans“ (Milliman 1990: 13). Today, rapid industrialization, urbanization, and overall population growth are exacerbating this situation. Manifested most visibly in the red tides associated with algal blooms in the Gulf of Thailand, fluvial sediment flux is causing large-scale environmental problems involving the loss of soils, the deterioration of water quality, and the resultant impacts on the region’s marginal seas and coastal fisheries. Understandably, the problem has featured prominently in every ASEAN environmental plan since the 1981 Manila Declaration on the Environment as well as in many national coastal zone management plans. But so far, efforts to create new institutions have failed to stem the tide of fluvial sediment flux in Southeast Asia.

The eleven nation states located wholly or partially in tropical Southeast Asia have a combined population of half a billion people and constitute a particularly dynamic region of the globe today (see Map 1, p. 71). The most publicized environmental problem of the region has long been deforestation, alleged to be a major contributor to global climate change. The region also has been among the first to experience presumed consequences of global environmental changes producing - in conjunction with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon and monsoon anomalies - widespread transboundary air pollution associated with forest fires. Less widely publicized but potentially even more significant is the cumulative degradation of the region’s ocean environment, resulting both from over-exploitation of marine living resources and from land-based development causing a rate of sediment flux to the sea that is almost equal to the combined sediment flux of the entire rest of the world (see Figure 8, p. 73). Still rich in renewable and nonrenewable resources, Southeast Asia has experienced impressive economic growth rates and now includes three of the fifteen wealthiest countries in the world (Australia, Brunei, and Singapore) as well as two of only six nations that remain net food exporters (Australia and Thailand). As the recent financial/fiscal crisis has demonstrated, however, globalization has increased the vulnerability of the regional economy to external events - and increased the vulnerability of the global economy to troubles originating within the region. Some observers have also argued that, as a consequence of global trade liberalization, Southeast Asian natural resource exports are environmentally and economically subsidizing unsustainable resource consumption in the industrialized countries (Cameron 1997). One crucial factor in assessing linkages between regional processes and global environmental change is the adequacy of the region’s institutional/ organizational endowment (see Figure 9, p. 74) from local indigenous institutions involving resource management and property rights to mechanisms designed to promote transnational collective action. It is significant that a Southeast Asian intergovernmental entity - the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) - has called explicitly for the 72 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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strengthening of environmental institutions in its member states in order to manage the regional environment effectively (ASEAN 1992). This concern with the adequacy of national institutions stems from a conviction that Southeast Asia comprises a shared environment. To conform to the “principle of nonintervention” in the affairs of member states, however, ASEAN has favored a soft-law approach to environmental management, as evidenced by numerous resolutions, declarations, common stands, and action plans (ASEP 1994/1996). Only the 1985 Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which has not entered into force, is a hard-law measure. This raises important questions about the relative merits of informal versus formal institutions as mechanisms for dealing with large-scale environmental changes. Whether an approach featuring nonintervention is adequate to deal with today’s environmental problems has now become a burning issue. During 1997-1998, transboundary air pollution resulting from the burning of forests in Indonesia caused dramatic economic and health damage in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. ASEAN is responding to this disaster by calling for tougher National Haze Action Plans and, with technical assistance from the Asian Development Bank, developing a Regional Haze Action Plan. Regional leaders have called for more effective rules subjecting commercial timber companies to legal actions and economic sanctions. Recently, Thailand and the Philippines, citing the problem of regional haze, have called for the development of a principle of “constructive intervention” to replace the traditional principle of “nonintervention” in the affairs of

Figure 8

Southeast-Asian Fluvial Sediment Flows

Annual fluvial flux from large drainage basin areas to the oceans. Numbers in millions of tons (per year); arrows proportional to the numbers. From Milliman and Meadle (1983). Source: Milliman 1990:18

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Figure 9

ASEAN Environmental Cooperation

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

members. These developments make Southeast Asia a region well-suited to an examination of issues relating to institutional adaptation and innovation in response to dramatic environmental problems. Of particular interest to researchers concerned with the institutional dimensions of global environmental change are the opportunities afforded by a focus on Southeast Asia to examine linkages between regional and global processes as well as the interplay between regional and subregional or national levels of social organization. Although Southeast Asia constitutes a distinct region, what goes on in this region is heavily affected by outside forces, especially the economic demands of Japan and the political pressures of China. The opportunities to analyze the environmental implications of globalization and regionalization as well as tensions between the two as they play out in this region are exceptional. At the same time, Southeast Asia has witnessed a striking growth of interest in environmental concerns at the regional level, which sometimes generates conflict between regional institutions such as ASEAN and the national institutions of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s member states, and which may well lead to situations in which efforts are made to use regional arrangements to protect small-scale - often traditional 74 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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- resource regimes against pressures emanating from national governments. Under the circumstances, Southeast Asia promises to provide much grist for the mills of those seeking to enhance our understanding of the problems of interplay and scale.

4.2

Circumpolar North The Arctic and subarctic zones form a cap on the planet with its apex at the North Pole and its southern boundary demarcated by various physical and biological conditions (e.g., the southern limits of permafrost or of the taiga). So defined, the Circumpolar North covers over 40 million square kilometers or about 8% of the Earth’s surface, comprising the Arctic Ocean and associated marine areas such as the Barents and Bering Seas as well as the adjoining land areas of eight countries - mainly tundra and taiga ecosystems - with a seasonal ozone “hole” now part of the regional environment (see Map 2, p. 76). The region’s glaciers together with the Greenland icecap contain about 10% of the world’s freshwater, enough to raise global sea levels substantially if they were to melt, a process that would also lead to albedo changes affecting the reflection of energy back to the atmosphere. The boreal forest of the Russian taiga, now under increasing pressure from timber harvesters, covers 2.2 billion acres and contains amounts of carbon proportionate to those of the Amazonian rain forest; huge quantities of carbon are also sequestered in the permafrost of the tundra. In both cases, the region is on its way to becoming a source rather than a sink of greenhouse gases, depending in part on actions guided by national and international institutions. Even though the Circumpolar North’s permanent residents number only about ten million, the region accounts for approximately 25% of U.S. oil production and 80 to 90% of the natural gas produced in Russia, the world’s leading producer. The region also supplies significant quantities of nonfuel minerals, including lead, zinc, nickel, and diamonds. The Barents and Bering Seas support large-scale commercial fisheries, with the Bering Sea Region alone accounting for 5% or more of the total world landings of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks in most years. The Arctic is also the site of intensely controversial whaling and sealing operations that have pitted the preferences of preservationists against the longstanding practices of consumptive users. Box J

Arctic Trace Gas Fluxes „Arctic ecosystems are particularly important contributors to global trace gas fluxes. The large amount of carbon in Arctic ecosystems (292 GtC) means that potential CO2, CH4, and NMHC fluxes could be very large. Further, the fact that tundra ecosystems are expected to undergo large changes in temperature, with likely subsequent changes in soil water table, active layer depth, and permafrost distribution, means that current trace gas fluxes should change dramatically in the coming decades. Warming and drying of tundra areas could result in massive losses of CO2 to the atmosphere (Oechel and Billings 1992) and increased oxidation of methane. There is strong evidence that recent warming and drying of some tundra areas have already caused shifts from net carbon sinks to sources in the last ten to fifteen years . (Oechel et al. 1993, Oechel et al. 1995)“ (Wright and Sheehan eds. 1996: 80).

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Map 2

Circumpolar North

Source: Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/map_collection/map_collection.html

The Circumpolar North can be thought of as a collection of peripheries or hinterlands of nations centered far to the south in terms of policy interests and policymaking processes. Under the circumstances, northern politics have often been shaped by decision makers possessing little knowledge of the North and little interest in the impacts of their actions on the region. While Southeast Asia may be treated as a peripheral region in the context of the international system, the Circumpolar North emerges as a region of peripheries controlled by powerful members of the system. During much of 76 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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this century, the region has been divided roughly in half between Russia on one side and the western Arctic countries on the other. For the most part, the policies followed and the institutions created in the two halves of the region during the twentieth century have been strikingly different. This affords interesting opportunities to engage in systematic comparisons of the effects of different institutions operating in a relatively uniform biophysical setting. Recently, the region has experienced a burst of institutional and organizational innovations that are distinctly relevant to environmental protection and sustainable development. These include: 1. experiments with new systems of land tenure and resource management (e.g., co-management arrangements associated with the settlement of aboriginal land claims); 2. the devolution of authority from the center to the periphery as in the creation of the North Slope Borough in Alaska (1972), the Greenland Home Rule (1979), and the Nunavut Territory in Canada (scheduled to become official in 1999); 3. the restructuring of domestic political arrangements in societies undergoing transition, as reflected in the current constitutional debates within the Russian Federation; and 4. a raft of new regionwide arrangements, including intergovernmental ones (e.g., the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy, the Arctic Council) and nongovernmental ones (e.g., the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the International Arctic Science Committee). Students of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change are drawn to study the Far North by the expectation that global changes will be felt â&#x20AC;&#x153;first and worstâ&#x20AC;? in this region and by the exceptional opportunities the region affords to examine the problems of fit and interplay. Because the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biogeophysical systems are relatively extreme or, in any case, markedly different from their counterparts in the mid-latitudes, it is possible to investigate both the dynamics of distinctive institutional arrangements that indigenous peoples have devised to regulate human inter-actions with northern ecosystems and the problems arising from efforts on the part of outsiders to impose institutions developed in the mid-la- Small-scale rice cultivation, Bangladesh. titudes on conditions prevai- Photo placed at disposal by the Geographical Institute, ling in the Circumpolar North. University of Bonn, Germany. The North has emerged in recent years as a particularly fertile ground for experiments with institutional ar-rangements designed to augment the voice of local resource users (e.g., co-management regimes), to protect the interests of remote areas with sparse human populations (e.g., the Home Rule arrangements in GreenScience Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 77

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land and northern Canada), and to allow subnational units of government to interact directly with one another (e.g., the Northern Forum). Thus, this region has become as well an attractive setting for studies of the environmental impacts of a relatively wide range of Large-scale tea plantation, Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. institutional innovations Photo placed at disposal by the Geographical Institute, University of Bonn, Germany. (see Table 6, p.79).

4.3

Common Themes Their distinctive features notwithstanding, Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North share, both with each other and with several other regions, a number of environment-related problems that have special significance for interactions between natural systems and social institutions of relevance to global environmental change. Most prominent among these common themes, and those that lend themselves particularly well to an interregional comparison of institutional matters, are issues pertaining to large marine ecosystems, forest ecosystems, indigenous peoples, and the interplay of external and internal forces.

4.3.1 Large Marine Ecosystems Both regions are critically defined by their dependence on large marine ecosystems or LMEs (Sherman 1992). Since ocean resources contribute a large portion of each region’s natural wealth and the livelihood of local coastal populations, comparative analysis should begin by determining Box K

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef While their concentration is highest in the Indo-West Pacific, reef-building corals are pan-tropical between 30°N and 30°S. The resultant reefs support a wide range of animal and plant life, but they have come under increasing pressure from human activities and environmental changes throughout much of their range. In many parts of the world, systems of customary marine tenure that once protected coral reefs have been undermined or altered drastically as a result of western influence and industrial expansion. An exception is the resource regime developed to manage Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Listed as a World Heritage Area and enjoying the advantages of size and remoteness from large human populations, this reef system is managed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. The Authority administers a multipleuse regime under which nondestructive economic activities such as ecotourism and some types of fishing are permitted alongside recreational and conservation areas. This approach appears to be gaining acceptance and may prove applicable to the management of marine protected areas in other regions. 78 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Table 6

Arctic Institutions and Organizations Regionwide/Intergovernmental Regimes • • • •

Artic Council Environmental Protection Programme Sustainable Development Programme Polar Bear Regime

Regionwide/Subnational Organizations • Northern Forum • Standing Committee of Parlamentarians of the Artic Region

Subregional/Intergovernmental Regimes • • • • • •

Barents Euro-Arctic Region Svalbard Regime Barents Sea Fisheries Regime Bering Sea Fisheries Regimes Jan Mayen/Iceland Joint Development Zone Canada/U.S. Arctic Cooperation Agreement

Indigenous People Organizations • Inuit Circumpolar Conference • Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North • Sami Council

Nongovernmental Organizations • • • •

International Arctic Science Committee Arctic Ocean Science Board International Permafrost Association Circumpolar Universities Association

Global Regimes Relevant to the Arctic • • • • •

Law of the Sea: Third UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Ozone Layer Protection: Montreal Protocol Climate Change: Framework Convention on Climate Change Biodiversity: Convention on Biological Diversity Indigenous Peoples: International Labor Organization Convention 169 Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

the relative priority allotted to marine issues. How do existing institutions respond to the continuing decline of fisheries and degradation of the marine environment? What has been the role of traditional structures and practices - including systems of access and use rights - in mitigating (or accelerating) such changes? How do governments respond - through legislation, fiscal intervention, occupational or educational programs - to the resulting social pressures, and how effective have governmental actions been in modifying human behavior under changing natural conditions? At the international level, what has been the impact of global institutions and agreements on the management of marine resources at the regional level? Conversely, have regional concerns in Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North influenced decision making in global marine fora? What explains the fact that Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North are among the few oceanic/coastal regions of the world where no specific regionwide arrangements for marine resources or marine environmental protection have yet been concluded? More generally, why do environment-related institutions in the Arctic differ from those Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 79

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Box L

The Siberian Taiga Russia contains „... more than 70 percent of the world’s boreal forest-coniferous woodlands that survive some of the harshest winter climates on Earth.“ Located largely in Siberia, these forests „... are a huge source of living carbon, which, if released through cutting and burning, could contribute significantly to global warming.“ The ultimate fate of the taiga will be determined by factors both within the country and in the world at large. At present, „... the future of this resource is threatened by ineffective management policies, uncertain property rights, deteriorating forest conditions caused by pollution and other factors, [and] the prospect of increasingly massive cutting in Siberia“ in response to rising demand for wood and wood products on the part of Japan and other Pacific-rim countries (World Resources Institute 1996: 206).

operative in the Antarctic, and Southeast Asian institutions differ from those of the Caribbean or other marine regions? Is there evidence of interregional institutional learning in this field? 4.3.2 Forest Ecosystems A second major theme common to both regions is their concern for forest systems, which rank high in actual or potential economic importance to the countries involved and in actual or potential environmental concern to the global community. At the national and local levels, more comparative research is needed on the relative effectiveness of available institutions for forest management and sustainable use, including systems of ownership and land tenure (Schmithüsen and Siegel 1997). How successful have economic and legal reforms (e.g., in post-colonial Southeast Asia or in postSoviet northern Russia) been in coping with the threats of over-exploitation and environmental degradation of forests? What has been the influence of regulations, fiscal policies, economic incentives, and disincentives in coping with market failures? Is there evidence of transcultural reception of foreign institutional experience and lessons learned? Initially, the timberproducing countries of Southeast Asia were as adamant in opposing a legally binding global agreement on forests as were the timber-producing countries of the Circumpolar North in opposing the inclusion of boreal forests in a global forest regime. How have the positions of governments in the two regions evolved regarding such matters in the years since the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development? To what extent do their regional concerns influence decision making in global forest fora, and what effects have international agreements and institutions (e.g., the International Tropical Timber Agreement) had on forestry practices in the regions concerned? More generally, what has been the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) and global economic and financial institutions (e.g., the GATT/WTO or the World Bank) with regard to deforestation in the two regions? 4.3.3 Indigenous Peoples Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North are similar as well with respect to the survival of distinct indigenous cultures and the presence of growing threats to the ways of life these peoples practice. Indigenous cultures are 80 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Box M

Tourism in Remote Areas of Southeast Asia and the Arctic Indigenous peoples in many remote areas of Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North perceive tourism as an answer to the dilemma of economic stagnation or decline. As a result, tourism has grown in these regions, and a number of institutions and organizations have been established to market tourism opportunities and to handle the flow of tourists. But this development is not without problems of its own. Areas of great natural beauty, which are often ecologically fragile, are now subject to rising levels of visitor impact. Nor are the results of tourism limited to impacts on fragile ecosystems. They can also prove disruptive to the social, cultural, and spiritual lives of indigenous peoples whose contribution is central to the tourist experience. Resultant changes in lifestyles and expectations as well as in formal and informal economic systems pose threats to local institutions that have helped to ensure sustainable human/environment relations in the past.

repositories of human experience with systems of human/environment relations that differ markedly from the mainstream practices characteristic of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dominant cultures. Indigenous peoples are also stakeholders whose claims cannot be ignored in efforts to overcome environmental problems that require concerted efforts at the local as well as national and international levels. Yet even as indigenous peoples are organizing transnationally to defend their rights and environmental practices, assimilative pressures that threaten to undermine their social practices remain strong. What can we learn from the indigenous cultures of Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North about the requirements for achieving sustainable human/environment relations? Are some efforts to settle aboriginal land claims and to recognize the legal and political rights of aboriginal peoples more likely than others to lead to sustainable development? What can be done to preserve the integrity of indigenous ways of life and the environmental practices associated with them in the face of the homogenizing pressures arising from economic globalization? How effective are the efforts of indigenous peoples to organize transnationally in order to achieve official recognition of their rights in the form of agreements like ILO Convention 169 or to insert provisions relating to their rights in policy statements such as Agenda 21? 4.3.4 Interplay of External and Internal Forces Whereas the Circumpolar North is made up of parts of eight states, Southeast Asia encompasses all of the territory of ten independent states together with a large slice of Australia. Despite this superficial difference, however, the two areas are very similar in the extent to which their fate is affected by forces exogenous to the region. This pattern is easy to understand in the case of the Arctic, where national governments and transnational corporations based far to the south own or control a large proportion of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lands, marine areas, and associated natural resources. The result is a system of core/periphery relations in which northern policy is driven to a large extent by corporate and governmental interests and incentives that are only loosely connected to the region itself. Although the states that make up Southeast Asia are sovereign entities, a de facto pattern that is somewhat similar in character exists in this region. Thus, powerful corporate players whose decisions are made outside the region, as well as international Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 81

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organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, exert great influence over the course of events in Southeast Asia. Regional leaders sometimes join forces with these outside actors to the detriment of long-term regional development. Any comprehensive account of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change in these regions must deal systematically with the interplay between the effects of endogenous institutions and institutional forces that are exogenous to the regions. In the process, research in this area will be able to test a variety of hypotheses dealing with core/periphery relations and the dynamics of dependency.

Models and Methods The central thrust of the IDGEC project is straightforward. It addresses the roles that institutions play in causing and confronting global environmental changes, paying particular attention in the process to determinants of institutional performance, results arising from institutional innovations intended to solve or manage environmental problems, and prospects for (re)designing institutional arrangements in the future. Yet a number of conceptual and methodological concerns add complexity to this research program and, at the same time, generate opportunities to enhance integration among analyses conducted under the IDGEC umbrella as well as between analyses stimulated by the IDGEC project and work being carried out under the auspices of other projects concerned with global environmental change. This section highlights two clusters of these concerns for explicit consideration: a collection of conceptual issues arising from different ways of thinking about institutions and a set of methodological issues common to most studies of institutions. In thinking about these concerns, it is essential to bear in mind that institutional analyses, like research conducted in most of the social sciences, may not yield simple and powerful generalizations dealing with the roles of institutions in causing and confronting largescale environmental changes. This means that designing new institutions or reforming existing institutions to deal with environmental problems will not be a mechanical or cut-and-dried process. Yet there is every reason to expect that research carried out under the auspices of the IDGEC project will allow us to separate with increasing accuracy the relative roles of institutions and other social drivers governing the course of human/environment relations, to diagnose the institutional causes of specific problems (e.g., climate change), and to make useful predictions about the consequences likely to flow from design choices available to those crafting institutional responses to major environmental problems. To take a single crucial example, it is reasonable to expect knowledge of the determinants of regime effectiveness to develop over a period of five to ten years that will prove directly relevant to the choices confronting those responsible for crafting regimes dealing with a range of issues from the protection of critical habitats to the emission of greenhouse gases.

5.1

Conceptual Concerns Institutions constitute a major focus of inquiry in most of the social science disciplines. From the perspective of the IDGEC project, this is a source both of strength and of problems. On the one hand, the widespread interest in

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institutions makes it possible to draw upon intellectual capital from many fields of study and to benefit from the distinct experiences of the various social sciences. At the same time, little effort has been made to integrate or harmonize the conceptual frameworks or models devised by those who approach institutions from different disciplinary perspectives, much less to arrive at a general theory dealing with the determinants of institutional performance. As a result, studies of institutions vary along a number of dimensions, some of which are fundamental in nature (Clark 1998). There is an important division, for instance, between those who adopt a thin concept of institutions, including in the definition only behavioral prescriptions and decision rules as such, and those who incorporate a range of norms, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns into the concept itself. Even so, it seems possible to group much of the significant work on institutions into two major streams separated by the assumptions analysts make about agentstructure relations and the character of the behavioral models they employ (see Table 7, p. 84). One set of models, which reflect mainstream thinking among economists and those working in the area of public choice, can be characterized as collective-action models. The other set, associated more with the work of sociologists and social anthropologists, may be described as social-practice models. Helpful surveys have been prepared by Malcolm Rutherford (1994) for the collective-action models and by Richard Scott (1995) for the social-practice models. Collective-action models rest on utilitarian premises in the sense that they treat the actors in social settings as coherent entities possessing well-defined preference structures and seeking to maximize payoffs to themselves through a process of weighing the benefits and costs associated with alternative choices in situations involving interactive decision-making or strategic interaction. In these models, institutions are regulatory arrangements created to solve or manage social dilemmas (Dawes 1980). Behavioral prescriptions - often characterized as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;rules of the gameâ&#x20AC;? - are the essential elements of institutions, and implementation coupled with the achievement of compliance with these prescriptions is critical to their success. The essential link in this chain of reasoning is clear. The role of institutions is to prevent individualistic behavior from producing Pareto inferior outcomes or, in other words, outcomes that are worse for all participants than feasible alternatives under conditions of interactive decision making. Recently, an interesting debate has arisen among those who think in these regulatory terms about the extent to which compliance is better understood as a matter of management rather than as a matter of enforcement (Chayes and Chayes 1995; Downs et al. 1996). The issue here concerns the relative importance of sanctionsrewards and punishments-in contrast to various forms of debate, normative pressure, material assistance, and institutional enmeshment as sources of behavior. But this does not alter the fact that the focus of collective-action models is on the identification of factors that determine the extent to which the actual behavior of actors conforms to the requirements of regulatory prescriptions. Social-practice models, by contrast, look at institutions as arrangements that engender patterned practices which play a role in shaping the identities of participants and feature the articulation of normative discourses, the Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 83

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Table 7

Collective-Action vs. Social-Practice Models of Social Institutions

Characteristics

Approaches Collective Action

Social Practice

Behavioral Assumptions

Actors are primarily utility maximizers

Actors are guided primarily by cultural norms, values, and beliefs

Agent/Structure Relationship

Privileges agents over structure

Privileges structure over agents

Mechanisms of Impact

Rules are constraints on individual behavior

Rules are internalized, and shape identity

Institutional Development/Design

Engineering approach to institution buildingas institutions instruments

Biological approach to institution buildinginstitutions as natural systems that grow and evolve organically

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

emergence of informal communities, and the encouragement of social learning (Wendt 1987). These models direct attention to processes through which actors become enmeshed in complex social practices that subsequently influence their behavior through de facto engagement in belief systems and normative preferences rather than through conscious decisions about compliance with regulatory rules (Scott 1995). In the process, social-practice models emphasize the relationships that develop between institutions proper and the broader sociocultural settings within which they operate. Institutions guide the course of human/environment relations by influencing the ways in which participants perceive their interests, enmeshing them in practices that give rise to routinized or - as some would say - institutionalized behavior, and generating ongoing activities that encourage social learning (Clark et al. 2001), even when levels of compliance with their formal prescriptions leave 2001) a lot to be desired. What are the implications for the IDGEC project of this distinction between collective-action and social-practice models of institutions? The key point to emphasize is that each model directs attention to a particular research agenda. The puzzles arising in connection with collective-action models focus on issues such as the sources of compliance with behavioral prescriptions, the relative merits of alternative policy instruments available to those seeking to alter the behavior of rational utility maximizers, and the development of 84 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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dispute settlement mechanisms and noncompliance procedures designed to resolve differences relating to compliance. Those who think in terms of socialpractice models pose different research puzzles. Issues that figure prominently in this stream of analysis involve the nature of the nonregulatory tasks that institutions are created to perform, the sources of institutionalized behavior in contrast to compliance with well-defined prescriptions, and the extent to which the development of a community - or what some observers call civil society - is critical to the operation of institutions that produce outcomes conforming to standards of sustainability and equity as well as efficiency. Is one of these approaches more appropriate than the other as a basis for research on the institutional dimensions of global environmental change? Although it complicates efforts to develop a unified theory, much can be said for pursuing both lines of analysis. Each perspective points to a distinct set of questions arising from a different way of thinking about the mechanisms through which institutions affect behavior; each draws on the resources of a distinct segment of the overall community of social scientists interested in institutions. So long as we treat the two sets of models as complementary analytic constructs that can enrich thinking rather than as competing positions in a scientific battle, the IDGEC project will stand to benefit from the contributions of both sets of models. The development of a unified theory of institutions will undoubtedly remain as a long-term goal of the research community interested in institutions. But for present purposes, the important thing is to derive insights from each approach about the specific roles that institutions play in causing and confronting problems of global environmental change.

5.2

Matters of Methodology The IDGEC research foci pose a number of methodological challenges as well. These challenges suggest the desirability of adopting a posture of methodological pluralism that encourages the use of a variety of procedures drawn from a number of different social science disciplines as well as the development of explicit linkages to the work of natural scientists interested in global environmental change. Pluralism must not be allowed to dilute efforts to produce usable knowledge about the roles of institutions in causing and confronting global environmental change. Yet the research stimulated by this Science Plan will most likely recognize and attempt to bridge gaps among several types of knowledge claims; make use of a variety of tools for gaining insights into the operation of institutions, and feature innovative ways to confront issues of data collection, archiving, presentation, and communication.

5.2.1 Alternative Knowledge Claims Up to now, most research on global environmental change has been conducted within the confines of mainstream western - natural and social - science. In examining the roles of institutions in mediating between humans and environments, however, researchers encounter different sometimes conflicting - types of knowledge claims. These claims encompass local community knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, indigenous knowledge, and gender-specific knowledge as well as the knowledge systems of modern social and natural science. Two issues deserve particular attention in this realm: the relationship between social institutions and culture and the contributions of traditional or indigenous knowledge. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 85

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The role of culture in thinking about the institutional dimensions of global environmental change becomes clear from a consideration of the implementation of international environmental regimes at national and subnational levels. The degree of compliance with international commitments often depends upon widely different political and social cultures as well as individual perceptions, values, and beliefs. Behavioral prescriptions and criteria of evaluation that seem straightforward in some cultural settings are difficult to understand much less to use effectively in other settings. As many observers have noted, for instance, there is no way even to translate the concept of sustainable development into many languages, let alone to devise well-conceived social practices designed to promote progress toward sustainability (Haigh 1996). The diversity of cultures and social practices operative at the local level opens up many opportunities to investigate relationships between the performance of institutions and the presence of particular belief systems, norms, values, and discourses. Are certain cultural orientations critical to the success of environmental and resource regimes? Is it important to make a concerted effort to tailor regimes to the characteristics of the cultures prevailing in different societies as well as to the attributes of the relevant biogeophysical systems? What happens when national decision-makers attempt to impose modern institutions on local communities dominated by traditional cultures? Recent years have witnessed a sharp increase of interest in traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and in the prospects for integrating this knowledge with western, scientific knowledge. There is considerable controversy regarding the contributions of TEK to understanding the dynamics of complex ecosystems. For the purposes of the IDGEC project, however, it is more important to consider the insights flowing from traditional or indigenous knowledge regarding ways to manage or control the actions of human users of natural resources. In effect, traditional users develop rules and normative standards to govern human behavior through long-term processes of trial and error. On this account, indigenous knowledge is knowledge in practice. Often, the resultant practices take the form of adaptive prohibitions against taking excessive numbers of animals in certain seasons or other similar harvesting restrictions. They typically reflect complex views of relations between humans and animals and rely on myths and spiritual sanctions as methods to ensure compliance (Fienup-Riordan 1990). Comparisons involving such indigenous systems of social control have the potential to provide a rich source of information about the effectiveness of resource and environmental regimes, but only if analysts are willing to consider these systems on their own terms rather than endeavoring to assimilate them into western, scientific thinking. Given the fact that efforts to design regimes based on western science have yielded mixed results at best, there is much to be said for taking these traditional alternatives seriously. 5.2.2 Research Tools Social scientists have employed a wide range of research methods or tools modeling, comparative studies, interpretive accounts of individual cases - in their efforts to understand institutions. In general terms, a methodological division mirrors the conceptual distinction between collective-action and 86 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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social-practice models. Those who approach institutions from the vantage point of economics and public choice usually begin by constructing more or less formal models (e.g., game-theoretic models), derive well-defined propositions from these models, and then examine the extent to which real-world experience conforms to the expectations associated with these propositions. Those whose work is grounded in sociology and especially social anthropology typically adopt more descriptive and interpretive procedures. Many prefer qualitative accounts of specific institutions developed through the use of methods featuring participant observation in contrast to methods designed to produce empirically valid generalizations. As in the case of the conceptual models, there is no need for the IDGEC project to come down on one side or the other of this divide. Rather, the project seeks to achieve its goals by adopting a policy of methodological pluralism and encouraging those who employ different methods to compare notes regarding their findings. Modeling presents particular challenges in the study of institutions. Models can be descriptive, diagnostic, explanatory, or predictive. While the ultimate goal of our work may well be to construct predictive models that can be harmonized or integrated with natural science models dealing with global environmental changes, the study of institutions is not yet at that stage of maturity. In the current exploratory phase, emphasis can and should be placed on constructing descriptive models of specific institutions, institutional clusters, and the relationships of institutions to their biogeophysical settings. We also seek to encourage the development of models that diagnose institutional mismatches, conflicts among institutions at the same or different societal levels, and institutions that create unintended - often negative - side effects in the global environmental change arena. Additionally, we anticipate that researchers will develop models to explain institutional dynamics as well as the performance of institutions and institutional innovations. Problems of harmonizing quantitative and qualitative models may well prove intractable in some cases. At a minimum, however, the construction of â&#x20AC;&#x153;stand aloneâ&#x20AC;&#x153; qualitative models should yield important understandings of the role of institutions in global environmental change and may well provide data that are useful in the construction of integrated models. Modeling of institutional systems should also provide at least contingent generalizations (that is, generalizations expected to hold under more or less restrictive conditions) as the basis for institutional design principles and innovations that may lead to improvements in the performance of environmental institutions at all societal levels. Researchers have used case studies widely and effectively to investigate discrete institutions affecting global environmental processes. While case studies present problems of generalization, they can capture the profound complexities of interacting human and biogeophysical systems and the dynamics of global environmental change processes. They also facilitate efforts to track the development of institutions over time. We anticipate that researchers working within the IDGEC framework will continue to develop detailed qualitative and long-term case studies of specific institutions or clusters of institutions operating in a single biogeophysical domain. We expect scientists and policymakers to use these case studies as the basis for Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 87

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drawing inferences and framing at least tentative generalizations about the role of institutions in global environmental change processes. Some of the most significant findings of IDGEC research will emerge from comparative analyses of distinct institutions operating at the same or different scales from the local to the global. Researchers can also build upon case studies of individual institutions to conduct post hoc comparative analyses of different institutions operating in a variety of biogeophysical settings. As well, comparisons of institutions operating at different societal levels will enable researchers to make observations pertaining to the problem of scale and to ways in which the effectiveness of specific institutions is threatened or enhanced by institutions operating at other levels. Time and space dimensions may be captured by long-term comparative analyses of institutions in different regions such as the IDGEC priority regions, Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North. In this way, researchers can identify and hold constant some institutional variables, while analyzing differences attributable to other variables. Through such comparisons, researchers can investigate hitherto unsuspected interactions, both horizontal and vertical, among different institutions in different parts of the world and at different levels of social organization, as well as the impacts of those interactions on human/environment relations. 5.2.3 Data Requirements Another challenge confronting the IDGEC project is to develop databases containing comparable data about institutions operating at various levels of social organization. Such databases can provide invaluable starting points for researchers seeking to develop case studies of particular institutions or for those engaging in comparative analyses, including post hoc comparisons, of different institutions. Databases will also be essential for developing and testing empirical generalizations across sizable numbers of discrete cases and in different regions. The creation of such databases is a costly and labor-intensive undertaking, for which there are rarely adequate resources. Database construction requires a willingness on the part of scientists and funders alike to make substantial investments of time and resources during the developmental stage, with no guarantee that there will be large payoffs accruing to the community of analysts seeking to explore specific hypotheses dealing with institutions, much less to the creators of the database themselves. Under these circumstances, it is essential to treat the development of databases as a collective effort to be fostered and sustained by all those interested in constructing empirical generalizations relating to institutional arrangements. With regard to environmental concerns specifically, it is worth emphasizing that development is already underway of several databases of interest to the IDGEC project. Prominent among them are the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) database focused on small-scale systems and based at Indiana University and the International Regimes Database (IRD) oriented toward macro-level arrangements, developed initially under the auspices of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and now based at Darmstadt University. The Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), which is now located at Columbia University, 88 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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operates a number of information services dealing with matters of interest to the IDGEC project. These ongoing efforts can likely be adapted to meet some of the needs of the IDGEC project. They can also provide insights that will prove helpful to those seeking to assemble new computerized databases needed to support a systematic effort to enhance our understanding of the institutional dimensions of global environmental change. Institutional data - some of them descriptive and qualitative - are not always amenable to generalization and ordinary archiving. We anticipate that much useful data collection will be carried out at the local level, sometimes by researchers who are not members of the relevant communities. This will require new methods of data presentation and dissemination. Researchers will need to take responsibility for respecting privacy and confidentiality, for communicating their results to those affected by them, and for helping to translate findings into policy implications and recommendations.

Implementation Developing a focused Science Plan constitutes a pivotal step in the life cycle of a large collaborative and international scientific enterprise. The completion of the Science Plan constitutes an important milestone in its own right. But it also triggers a transition to the next phase in the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life cycle that centers on matters of implementation.

6.1

Role of the IDGEC Science Plan The IDGEC Science Plan, like its counterparts in other global environmental change projects developed under the auspices of IHDP and the IGBP, is designed to provide direction for and to shape the content of an international research program extending over a period of five to ten years. Successful science planning of this sort requires a delicate balancing act. It is essential to avoid heavy-handed, top-down guidance that may be perceived as overly directive by individual researchers and as stultifying the creativity of the science community. At the same time, the task at hand - generating cumulative knowledge regarding the institutional dimensions of global environmental change - requires a coordinated effort in which the members of the science community agree to a set of programmatic priorities, problems, and procedures intended to harmonize the work of a sizable collection of individual scientists. In effect, the Science Plan is the social contract for this international effort. It leaves ample scope for individual researchers or research teams to decide where to cut into the overall problematique and how to frame specific questions and hypotheses for sustained analysis. But it also provides a road map that should ensure that these individual efforts have enough in common to make it possible to compare and contrast their findings and to develop a body of propositions dealing with the institutional drivers of global environmental change and with efforts to (re)design institutional arrangements as part of the larger process of coming to terms with large-scale environmental problems.

6.2

Implementation Plans Approval of the Science Plan for a project like IDGEC triggers the initiation of a new phase in the life cycle of the project. This implementation phase includes, among other things, the formation of a Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 89

| Programmatic Links

for the IDGEC project, the establishment of an International Project Office (IPO), the organization of a series of new research initiatives and open science conferences, and the coordination of research efforts carried out by individual scientists or groups of scientists located in different parts of the world. The publication of the Science Plan as an IHDP document, the formation of the SSC, the establishment of the IPO, and initial efforts to move from broad research foci to specific activities constitute priorities for 1999. These activities will lead to the framing of an IDGEC Implementation Plan or, alternatively, to a series of more specific implementation strategies addressing particular elements of the overall IDGEC research program. Implementation differs from earlier stages of science planning in two major ways. To begin with, it features initiatives needed to translate the research foci of the Science Plan into specific tasks or activities and to identify segments of the relevant science communities that are positioned to take the lead in carrying out these tasks. The point of this exercise is not to exclude anyone who is interested in the IDGEC science agenda and who wishes to contribute to a coordinated effort in this realm. Rather, the goal is to make sure that the major research activities needed to meet the overall objectives of the IDGEC Science Plan are treated as priorities by members of the science community who are in a position to commit resources to them. Additionally, implementation must address the mobilization of organizational and financial resources needed to pursue the scientific priorities formulated in the Science Plan. Because the IDGEC research program deals with a crosscutting theme, the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s implementation strategies will center on building a set of strong programmatic partnerships that highlight IDGEC priorities arising in connection with other projects, such as the IGBP projects on terrestrial ecosystems (GCTE) and coastal zone systems (LOICZ) and the joint IGBP/IHDP project on land use/cover (LUCC), rather than organizing a broader range of discrete activities, such as symposia or workshops. The implementation of the IDGEC Science Plan will also require enhanced cooperation among funders of scientific research in the interests of advancing the shared goals of the international scientific community. To take a single prominent example, there is a critical need at this time to devise effective ways to promote coordination between the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States and DG XII in the European Union in their decisionmaking processes regarding large-scale collaborative initiatives like the IDGEC project. Members of the International Group of Funding Agencies (IGFA) and others who occupy strategic positions regarding the allocation of resources will have critical roles to play in mobilizing the support required to carry out large-scale, collaborative research of the sort described in this science plan.

Programmatic Links The IDGEC project is predicated on the observation that a large volume of quality analysis involving institutions has already been carried out, is presently in progress, or is currently on the drawing boards. A significant fraction of this research deals with environmental regimes or with other institutions that directly impact biogeophysical systems. The most effective approach for the project to adopt, under the circumstances, is to develop partnerships that 90 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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connect active researchers in ways that encourage synergy and add value to research that is already underway or in the planning stage under other auspices. The major goals of the IDGEC project are thus to integrate, extend, and refine existing findings that are relevant to the institutional dimensions of global environmental change; stimulate, focus, and coordinate research efforts to fill important gaps regarding the institutional dimensions of global environmental change or to pursue particularly promising topics relating to this agenda; and bring intellectual capital to bear on substantive problems that the IHDP and other Global Environmental Change Programmes (IGBP, WCRP, DIVERSITAS) have selected for emphasis.

7.1

Links to Other Global Change Projects Institutional issues arise in conjunction with a wide range of largescale environmental concerns. Accordingly, a key goal of the IDGEC project is to forge mutually beneficial links with other global environmental change projects (see Figure 10, p.92). Representatives of a number of these projects have participated in the IDGEC planning process, and clear indications of interest in these links come from many quarters. Five distinct projects have the potential to become important partners in IDGEC activities: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems, Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone, Land-Use and Land-Cover Change*, Global Environmental Change and Human Security, and Industrial Transformation.

The role of the SysTem for Analysis, Research, and Training (START) as a mechanism for integrating work carried out under all these projects is also worthy of note in this connection. The Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) project is an IGBP initiative that focuses on changes in both natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems and on the feedback effects of these changes on other systems (e.g., the global climate system). Whether these changes manifest themselves directly as changes in land use or indirectly as atmospheric changes, they are driven in part by the actions of human agents operating under the influence of a variety of institutional arrangements. The benefits of collaboration between GCTE and IDGEC are mutual. GCTE has a need to understand the social drivers - and more specifically the institutional forces - that lead to anthropogenic changes in terrestrial ecosystems. For its part, IDGEC has a need to understand the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems that may influence the extent to which various institutional arrangements produce sustainable results and that must be taken into account in order to avoid mismatches in the process of (re)forming institutions. GCTE has program offices located on five continents and covering ecosystems ranging from the managed systems of Europe, the United States, and Asia to the tropical savannas of Africa and Australia, the tropical forests of South America and Southeast Asia, and the boreal forests of Siberia. A recent GCTE innovation features running transects through adjacent ecosystems. These * LUCC will close down in October 2005. Its successor will be the Global Land Project (GLP) sponsored jointly by IGBP and IHDP.

Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 91

| Programmatic Links

Figure 10

Programmatic Links

Source: IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee

transects, which cross a variety of institutional boundaries, are of direct relevance to IDGEC’s Research Focus 1. GCTE and IDGEC share a concern with the problem of scale in efforts to understand processes of change in various ecosystems and social systems. Changes in forest ecosystems, for instance, are likely to involve the impact of institutions ranging from local agricultural practices to international regimes. The problem of interplay among institutions operating at different levels of social organization is also a matter of concern to both projects. Although GCTE has activities underway in many parts of the world, it shares with IDGEC an intensive interest in systems located in Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North. Closely related to GCTE is the Global Environmental Change Programme known as DIVERSITAS, which includes a program element dealing with “The Human Dimensions of Biodiversity.” Research carried out under this rubric emphasizes the dynamics of human-dominated ecosystems (Vitousek et al. 1997); it seeks ways to integrate the scientific study of biogeophysical and socioeconomic processes in order to understand conditions affecting the erosion or maintenance of biological diversity. Institutional mechanisms ranging from local to global resource regimes figure prominently in this effort to improve knowledge of the human dimensions of biodiversity. The Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) project seeks to assess fluxes of matter among land, sea, and atmospheric systems through the coastal zone. The project includes a concern for human drivers of these fluxes and for the socioeconomic impacts of the degradation of coastal 92 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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systems, together with the need to develop new policies and institutional arrangements to achieve integrated management of coastal systems. From the IDGEC perspective, LOICZ can contribute to the effort to understand the biogeophysical impacts of various institutional arrangements. It can also shed light on the consequences flowing from institutional arrangements and from efforts to design new arrangements affecting coastal and associated marine systems. The IDGEC concern with the traditional resource use practices of coastal dwellers dovetails with the concern of LOICZ for the socioeconomic implications of coastal-zone degradation. IDGEC research will also lead to an examination of institutions likely to affect coastal and marine systems at every level of social organization from small-scale arrangements for common pool resources to global maritime regimes dealing with the regulation of marine pollution. Because LOICZ has a particular interest in Southeast Asia and has accumulated a considerable body of knowledge about coastal and marine systems in this region, the prospects are good for collaboration between the two projects in this area. LOICZ is also developing a regional focus in the Russian Arctic, which covers an area of particular concern to IDGEC. The growing prominence of issues relating to overharvesting of fish, coastal pollution, and the destruction of tropical reefs led the UN to designate 1998 as the International Year of the Oceans. Research on institutional arrangements that are sources of problems in coastal/marine systems as well as on regimes that could be introduced to solve or alleviate these problems should complement the efforts of LOICZ in coming to terms with these problems. Jointly sponsored by the IHDP and the IGBP, the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) project analyzes the sources of change in patterns of land use and the impact of those changes on patterns of land cover over time. Its ultimate goal is to develop a comprehensive model of land-use and landcover change that draws on knowledge of both biogeophysical systems and human systems. There is considerable overlap between these objectives and IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Research Focus 1, since studies of the role of environmental and resource regimes as causes of global environmental change include a consideration of institutional forces leading to changes in land use. A particular area of interest in this regard is the interaction of property rights regimes and macro-economic institutions as a source of change in patterns of land use. The role of formal and informal political institutions that have both the authority and the power to mandate changes in land use is also a major concern for both projects. Political institutions often determine who may appropriate forest resources and what rules of the game apply to the actions of various appropriators. For its part, IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Research Focus 3 covers a variety of issues pertaining to the role of institutions in guiding human responses to major changes in land cover and in the environmental services provided by ecosystems. The LUCC and IDGEC projects share a thematic focus on the problem of fit between social practices and the ecosystems that sustain them, including a concern for the effectiveness of resource and environmental regimes that Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 93

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figure prominently in the context of managed systems. The mutual concern for such matters makes the development of joint modules between the two projects a logical step. The project on Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS), operating from a concept of security that encompasses economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and social security, seeks to determine how environmental changes affect a multi-dimensional spectrum of security concerns (e.g., the role of environmental degradation as a cause of violent conflict, the impacts on ecosystems of large-scale human migration). Like the IDGEC project, it focuses on a crosscutting concern in the sense that there is a security aspect to most substantive problems belonging to the category of global environmental change. The broad scope of human security concerns and the pervasive role of institutions in human affairs make it likely that IDGEC and GECHS will benefit from collaborative efforts. This may occur, first and foremost, in regions that GECHS identifies as being particularly vulnerable to environmental threats to human security. Issues pertaining to the Mekong River Basin illustrate this intersection between institutional and human security issues. Disputes over this shared river basin between upper and lower riparian states raise both jurisdictional and substantive institutional issues at the international level, while the construction of dams threatens the security of people living in the river valley. The impacts of institutional conflicts as a source of threats to human security occur in vulnerable regions throughout the world. The project on Industrial Transformation (IT) seeks to understand the social forces that could lead to major changes in large-scale economic systems, such as a decisive trend toward dematerialization or the implementation of the principles of industrial ecology. While IT is currently developing its Science Plan, there are good reasons to believe that both IDGEC and IT stand to benefit from collaboration. The IT concern for transforming industrial systems in the interests of achieving sustainability incorporates an interest in reforming institutional arrangements to guide the incentives of economic actors. This is also a major concern of IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Research Focus 3. Similarly, the issue of dematerialization involves efforts to shift toward products requiring smaller inputs of land and natural resources, a matter that is likely to be affected by and to affect the content of the resource and environmental regimes on which societies rely. Additionally, marked disparities between regions that supply natural resources and those that use them for industrial purposes typically arise from institutional arrangements. Both the origins of these disparities and the effort to rectify them are matters of concern to IDGEC and IT alike. The Global Environmental SysTem for Analysis, Research, and Training (START) is a framework activity of the IGBP, the IHDP, and the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), established with the objectives of developing regional networks, enhancing scientific capacity in developing countries, and mobilizing funding for research, especially in the developing world. In 94 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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this connection, START has identified fourteen discrete regions and selected a subset of these regions - including Southeast Asia - as priority areas for the encouragement of coordinated research on issues relating to global environmental change. Until recently, START paid particular attention to enhancing biogeophysical research and training scientists to conduct research in the natural sciences. Initiatives are now underway, however, to enhance interest in the human dimensions of global environmental change in the activities START sponsors. As this trend unfolds, opportunities will grow for mutually beneficial cooperation between IDGEC and START.

7.2

Links to Regional Research Programs The IDGEC project has taken steps to forge partnerships with organizations committed to sponsoring research on the human dimensions of global environmental change in its priority regions, Southeast Asia and the Circumpolar North. The development and maintenance of such partnerships is essential as a means to mobilize both human and financial resources in a highly competitive environment. In Southeast Asia, IDGEC has established a working relationship with the Southeast Asia Regional Committee for START (SARCS). This organization is nearing the completion of a comprehensive Science Plan to guide its activities over the next five to ten years. The IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee played a role in the development of a chapter in the SARCS Science Plan devoted explicitly to the role of institutions. Ongoing discussions between SARCS and IDGEC principals have revealed a strong interest in cooperating on the design and implementation of specific projects. In the Circumpolar North, the key organization is the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). This nongovernmental organization maintains a portfolio of priority projects, many of which focus on issues that are relevant to global environmental change. While there are numerous possible connections between IDGEC and IASC, an explicit decision has been taken to link the IASC project on Sustainable Uses of Living Marine Resources (SULMAR) to the research foci set forth in the IDGEC Science Plan. This is likely to lead to a series of collaborative studies dealing with large marine ecosystems. Opportunities exist as well for constructive interaction with IASC’s project on Land-Ocean Interactions in the Russian Arctic (LOIRA).

7.3

Links to “Parallel Universes” For three decades, scientists, policymakers, and officials of international organizations - including various UN agencies - have become aware of the seriousness of environmental degradation. This increasing awareness has fueled the expansion of research dealing with many aspects of environmental change. The organized efforts sponsored by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and carried out by programs such as WCRP, IGBP, DIVERSTAS and IHDP are undoubtedly the most prominent efforts in this realm. However, it would be a mistake to confine collaborative research on the institutional dimensions of global environmental change to projects carried out under the auspices of ICSU and ISSC. As discussed in Section 1.1, Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 95

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the domain of institutions is broad, ranging from local practices devised by appropriators of common pool resources to international regimes. A comprehensive program of research on these institutional issues must draw on the collective expertise of a range of disciplines, from social anthropology to international law. What is more, the nature of institutions as formal and informal sources of governance differs markedly from culture to culture and from region to region. Inevitably, institutional analyses will reflect these differences, and we should take a lively interest in the relationships between institutions and cultural/regional differences. This means that the IDGEC project will need to be alert to opportunities for collaboration with programs or organizations that are forming what some observers describe as “parallel universes,” or organized research activities pertinent to the concerns of the IDGEC project but not belonging to the ICSU and ISSC families. Some of these activities are associated with the work of prominent international organizations, such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which have played important roles in the development of the environmental agenda over a period of decades. Others are sponsored by research institutes, such as the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change (CIPEC), the Beijer Institute, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the International Institute for Applied Systems analysis (IIASA), the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), and the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law (APCEL). Still others are related to international scientific associations, including the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP) and the International Studies Association (ISA). This category of links is open-ended; it would be pointless and even counterproductive to try to develop at this point an exhaustive list of organizations and programs that may become IDGEC partners. But the essential insight is clear. To mobilize human and financial resources to tackle the issues identified in this Science Plan systematically, IDGEC will have to develop effective research networks, and these networks should include people and organizations located in the parallel universes as well as in the ICSU and ISSC families.

7.4

Links to the Policy Community Many of the themes included in the IDGEC project’s research foci are also matters of concern to those working within the policy community. In some cases, members of the policy community themselves are conducting systematic assessments of these issues, although their interests are generally oriented toward the applied end of the IDGEC agenda. Thus, Chapter 38 of Agenda 21, which was adopted at the close of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), addresses the theme of “international institutional arrangements” and reflects several years of organized thinking about these issues (Robinson 1993). The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), created as a direct result of UNCED, now devotes attention to these institutional matters on an ongoing basis. In some cases, international bodies are engaged in reviewing their own practices with an eye toward recommending reforms in the existing

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structure of institutional/organizational arrangements. A relevant example is the UN Task Force on Environment and Human Settlements, which has recently reviewed the full range of existing United Nations arrangements in this area. Other efforts of a somewhat similar nature are underway within specific intergovernmental agencies, such as the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility, as well as within nongovernmental organizations, such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Underlying these largely prescriptive efforts is a stream of institutional analyses generated by those affiliated with elements of the United Nations system and related bodies. Thus, UNEP is endeavoring to identify factors determining the effectiveness of global environmental regimes (especially those it has been instrumental in creating such as the ozone layer and biodiversity regimes); UNDP is seeking ways to improve the implementation of international regimes within various domestic systems; FAO is concerned with improving the effectiveness of fisheries regimes, and the multilateral development banks are finding it increasingly important to address institutional issues in calculating the benefits and costs of large-scale development projects. The IDGEC project is designed to encourage collaboration by scientists with those responsible for these studies in order to work out an appropriate division of labor in this realm and to ensure that insights generated by members of the science community working on such matters find their way into the thinking of those in the policy community concerned with similar issues. Although IDGEC is a science project, it involves a set of research themes that are of direct and immediate interest to members of the policy community. Those seeking to devise effective environmental regimes at the national level that do not disrupt long-standing local arrangements will find IDGECsponsored research on the problem of interplay directly relevant to their concerns. Policy makers responsible for creating regimes to deal with new problems and desiring to assess the applicability of findings derived from an analysis of existing regimes will take a similar interest in work on what the IDGEC project calls the problem of fit. Much the same is true for those trying to determine the relevance of design principles based on a study of smallscale regimes when it comes to creating global regimes to deal with problems of climate change and biodiversity (McGinnis and Ostrom 1993). There is ample room for initiating a mutually beneficial dialogue between members of the science community and members of the policy community who share an interest in the institutional dimensions of global environmental change. To this end, the IDGEC International Project Office will move vigorously to establish ongoing partnerships with policy makers and administrators concerned with a variety of environmental and resource regimes at both the domestic level and the international level.

Flagship Activities IDGEC has generated knowledge regarding its research foci and analytic themes by carrying out flagship activities that are linked to theoretical concerns and also provide empirical domains. They cover terrestrial systems with research on the Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests (PEF), atmospheric systems with a Carbon Management Research Activity Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 97

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(CMRA) and oceanic systems with research on the Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones (PEEZ). Each flagship provides opportunities to address the various IDGEC research foci and analytic themes. In general, PEF has proven to lend itself particularly well to studies of the basic causal issues and to the problem of interplay; PEEZ gives rise to systematic research on the performance issues and to the problem of fit, and CMRA accommodates the design issues and the problem of scale.

8.1

Carbon Management Research Activity (CMRA)*

The Carbon Management Research Activity (CMRA) is a flagship of the International Human Dimensions Program’s (IHDP) long-term project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC). The CMRA will investigate the institutional issues associated with controlling greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of global climate change. This scoping report describes the two priority themes of the CMRA’s research and the questions to be explored in each theme. It summarizes the analytical approaches to be used, the links to be made with other projects and programs, and the steps needed for implementation. This flagship activity will determine critical nearand long-term institutional issues facing the international community as it develops a global climate change regime. Additionally, the findings will prove key in designing and modifying institutional arrangements in other settings. Introduction A great institutional challenge facing the world is the need for a complex system of regimes to control and ultimately reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human activities have substantially increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.1 Scientists expect that the resulting “enhanced greenhouse effect” will warm the Earth’s climate by as much as 5 degrees Celsius over the next century (Houghton, Filho, et al. 1996). This warming could lead to numerous adverse impacts, including rising sea levels, changes in rainfall and evaporation patterns, and the increased melting of snow and glaciers in mountainous regions. The international community has embarked on an effort to develop a global regime that will address the climate change problem.2 Creating this regime, however, is extraordinarily difficult. The causes of the problem are embedded in the basic economic and social activities of both developed and developing countries. Much about climate change remains poorly understood, and its most significant impacts will not be felt for decades. Global temperatures are projected to change over the course of decades to centuries, and uncertainties remain about the timing and magnitude of this change. Finally, addressing climate change requires facing many convergent issues and interests. Each of the many countries and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) participating in the climate change treaty negotiations has different concerns about climate change. Each contributes differently to the climate change problem, each confronts unequal risks from its potential impacts, and each faces dissimilar abatement costs (Bodansky 1995). All these factors make creating effective climate change institutions a monumental challenge.3 * Originally published as Sewell, Granville, Merrilyn Wasson, and Yoshiki Yamagata. 2000. “The Institutional Dimensions of Carbon Management.” IDGEC Scoping Report No. 1. Dartmouth: IDGEC.

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8.1.1 CMRA Priorities: The Administration and Adjustment of the Climate Change Regime Two international treaties, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP), form the core of the emerging climate change regime. The FCCC establishes its overall framework. This agreement, which entered into force in 1994, sets the regime’s objective as the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will not disrupt the Earth’s climate system. It requires all countries to develop national programs to address emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases. Industrialized countries and countries with economies in transition (“Annex I” countries) must also adopt national policies and measures that will limit their emissions and enhance their GHG sinks and reservoirs. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol further requires Annex I countries to reduce their collective GHG emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012.4 CMRA research will be directed towards two “themes” associated with this regime, both important to policymakers and researchers. Because the international community is particularly concerned with the nearer-term issues of implementing the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, the first CMRA theme explores those institutional issues associated with administering these existing agreements. The second theme focuses on the longer-term issues of adjusting the climate regime to changes in technology, scientific understanding, and global socioeconomic conditions. The ability to adapt to change will determine the regime’s long-term effectiveness.5 Theme 1: Administering the Current Climate Regime The first substantive area of CMRA analyzes the institutional issues associated with administering and operationalizing the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. With the FCCC in force and the Protocol in the process of ratification, Annex I and developing countries are moving forward with the development and implementation of measures to meet their commitments. For Annex I countries, this includes not only the development of policies to reduce emissions from sources and to enhance sinks and reservoirs, but also the development, transfer, and diffusion to developing countries of environmentally sound technologies, practices, and processes. Annex I countries can adopt a range of market-based and regulatory policy instruments to meet these commitments. Some are “market”-based, in that they use economic forces to change behavior, such as energy pricing strategies, changes in agricultural and forestry subsidies, tradable emissions permits, product labeling, and advanced technology development and demonstration programs. Others employ the more traditional regulatory approach, including minimum energy efficiency standards, technology standards, and fuel restrictions (Fisher, Barrett, et al. 1996; Watson, Zinyowera, et al. 1996). Countries will generally adopt a mix of these instruments depending on national circumstances (Lenstra and Bonney 1993; Arrow, Parikh, et al. 1996; Watson, Zinyowera, et al. 1996). The degree to which these instruments are effective in mitigating climate change will be a function of the mix of instruments adopted, the design and implementation of the policies themselves, and the institutional framework within which they must operate (Fisher, Barrett, et al. 1996). Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 99

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The Protocolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call for the development of three interlocking mechanisms complicates the administration of the climate change regime and the development of national climate change policies. The clean development mechanism (CDM), joint implementation (JI), and emissions trading (ET) will allow Annex I countries to obtain some portion of their required reductions through collaborative efforts with other countries. Under the CDM, Annex I governments and private companies may obtain Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) by participating in projects that reduce GHG emissions and satisfy local development needs in developing countries. These credits can be put toward the Annex I countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Protocol obligations during the 2008 to 2012 compliance period.6 Joint implementation allows two Annex I governments or private companies to share Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) for projects undertaken jointly in that country for which emissions reduction costs are lowest. Finally, emissions trading is the purchase of Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) by Annex I governments and companies with high marginal abatement costs from those with lower costs. The role for the private sector that the Protocol establishes in the development and operation of these mechanisms also adds complexity to the regime, as it will require the private and public sectors to interact on an unprecedented scale.7 Annex I governments are expected to adopt policies that will pass on their emissions reductions commitments to companies in those industrial sectors most responsible for the emissions. They are also expected to develop programs that will allow these industries to buy and sell AAUs and acquire ERUs and CERs on a global basis (Barrett 1998; Matsuo 1998; Maddison 1999).8 The governments remain the responsible parties in the regime, however, and the system through which this trading will occur, while market oriented, will be constrained by domestic and international institutions established by these governments. These constraints include the rules that the international community adopts governing the operation of the Kyoto mechanisms, the rules each country creates to manage the exchange of permits domestically and internationally, and the interactions among these different international and domestic institutions. To explicate these complexities and their ramifications, the CMRA will explore two related sets of institutional issues: 1. Implications of the regimeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market orientation for the operation of the Kyoto mechanisms and the nature of measures that nations adopt; 2. Implications of these measures and mechanisms for sustainable development. In the remainder of this section, we describe these two sets of issues and outline the important questions that arise in each. International and National Implications of the Development of the Kyoto Mechanisms As the CDM, JI, and ET are developed, institutional questions will need to be addressed concerning both interactions among the operational international rules and between these international rules and concomitant national 100 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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rules. For example, it has been proposed that an international registry be established to track and provide information on the transfers of AAUs and the acquisition of CERs and ERUs. In order for countries to track domestic trades, however, each transaction would have to be processed through a national registry as well, raising questions about the relationship between international and domestic trading rules. The development of these mechanisms and the market for ERUs will also raise a number of institutional issues about the mix of policy instruments that nations adopt. Each nation’s institutional structure and experience, resource endowment, and level of industrialization will determine the mix of market-based and regulatory instruments that it adopts (Fisher, Barrett, et al. 1996; Barrett 1998).9 However, rules governing the operation of the CDM, JI, and ET will also shape this mix. For example, while the Protocol specifies that AAUs acquired through Emissions Trading are to be supplemental to domestic action, the international community has not yet agreed on a definition of the term “supplemental.” Each of the options being considered has a different effect on emissions reduction costs, however. The choice of definition, therefore, could substantially alter the nature and mix of policy instruments that different countries choose to adopt.10 Questions also exist about the applicability of the emissions trading model at the global scale needed to control GHG emissions. While policymakers have considerable experience with the use of market-based approaches such as tradable permits at the national level, international tradable permit systems have been limited (OECD 1992; Fisher, Barrett, et al. 1996). The effectiveness of tradable permits in implementing national responsibilities to alter climate change is also not well understood.11 Finally, important questions arise concerning whether these mechanisms are to function as the primary means for the transfer of technology to developing countries and how technologies being transferred through these mechanisms can be screened to ensure their appropriateness and long-term effectiveness.12 The core question with regard to this set of issues is: from an institutional perspective, what are the implications of this market-oriented climate change regime for the operation of the Kyoto mechanisms and the mix and effectiveness of policy instruments adopted by national governments? Specific issues include: • • • • •

How will international rules governing each of the Kyoto mechanisms affect the administration of the others? How do the rules governing this regime affect the development and implementation of policy measures in different countries? How do these rules affect the development, transfer, and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies, practices, and processes? What are the relative merits of market-based versus regulatory instruments in the context of the regime? What are the implications of differences among these national and international rules for the effectiveness of the climate change regime and the goal of sustainable development? Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 101

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Climate Protection and Sustainable Development A second set of issues surrounding the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol involves how the mix of market-based and regulatory measures adopted to implement these agreements could affect the goals of sustainable development. Two issues will be considered here. The first of these pertains to the effect that the mix of measures could have on the balance between reductions of GHG emissions from sources and the enhancement of GHG sinks and reservoirs. The second, more general issue pertains to the relationship between these measures and the larger issues of sustainable development. As the Kyoto mechanisms become operational and the â&#x20AC;&#x153;carbonâ&#x20AC;? market emerges, Annex I countries can be expected to pursue those activities that offer the greatest GHG emissions reductions at the lowest cost. Forestry measures are particularly attractive to governments and private companies in these countries, as they tend to view these measures as being relatively inexpensive, absorbing large amounts of CO2, and having the potential to provide additional development and environmental benefits. It is therefore likely that the number of carbon sequestration activities will increase substantially as countries move forward to implement the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. Because tropical forests - most of which are located in developing countries - have the greatest potential for storing carbon, issues associated with this increase, as well as those associated with deforestation and land-use changes, are of particular concern to developing countries. Many developing countries are concerned that removing land from productivity for periods of fifty to ninety years could cause greater harm in terms of economic losses than any benefits they might gain from sequestration efforts. They are also concerned with the implications of this increase for forest conservation and forest plantation efforts. Differences among the Kyoto mechanisms will affect the balance between emissions reductions and carbon sequestration. For example, most economic models that forecast savings through emissions trading assume these potential savings will occur through CDM projects in developing countries. However, the realization of these savings could be substantially affected by the rules regarding the value of CERs relative to that of AAUs and ERUs. If CERs are given the same value as AAUs and ERUs, the demand for CDM projects could increase. This in turn could affect emissions reductions and sequestration (Parkinson, Begg, et al. 1999).13 Other factors include the timing of the implementation of these mechanisms, and differences in market orientation among the CDM and the other mechanisms.14, 15 Uncertainties associated with the future availability of GHG sinks and reservoirs make it difficult to predict the relationship between emissions reductions and sequestration. Terrestrial ecosystems and soils now absorb approximately 10 percent of the annual GHG emissions from the burning of fossil fuels (Watson, Zinyowera, et al. 1996). This percentage could grow in the future should sink enhancement activities increase substantially.16 While terrestrial ecosystems are expected to absorb carbon from the atmosphere for decades to come, their capacity to do so is not without limit (Cao and Woodward 1998; Walker, Steffen, et al. 1999). If and when this saturation will occur is unclear, however, as it is highly dependent on a wide range of factors that are difficult to forecast with any degree of confidence. The international community 102 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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faces a considerable challenge in developing rules to regulate the use of sink enhancement measures that take into account these uncertainties. Critical questions also exist regarding the relationship between the measures adopted under the Kyoto Protocol and the larger issues of sustainable development in Annex I and developing countries.17 The Protocol has two objectives: to promote sustainable development and to protect the global climate in a cost-effective manner.18 While these two objectives are not necessarily incompatible, rules adopted to implement one objective can create conflicts with the other (Wagner 1996; Banerjee and Taplin 1998; Barrett 1998). For example, the choice of rules governing supplementarity could have important implications for the sustainable development path of Annex I countries. Similarly, rules restricting the use of ODA for CDM investments could force developing countries to choose between emission reduction/sequestration measures and other development objectives. The core question for these issues is: What are the implications of the emerging regime, and of the mix of market-based and regulatory measures adopted under it, in terms of the balance between climate protection and sustainable development? Specific issues pertaining to this question include: • • • •

What are the critical factors that determine a country’s ability to manage the balance between GHG emissions reduction and sequestration measures? What might be the impacts, both direct and indirect, of shifts in this balance? What are the critical issues associated with the balance between climate protection and sustainable development? What institutional structures might be adopted at both the national and international levels to better manage issues associated with this balance?

Theme 2: The (Re)Design of the Climate Regime through 2005 and Beyond The CMRA’s second theme focuses on the longer-term, on the evolution and redesign of the climate regime itself. The Kyoto Protocol sets the year 2005 as the point at which Annex I countries are to have achieved their emissions reduction targets. It is thus a useful landmark around which to build research efforts on questions about the adjustment of the climate change regime to both national experiences and changes in technology, scientific understanding, and global socioeconomic conditions. The CMRA will explore two important sets of institutional issues in this regard: 1. those issues pertaining to the evolution of compliance mechanisms and the long-term implementation of the regime; and 2. the processes of regime adjustment and learning to account for changes in knowledge and external conditions. Compliance and Long-Term Implementation of the Evolving Climate Regime Changes in social and economic systems of the scale required to meet the mandates of the FCCC and the KP take time to accomplish. While the FCCC has existed for seven years and the KP for two, mechanisms for Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 103

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managing the implementation of and ensuring compliance with the regime remain underdeveloped and poorly understood. This section focuses on the institutional challenges of treaty compliance and the means through which the climate regime can evolve to meet these challenges. One difficulty facing the international community in crafting more effective environmental treaties is that the relationship between international agreements and domestic policy change is not well understood. A core assumption of most international relations theories is that a nation will only ratify an agreement if it is prepared to make the policy changes necessary to comply with it (Milner 1997). Treaty ratification is thus viewed as synonymous with treaty implementation. However, ratification and implementation are separate political processes, and implementation is the more difficult of the two. While no comprehensive study has been conducted, anecdotal evidence suggests that compliance with international environmental agreements is mixed at best and is highly dependent on regime design (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1992; Mitchell 1994; Chayes and Chayes 1995; Victor, Raustiala, et al. 1998; Weiss and Jacobson 1998; Hanf and Underdal 1999).19 A better understanding of compliance and long-term implementation problems is particularly critical for an effective climate change regime (Adger 1995; Harvey 1995; Clark, Eindoven, et al. 1999). In 1994, industrialized countries committed to reducing their emissions to 1990 levels; most pledged to do so by the end of the decade. However, emissions have continued to rise unabated, due in part to a failure by these countries to implement fully the policies contained in their initial action plans (Climate Action Network 1995; Wolsink 1996; Climate Action Network 1997). Resource and other constraints make these implementation challenges even greater for developing countries (Gupta 1997). Because implementation is difficult, an understanding of how nations make policy changes in response to international treaties and of which factors influence this process is crucial to the effective design and longterm evolution of the climate change regime. Chayes and Chayes (1995) suggest that the problems of compliance and implementation failure are most often situations that the international community can manage through routine political processes. Improved dispute resolution procedures can address problems of ambiguity; technical and financial assistance may help resolve domestic capacity problems; and increased transparency can help mobilize domestic constituencies to bring national policies in line with international obligations. While mechanisms for managing compliance with the climate regime have yet to be developed, many issues associated with their design and implementation are appropriate for exploration under the CMRA. Compliance issues that arise in the context of a global emissions trading regime, such as that of liability, are particularly important because of the private sectorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique role in this regime. The core question regarding this set of issues is: What are the essential factors shaping compliance with and long-term implementation of the evolving climate change regime? Specific issues pertaining to this question include: 104 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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• • • •

How have coalitions of interests at the national and international levels shaped the development and implementation of national climate change policies? What are the implications of these influences for future compliance? How does the unique role of the private sector in this regime affect compliance and implementation? How might the regime be redesigned to better promote compliance and implementation?

Adjustment and Learning Processes in the Evolving Climate Change Regime The second set of longer-term issues on which the CMRA will focus is the adjustment and learning processes that enable the climate change regime to adapt to changing technology, scientific understanding, and global socioeconomic conditions. All regimes must adapt to changing circumstances and underlying conditions if they are to persist (Chayes and Chayes 1993). Adaptation and evolution are particularly important for regimes that address large-scale environmental problems such as climate change, as these problems involve poorly understood complex systems that are subject to rapid, nonlinear change over short time frames (IDGEC 1999). Because the processes through which international treaties are negotiated unfold over years to decades, opportunities exist for learning and adaptation (Dubey 1985). Negotiations on the FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol were initiated in 1988 and are expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Considerable progress has been made over this period in resolving some of the scientific and economic uncertainties, and more will be made over the next ten years (Jäger and O’Riordan 1996; Shackley 1997; Agrawala 1998). The processes through which national climate change policies are developed and implemented have also been found to foster learning and adaptation (Victor and Salt 1995; Brunner and Klein 1999). Questions remain as to how regimes can adapt to changes in science and socioeconomic conditions. For example, the current process for incorporating new scientific information into the negotiating process entails periodic assessments of the current state of knowledge by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Critics of the process, however, have complained that it is slow, unresponsive to the negotiators’ and national decision makers’ needs, and reflects a predominately western view of both climate change science and associated policy issues (Leiv 1991; Boehmer-Christiansen 1994; Bate 1996; Agrawala 1998). There are also concerns about lack of attention paid to important social science issues. Finally, questions exist concerning the role of environmental and business interests, the media, and the public in overall learning and adaptation process (Ungar 1992; Kempton 1993; Ungar 1995; Bord, Fisher, et al. 1998; Dunlap 1998; Levy and Egan 1998; Mazur 1998; McComas and Shanahan 1999; Paterson 1999). The core question in this set of issues is: How can flexibility, self-correcting procedures, and social learning processes be incorporated into the evolving climate change regime? Specific issues pertaining to this question include: •

How effective are current processes and procedures in informing decision makers at the national and subnational Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 105

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• • •

levels about the science of climate change? What kinds of information do decision makers, both private and public, require? What are the roles of the media, interest groups, and the public in learning and adaptation process at both the national and international levels? How might the regime be redesigned to better promote learning and adaptation?

8.1.2 Analytical approaches and methodological concerns The complexity of both the specific issues of climate change and the general problems of institutions poses challenges for researchers attempting to study them. Research efforts conducted under the CMRA will employ a range of analytical techniques, including quantitative studies, modeling, and structured case studies. To narrow the scope of the project and to maximize the potential for comparative analyses, we will place an emphasis on the Arctic and Southeast Asia, IDGEC’s two core regions, and on international, national, and local efforts to enhance GHG reservoirs and sinks. Because of the broad scope and complexity of the issues we are investigating, a considerable initial effort will be devoted to elaborating the questions pursued under each theme, the nature of the independent and dependent variables for these research efforts, and the sources of data for each case study. We expect to resolve many of these questions during a follow-up workshop in the spring of 2000. 8.1.3 Organization and Linkages CMRA research will be initiated and conducted through a network of researchers and research institutions with expertise in fields relevant to the institutional questions being examined. The CMRA Steering Committee and IDGEC International Project Office will work together to ensure that CMRA research projects are coordinated with each other and with other relevant research efforts through workshops, formal and informal meetings, and other means of communication. IDGEC will elaborate on the details of this network and coordination mechanisms in a follow-up workshop in the spring of 2000. Like other global change projects, IDGEC will undertake the CMRA through extensive collaboration with other projects. Such partnerships can stimulate scientific progress, produce practical benefits, and increase the likelihood that research results will find their way into the policy stream. These collaborations include coordination with other IDGEC research activities and with other programs and research projects that have institutional dimensions. IDGEC will strive to forge strong links to other policy and natural science research efforts related to global carbon management. These include activities being undertaken by the International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP), the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), and other projects of the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP), as well as policy research efforts being undertaken by the FCCC Secretariat, nonprofit organizations, and industry groups. Particular emphasis will be placed on building strong partnerships with natural science research activities, as understanding the institutional drivers 106 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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of climate change, particularly in the context of carbon sequestration, requires a sophisticated grasp of the biogeophysical dynamics of the climate system and forest ecosystems. In this context, linkages with a number of IGBP projects, including the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) project and the joint IGBP/IHDP Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) project will be important. An explicit linkage will also be made to the IGBP’s crosscutting activity on the carbon cycle. Other linkages will be made with the IHDP’s Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) and Industrial Transformation (IT) projects. Finally, efforts will be make to coordinate activities with research being conducted under the auspices of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) and activities being conducted by or for the FCCC Secretariat. IDGEC will strive to forge associations with other relevant research efforts as well. A range of organizations are conducting research relevant to the CMRA. These organizations include UN agencies (e.g., the UN Environment Program, the UN Development Program, the World Meteorological Organization), other intergovernmental organizations (e.g., the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), national research organizations (e.g., Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies, the U.S. National Science Foundation), environmental groups (e.g., the World Resources Institute, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Foundation for International Law and Development, the South Centre), industry associations (e.g., the Edison Electric Institute, the International Climate Change Partnership), and research organizations (e.g., the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Tata Energy Research Institute). While this list is not inclusive, it is illustrative of the range of organizations with which opportunities for collaboration will be explored. 8.1.4 Future Steps Comments on this draft plan will be solicited from persons involved in research and practice relating to the issues discussed here. The IDGEC CMRA Steering Committee will then revise this scoping paper based on comments received. The revised paper will serve as the basis for a follow-up workshop in the spring of 2000 involving researchers interested in conducting research under the auspices of this activity. The purpose of this workshop would be to make further refinements to this paper, to elaborate on the organizational structure of the CMRA and mechanisms for coordination, and to flesh out more specific proposals for research efforts to be conducted under the auspices of the CMRA. 8.1.5 Notes 1

While a number of different greenhouse gases have been identified, including methane, nitrous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons, the most significant is carbon dioxide, emitted primarily by the burning of fossil fuels and the burning of forests.

A regime is defined here as the “implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decisionmaking procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a risen area of international relations” (Krasner 1982).

Institutions are systems of rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that give rise to social practices, assign roles to participants in these practices, and guide interactions among the occupants of the relevant roles (Young et al. 1999).

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The specific targets are as follows: 8 percent for the European Union, 7 percent for the United States, 6 percent for Canada, Japan, Hungary, and Poland, and 5 percent for Croatia; Russia and the Ukraine promised to stabilize at 1990 levels, while Norway, Australia, and Iceland are allowed increases of 1, 8, and 10 percent, respectively. While the Kyoto Protocol does not place additional commitments on developing countries, these countries must still take measures to reduce their GHG emissions while moving forward along a path of sustainable development.

The CMRA will also be oriented around four groups of analytical problems: “fit,” “interplay,” “dynamics,” and “scale.” These four sets of problems involve factors critical to the effective performance of institutions to address climate change, but all are poorly understood at present. The problem of fit revolves around the idea that the effectiveness of social institutions is a function of the match between the characteristics of the institutions themselves and the characteristics of the biogeophysical systems with which they interact. The better the match or fit between an institution and the relevant biophysical systems(s), the more effective the institution will be. The problem of interplay concerns interactions and linkages among institutional arrangements. These linkages may be functional or political, and may occur among different levels of social organization or among institutions operating at the same level of social organization. The problem of institutional dynamics involves the processes through which institutions change over time. Because socio-economic conditions, scientific knowledge, and other factors change over time, institutions must also be dynamic if they are to remain effective. Finally, the problem of scale refers to the need to understand better how findings pertaining to the effectiveness of institutions can be transferred across levels in the dimensions of space and time. It differs from the problems of fit, interplay, and dynamics in that it deals with the generalizability of knowledge pertaining to institutions rather than with attributes of institutions themselves or features of the relationship between institutions and biogeophsical systems. See the IDGEC Science Plan (Young et al. 1999) for a more detailed description of these analytical problems.

The CDM might work as follows: A company from an industrialized country could help build a highly efficient plant in a developing country rather than a less efficient plant previously planned. This would result in emissions reductions below what would have occurred without the project investment. Those reductions would be certified as credits and the developing nation and investing company would then determine how to share the credits. The developing country could acquire technology and capital investment as well as a share of credits that it could sell or bank. The company could acquire a share of credits that it could use to meet its emissions reduction commitments at home.

Articles 6.3 and 12.9 of the Protocol explicitly authorize the evolvement of “legal entities” in JI projects and “private entities” in CDM projects, respectively. While the involvement of private entities in the ET mechanism is not explicitly authorized, their participation is generally anticipated. As a number of observers have noted, there would only be thirty-nine partners in the trading regime if participation were restricted to the Parties themselves.

In theory, this market would function as follows: An emitter with low control costs can reduce its emissions below the quantity allocated and sell the extra AAUs. If the market price is higher than the cost of reducing emissions, it would earn income from the extra reductions. An emitter with high control costs that needs additional allowances can buy surplus AAUs from other sources. If the market price is less than the cost of controlling emissions at its own facilities, it saves money. To work well, emissions trading requires a competitive market for the allowances, which means a large number of buyers and sellers with no single buyer accounting for a large share of total purchases. Limited GHG trading is already occurring with companies that engage in landfill coal mine methane capture, fuel switching, and power plant capacity and efficiency improvements selling “credit options,” or the right to claim credit at some point in the future, to generators and

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marketers, chemical companies, and steel, metal, and cement producers. Internal trading is also occurring within companies such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell. 9

Market-based instruments are likely to be seen as less appropriate in an economy with a high level of central planning than in one with a long history of flee enterprise (Fisher, Barrett, et al. 1996). In many countries, governments and industries have traditionally favored a regulators approach because the effects of regulation are more easily measured and controlled (Hahn and Stavins 1991).

The international community is considering several options for such a definition, including setting a “concrete ceiling” on the percentage of a Party’s assigned amount that can be imported: defining a non-binding guideline on emissions trading; making imports conditional on the adoption of specified policies and measures; and making imports dependent on an assessment of the aggregate impact of domestic policies and measures. Each definition has different cost and policy implications. For example, a binding import ceiling could significantly increase a country’s aggregate costs for emissions reductions by forcing it to adopt more restrictive and expensive standards-based policies. This shift could not only hamper the achievement of the Protocol’s emissions reductions goal, but could reduce the Parties’ willingness to make more stringent commitments in future periods. On the other hand, a binding emissions import ceiling could also mean higher GHG emissions prices in buyer countries, in turn stimulating the development of new and less costly abatement techniques (Fisher, Barrett, et al. 1996; Barrett 1998).

To date, the most significant use of emissions trading internationally has been for the trade of international CFC production quotas under the Montreal Protocol and for the trade of CFC consumption quotas within the European Union.

The question of technology transfer also arises with regard to the Global Environment Facility, a mechanism operated jointly by the World Bank, UEP, and LDP to provide additional financial resources to projects implemented under the FCCC.

The Protocol does not provide for the trading of CERs earned through CDM projects, and these credits are not included in the allotment of AAUs, and ERU provided by the Protocols emissions reduction targets. Some have argued that, if these rules establish an equivalency among these different units, the banking of CERs by companies and governments that would otherwise need to purchase AAUs could lead to an increase in the global demand for CDM projects and decrease efforts elsewhere to reduce emissions (Parkinson, Begg, et al. 1999). This would not only alter the balance between emissions reductions and sink enhancement measures, but the resulting reduction in the value of CERs, AALs, and ERUs alike could impede the effectiveness of the climate change regime itself.

Article 12.10 of the Protocol states that activities conducted under the CDM can be counted starting in the year 2000. While the Protocol does not explicitly establish a target for the implementation of the JI and ET mechanisms, parties hope to have it operational before the year 2005, at which point Annex B parties are to “have made demonstrable progress in achieving (their) commitments” (KP Art. 3.2).

As it is currently envisioned, the CDM would be operated by a central Executive Board, which would approve, revise and assess the sustainability of every CDM project. Some people are concerned that the formation of this board moves the CDM away from the concept of free global or bilateral trading, potentially increasing the transaction costs associated with the CDM credits.

It should be noted here that carbon sinks can also be major sources of GHG emissions if not managed effectively. The transformation of forests and grassland into agricultural land over the course of the last century has contributed substantially to the increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and deforestation and other land-use changes remain the largest source of carbon emissions after fossil energy-related activities (Watson, Zinyossera, et al. 1996).

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A variety of definitions of sustainable development have been proposed. For example, the Brundtland Commission states that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). Another definition, offered by Solow (1992), is that future generations should be able to be at least as well off as current generations.

Article 2.1 of the Protocol states that Annex 1 countries should adopt policies and measures to reduce GHG emissions and enhance sinks in order to promote sustainable development, and Article 12.2 states that the purpose of the CDM is to assist developing countries, to achieve sustainable development, and to contribute to the ultimate objective of the FCCC.

For example, a number of options have been suggested, including a fund for noncompliance, trade sanctions, stricter targets in future compliance periods, and others. The relative efficacy of these different options, however, is not well understood.

8.1.6 References Adger, W. N. 1995. “Compliance with the Climate Change Convention.” Atmospheric Environment 29 (16): 1905-1918. Agrawala, S. 1998. “Structural and process history of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” Climatic Change 39 (4): 621-42. Arrow, K. J., J. Parikh, et al. 1996. “Decision-making frameworks for addressing climate change.” Climate Change 1995 - Economic and Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Contribution of Working Group III to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by J. Bruce and H. Lee. New York: Cambridge University Press. Banerjee, N., and R. Taplin. 1998. “Climate change, electricity generation and environmental sustainability: India and the Ganges Region.” Energy Policy 26 (13): 989-1000. Barrett, S. 1998. “Political economy of the Kyoto Protocol.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 14 (4): 20-39. Bate, R. 1996. “Science under siege: The de-coupling of science from climate change policy.” Energy & Environment 7 (4): 323. Bodansky, D. 1995. “The emerging climate regime.” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 20: 425-61. Boehmer-Christiansen, S. 1994. “Global climate protection policy: The limits of scientific advice.” Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 4 (3): 185-200. Bord, R. J., A. Fisher, et al. 1998. Public perceptions of global warming: United States and international perspectives. Climate Research 11 (1): 75-84. Brunner, R. D., and R. Klein. 1999. Harvesting experience: A reappraisal of the U.S. Climate Change Action Plan. Policy Sciences 32 (2): 133-61. Cao, M., and F. I. Woodward. 1998. Dynamic responses of terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling to global climate change. Nature 393: 249-52. Chayes, A., and A. H. Chayes. 1999. “On compliance.” International Organization 47 (2): 175. Chayes, A., and A. H. Chayes. 1995. The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Chomitz, K. 1998. Baselines for greenhouse gas reductions: Problems, precedents, solutions. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Clark, W. C., J. v. Eindoven, et al., eds. 1999. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks: A Comparative History of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion and Acid Rain. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 110 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Climate Action Network. 1995. Independent NGO evaluations of national plans for climate mitigation-OECD countries: Third review, January 1995. Washington, D.C., United States Climate Action Network and Climate Network Europe. Climate Action Network. 1997. Independent NGO evaluations of national plans for climate mitigation-OECD countries: Fifth review, October 1997. Somerset, England, Climate Network Europe. Dubey, M. 1985. “The main forces at work.” Multilateral Negotiation and Mediation, edited by A. Lall, 155-76. New York: Columbia University Press. Dunlap, R. E. 1998. “Lay perceptions of global risk: Public views of global warming in cross-national context.” International Sociology 13 (4): 473-98. Fisher, B. S., S. Barrett, et al. 1996. “An economic assessment of policy instruments for combatting climate change.” Climate Change 1995 - Economic and Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Contribution of Working Group III to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by J.Bruce and H. Lee. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gupta, J. 1997. The Climate Change Convention and Developing Countries: From Conflict to Consensus? Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Hahn, R. W., and R. Stavins. 1991. “Incentive-based environmental regulation: A new era from an old idea?” Ecology Law Quarterly 18:1-42. Hanf, K., and A. Underdal, eds. 1999. The Domestic Basis of International Environmental Agreements. Ashgate: Aldershot. Harvey, L. D. D. 1995. “Creating a global warming implementation regime.” Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 5 (5): 415. Houghton, H. H., L. G. M. Filho, et al., eds. 1996. Climate Change 1995 - The Science of Climate Change. New York: Cambridge University Press. IDGEC. 1999. Institutional dimensions of global environmental change: Science Plan. Bonn: IHDP. Jäger, J., and T. O’Riordan. 1996. “The history of climate change science and politics.” Politics of Climate Change: A European Perspective, edited by T. O’Riordan and J. Jager. London and New York: Routledge. Jepma, C. J., M. Assaduzzaman, et al. 1996. “A generic assessment of response options.” Climate Change 1995 - Economic and Social Dimensions of Climate Change, edited by J. Bruce and H. Lee. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kempton, W. 1993. “Will public environmental concern lead to action on global warming?” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 18: 217-45. Krasner, S. D. 1982. “Structural causes and regime consequences: Regimes as intervening variables.” International Organization 36 (2): 185. Leiv, L. 1991. Science or Politics in the Global Greenhouse? A Study of the Development Towards Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Lysaker, Norway: The Fridtjof Nansen Institute. Lenstra, J., and M. Bonney. 1993. “The merits of a “mixed bag”: National plans, agreements and policy instruments.” The Economics of Climate Change. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development/International Energy Agency. Levy, D. L., and D. Egan. 1998. “Capital contests: National and transnational channels of corporate influence on the climate change negotiations.” Politics & Society 26 (3): 337-61. Maddison, D. 1999. “Economic policy and climate change: Tradable permits for reducing carbon emissions.” Economic Journal 109 (453): F242-43. Matsuo, N. 1998. “Key elements related to the emissions trading for the Kyoto Protocol.” Energy Policy 26 (3): 263-73. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 111

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Mazur, A. 1998. “Global environmental change in the news: 1987-90 vs 1992-96.” International Sociology 13 (4): 457-72. McComas, K. and J. Shanahan. 1999. “Telling stories about global climate change: Measuring the impact of narratives on issue cycles.” Communication Research 26 (1): 30-57. Michaelowa, A. 1998. “Joint Implementation: The baseline issue.” Global Environmental Change 8 (1): 81-92. Milner, H. V. 1997. Interests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mitchell, R. B. 1994. “Regime design matters: Intentional oil pollution and treaty compliance.” International Organization 48 (3): 425-58. OECD. 1992. Climate Change: Designing a Tradeable Permits System. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Parkinson, S., K. Begg, et al. 1999. “JI/CDM crediting under the Kyoto Protocol: Does “interim period banking” help or hinder GHG emissions reduction?” Energy Policy 27 (3): 129-36. Paterson, M. 1999. “Global finance and environmental politics: The insurance industry and climate change.” Ids Bulletin: Institute of Development Studies 30 (3): 25-33. Shackley, S. 1997. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Consensual knowledge and global politics.” Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 7 (1): 77. Solow, R. M. 1992. An almost practical step toward sustainability. Washington, D. C.: Resources for the Future. Ungar, S. 1992. “The rise and (relative) decline of global warming as a social Problem.” Sociological Quarterly 33 (4): 483-501 Ungar, S. 1995. “Social scares and global warming: Beyond the Rio Convention.” Society & Natural Resources 8 (5): 443-56. U.S. General Accounting Office. 1992. International Environment: Strengthening the Implementation of Environmental Agreements. Washington, D.C.: United States General Accounting Office. Victor, D., and J. Salt. 1995. “Keeping the climate treaty relevant.” Nature 373: 280-82. Victor, D. G., K. Raustiala, et al., eds. 1998. The Implementation and Effectiveness of International Environmental Commitments: Theory and Practice. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Wagner, W. R. 1996. “Sustainable development and global climate change: Conflicts and connections.” Environmental Conservation 23 (2): 169. Walker, B. H., W. L. Steffen, et al. 1999. “Interactive and integrated effects of global change on terrestrial ecosystems.” Implications of Global Change for Natural and Managed Ecosystems: A Synthesis of GCTE and Related Research, edited by B. H. Walker, W. L. Steffen, J. Canadell, and J. S. I. Ingram. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watson, R. T., M. C. Zinyowera, et al., eds. 1996. Climate Change 1995 - Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses. New York: Cambridge University Press. Weiss, E. B., and H. K. Jacobson, eds. 1998. Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Wolsink, M. 1996. “Dutch wind power policy: Stagnating implementation of renewables.” Energy Policy 24 (12): 1079-88. World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 112 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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8.2

The Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones (PEEZ)* The acknowledgment and formal establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), largely during the 1970s and 1980s, brought more than a third of the world’s oceans under the jurisdiction of coastal states, thus introducing one of the most far-reaching institutional changes in international society of the twentieth century. Today, more than one hundred EEZs are in force, covering virtually all continental shelf resources and most of the world’s fisheries. The Scientific Steering Committee of the international project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) has decided to launch a program of studies dealing with the consequences of this institutional change through the Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones (PEEZ) framework outlined in this scoping report. The objective of PEEZ is to contribute to our understanding of the roles that institutions play in global environmental change and, more specifically, to address IDGEC’s focus on the reasons why some institutional responses to environmental problems prove more effective than others (IDGEC 1999). Through a systematic investigation of the performance of the EEZs in terms of sustainability, efficiency, governance, and knowledge, PEEZ aims to enhance our understanding of the ways institutions work in practice, a matter of substantial interest to the policy community as well as the science community. PEEZ does not seek to assess all the consequences associated with the creation of EEZs. Rather, it highlights the performance of EEZs with regard to living marine resources, and grants priority to IDGEC’s core regions: the Circumpolar North and Southeast Asia. The purpose of this scoping report is to spell out a set of key science questions regarding the performance of EEZs and to identify analytic procedures and data sets as well as organizational matters relevant to this research program. Introduction to Exclusive Economic Zones With the establishment of EEZs, vast ocean areas with an enormous wealth of natural resources that were previously open to all appropriators were turned into assets of coastal states. A principal justification for this change was the growing sense during the decades leading up to the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) that international efforts to manage human uses of marine resources had failed. A new institutional approach was required. The creation of EEZs granted coastal states extensive rights to natural resources located in a zone extending out to 200 nautical miles (320 kilometers). Although outcomes have varied, actual achievements have fallen well short of the objectives justifying the creation of EEZs. The number of overexploited or depleted fish stocks has increased. Pollution levels in many areas are higher than they were before the change. And conflicts among multiple uses of ocean resources are on the rise (United Nations 1998). This state of affairs has been brought about by many factors in addition to the prevailing * Originally published as Hoel, Alf Håkon, with contributions from Elena Andreeva, Russell Reichelt, Virginia Walsh, and Oran R. Young. 2000. “Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones.” IDGEC Scoping Report No. 2. Dartmouth: IDGEC.

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system of ocean governance. But institutions – the rules of the game – do play a role in accounting for variance in the condition of marine systems. This poses the following questions: To what extent have the aspirations of those who advocated the creation of EEZs been met? Are there systematic patterns of successes and failures relating to the use of marine resources that are attributable to institutional factors? Can we draw insights from the experience with EEZs to improve the design of institutional responses to other environmental challenges? 8.2.1 Rationale for Research on EEZs as Institutional Phenomena The oceans are governed by a multitude of institutions dealing with diverse issue areas (such as navigation, fishing, or pollution) and operating at different levels of social organization.1 From the seventeenth century onward, the oceans were separated into “territorial waters,” a narrow band where coastal states possessed rights similar to the rights they exercise over their land territory, and “high seas,” a vast area in which all states enjoyed the freedom to use those waters and the associated natural resources as they saw fit. This system rested on the premise that the resources of the ocean were infinite or, in any case, greater than the demands placed upon them by human users. As it became evident that the oceans and their natural resources were in limited supply, the system of rules implying that the natural resources of the high seas belonged to no one (res nullius) came under pressure. In the early post—World War II period, coastal states initiated a series of unilateral extensions of jurisdiction to reduce pressure on natural resources and secure for themselves a greater share of the wealth of the oceans. These unilateral actions provided the impetus for the first and second United Nations Law of the Sea Conferences, held in 1958 and 1960, which produced four conventions but did little to resolve the fundamental problem of creating a governance system capable of managing growing uses of ocean resources.2 Several events during the 1960s and early 1970s, among them continued unilateral assertions of rights on the part of coastal states (Juda 1996) and decoupling of security and economic issues (Friedheim 1993), led to UNCLOS III, starting in 1973. By then, the idea of extended coastal state jurisdiction had matured, and a consensus soon emerged that coastal states should be accorded “sovereign rights” over the natural resources located in a zone stretching 200 nautical miles seawards, as measured from their coastal baselines (Friedheim 1993; Miles 1998). Extended coastal state jurisdiction changed the prior system of ocean governance by adding the category of EEZs to cover a large area located between territorial waters and the high seas. Coastal states have the final say regarding how resources are utilized in the EEZs (Burke 1994; Churchill and Lowe 1999); they also have jurisdiction over scientific activities and the authority to devise rules to protect the marine environment. Yet coastal state authority in the EEZs is not unlimited. Coastal states have a duty to ensure that the living resources of the EEZs are not endangered by overexploitation and to consult with other states regarding the use of shared resources. Other states retain rights to navigation, overflight, and the laying of submarine cables within the EEZs. 114 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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In the second half of the 1970s, a large number of states claimed 200-mile zones (Burke 1994). When UNCLOS III came to an end in 1982 and the final text of the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) was signed, the EEZ concept was firmly established in customary international law. By the time LOSC finally entered into force in 1994, more than one hundred coastal states had enacted legislation establishing 200-mile extended jurisdiction in some form. These EEZs constitute a common framework within which coastal states have created national and subnational arrangements governing human activities taking place within their zones. At the same time, the EEZs are nested into the larger framework of the law of the sea and embedded within overall institutional arrangements in international society. The result is both a striking departure from the preexisting arrangements governing marine systems and a complex structure of institutions encompassing considerable variation within a common framework. The creation of EEZs did not solve all the problems attributable to the authority deficit in ocean governance (SĂŚtersdal and Moore 1987; Vidas and Ă&#x2DC;streng 1999). Initially, few states had the domestic arrangements needed to manage the natural resources in these extended zones. There is still great variation in the character and effectiveness of the regimes that coastal states have put in place to govern activities taking place in their exclusive economic zones. Moreover, the fit between these new institutional arrangements and the biophysical features of the problems they are intended to solve is far from perfect. A large number of fish stocks and petroleum fields have come under the jurisdiction of two or more countries, necessitating the negotiation (and in some cases, judicial settlement) of new territorial boundaries or coordinated or joint management systems. High seas fishing of stocks that straddle the boundaries between waters under national jurisdiction and the high seas emerged as a serious problem (Miles 1989).3 Collapses in major fisheries have combined with the growth of a broader interest in protecting marine environments to prompt calls for institutional change. Marine conservation has emerged as a global concern as a consequence of the cumulative effects of overfishing and management failures, and this topic has found its way onto the agenda in global fora, such as the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Hey 1996; Hoel 1998). It is now acknowledged that international coordination may be required to manage natural resources located in the EEZs when these resources are shared between countries or straddle boundaries to the high seas. Institutional developments arising from this realization include the 1995 Food and Agriculture Organization Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing and the 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, which seek to rectify weaknesses associated with the regime for fishing in international law (Balton 1996).4 Broader still is the growth of concern for the protection of marine biological diversity (Norse 1993) and the resultant effort to apply the principles of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity to activities in the EEZs (DeFonteaubert et al. 1998). Some observers have concluded that EEZ-based institutions remain deficient in terms of the requirements for ocean governance and that more authoritative global institutions are needed to ensure the sustainable use of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ocean resources (Borgese 1998; IWCO 1998). Conversely, there is a growing realization that local Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 115

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institutions (Ostrom 1990), such as customary systems of sea tenure and co-management systems (Johannes 1978; Jentoft 1998), have a continuing role to play in countries where governments have created strong national regimes to manage EEZs. 8.2.2 Assessing the Effects of EEZs The principal goal of PEEZ is to analyze the consequences resulting from the change from a regime based on “open access” to the resources of the high seas to a regime involving enclosure of vast ocean areas into exclusive economic zones from the 1970s onwards. The concern here is not with the processes leading up to the establishment of EEZs (Sebenius 1984; Friedheim 1993). Nor does this activity aim to account for all possible effects of EEZs. Rather, the core concern centers on the management of living marine resources with particular reference to the Circumpolar North and Southeast Asia. The central concern can be stated as follows: •

How has the establishment of EEZs and the resultant shift in jurisdiction over living marine resources affected the conservation and use of these resources?

While many performance indicators are available, PEEZ will contribute to the work of IDGEC by addressing four prominent clusters of effects associated with EEZ-based regimes: biophysical effects, socioeconomic effects, governance effects, and knowledge effects. Because more than one hundred national EEZ regimes are now in place, researchers exploring the performance of these arrangements will observe considerable variance. Though they share defining legal attributes, the national regimes vary among other things with regard to additional legal bases, administrative structures, and effectiveness. Accounting for the sources of this variance is one of the goals of the PEEZ program. Biophysical Effects First and foremost, institutions can affect the biophysical condition of ecosystems in which human actions play an important role. A major rationale for the creation of EEZs in the 1970s was the perception that multilateral fisheries commissions were ineffective in the sense that they had been unable to prevent collapses in a number of fish stocks. The introduction of EEZs, as an institutional response to this problem, shifted management responsibilities to coastal states on the assumption that those most dependent upon fisheries resources would have a stronger interest than others in long-term conservation. Yet resultant increases in the total world catch of marine fish have been accompanied by growing problems of stock depletions and other signs of unsustainable harvesting (FAO 1997; Botsford et al. 1997; Pauly et al. 1998). According to the FAO, 16 percent of the world’s fish stocks are now overexploited and 6 percent are classified as depleted, while 44 percent are fully exploited. Little change in this situation has occurred since the early 1990s (FAO 1998). Some 60 percent of the major fisheries in the world are in need of management action (Garcia et al. 1999). 116 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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The potential biophysical effects of EEZs may include changes in the status of stocks of living marine resources and, more broadly, the condition of large marine ecosystems attributable to the establishment of expanded coastal state jurisdiction (Sherman and Duda 1999).5 The key issue here is sustainability and the introduction of new ways of thinking about the sustainability of marine ecosystems (see also the discussion of governance effects below). Sustainability debates have a long history in the realm of fisheries, as fisheries science has been instrumental in developing the concept of sustainability for several decades (Charles 1994). Early attempts to assess the biophysical impacts of EEZs include Sætersdal and Moore’s 1987 study, which attempts to summarize developments in the world’s major fishing regions; an early Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development effort (OECD 1984), and Miles’ 1989 project, which takes a somewhat broader perspective. The FAO carries out global studies of the status of fish stocks on a regular basis (FAO 1997, 1998). The core question here is: Why has the creation of EEZ-based regimes generally failed to initiate an era of sustainable fishing practices, and how can we account for variance in the performance of EEZ regimes in terms of sustainability? More specific questions arising from this central concern are: • • •

How can we separate the effects of institutions from the effects of non-anthropogenic forces (e.g., changes in water temperature) operating in marine systems? What factors account for variance in the performance of EEZ-based regimes in terms of sustainability? How do institutional and natural factors interact in this setting, and how can we evaluate the fit or match between management regimes and marine ecosystems?

Socioeconomic Effects Institutions affect the welfare of the individuals and human groups whose activities they govern. The principal socioeconomic effects arising from the operation of EEZ-based regimes involve matters of equity (for example, the distribution of wealth among participants) and efficiency (for example, economic impacts on the fishing industry and on coastal communities). UNCLOS III produced two major distributive norms. Deep seabed minerals beyond the bounds of national jurisdiction became the common heritage of humankind, with control over their exploitation vested in an International Seabed Authority (ISA) operating under UN auspices.6 The near-shore resources, on the other hand, were nationalized through the rights granted to coastal states in the EEZs, thereby continuing the trend initiated with the 1958 Continental Shelf Convention. One major consequence of the creation of EEZs has therefore been a sizable redistribution of wealth. The immediate losers were distant water fishing nations, whose responses have included moving their fisheries to the high seas, purchasing fishing rights from coastal states, and reducing the size of their fleets. The response of the coastal states has in many cases featured subsidizing an expansion of their fishing capacity to capitalize on the new wealth, a development that Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 117

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has triggered a doubling in global fishing power since the 1970s (Iudicello, Weber, and Wieland 1999). The expansion has however stagnated in the 1990s (FAO 1998).7 The resultant overcapacity in global fishing power is a major part of the explanation for the poor state of fish resources globally (McGoodwin 1991; McGinn 1999). The socioeconomic consequences of exclusive economic zones also encompass efforts to build on the creation of EEZ-based regimes to improve the performance of the fishing industry. The results flowing from these efforts vary widely (Christy 1996; Hannesson 1997; OECD 1997). This in turn has affected coastal communities assumed to be the prime beneficiaries of the EEZs and produced striking differences in the fates of coastal communities under EEZ-based regimes (Apostle et al. 1998). The establishment of EEZs also shifted the allocation of ocean resources by changing global trading patterns for seafood. Some fishing nations increased their imports of fish products while others increased their exports. Other trade-related developments arise from efforts to use trade measures to influence the management of marine resources, as exemplified by the tuna/ dolphin controversy (McDorman 1992, McLaughlin 1997). The core concern here is: How has the establishment of EEZs affected the distribution of ocean wealth? To what extent have coastal states succeeded in using these assets in an efficient manner? Specifically: • • •

How have benefits been redistributed internationally and nationally as a result of bringing marine resources under the jurisdiction of coastal states? How have EEZ-based regimes affected the capacity of fish stocks, treated as factors of production, to produce economic returns and rents? How has the establishment of EEZs affected international trade in fish products and how are users of ocean resources affected by trade practices?

Governance Effects Changes in governance systems, such as the creation of EEZ-based regimes, often have ramifications beyond the boundaries of the regimes themselves. In the case of EEZs, these effects have flowed downward to the domestic regimes established by states and upward to institutional arrangements operative at the level of international society. Looking downward, EEZs constitute an institutional umbrella within which a variety of related initiatives have unfolded. Thus, individual coastal states have created distinct national regimes to deal with fisheries and other marine resources over which they have acquired jurisdiction as a result of the creation of EEZs. All these arrangements build on the same framework, but they differ significantly in other respects, including the biophysical and socioeconomic effects they have produced. By privileging national regimes, moreover, the establishment of EEZs has subordinated local and largely customary systems of marine tenure to new sets of rules governing the use of ocean resources. The formal policies and decision-making procedures 118 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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characteristic of national institutions can displace or undermine informal, local arrangements, and can generate important biophysical and socioeconomic consequences (Young 1982; Jentoft 1998; Apostle et al. 1998). Looking upward, on the other hand, it is possible to explore the impacts of EEZ-based regimes on the ways in which states define their roles and interests and, more broadly, on the theory and practice of sovereignty in international society. The rights of coastal states to the EEZs are farreaching, but not identical to the bundle of rights generally associated with sovereignty. By introducing a new configuration of rights, distinct from those exercised in territorial waters or those associated with the high seas, UNCLOS III initiated an institutional experiment in which sovereignty is not approached in absolute or indivisible terms.8 The rights conferred on coastal states through the creation of EEZs place them in the roles of managers and caretakers of marine ecosystems. With the passage of time, absolutist characterizations of the rights associated with EEZs have also been tempered by a growing understanding of the need for cooperation among adjacent states and between coastal states and distant water states to ensure the sustainability of fish stocks. Both the theory and the practice of sovereignty undergo transformations in response to functional problems arising from interdependencies (Litfin 1998; Krasner 1999). Recent developments in state practice in cooperative fisheries management (e.g., the activities of the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) with regard to the enforcement of regulations) and in other areas (e.g., joint development zones for oil and gas) suggest that new ways of thinking about sovereignty with regard to the resources of the EEZs are emerging. The core question here is: How have EEZs affected the perceptions of coastal states of their roles and interests as well as their practices in developing cooperative arrangements that require modifications of traditional views of sovereignty? Specific issues for consideration include: • •

•

How have coastal states constructed national regimes within the framework provided by the EEZs? How has the creation of EEZs affected the interplay among international regimes, national management systems, and traditional systems of marine tenure and co-management operating at the local level? How has the development of EEZ-based regimes governing ocean resources affected the general practice of sovereignty in international society?

Knowledge Effects Institutions are both affected by and affect developments in the knowledge, beliefs, and values that shape human actions (Andresen and Østreng 1989; Goldstein and Keohane 1993). The institutional shift reflected in the movement from freedom of the high seas to ocean enclosure has been accompanied by alterations in the intellectual frameworks of fisheries scientists and others concerned with the management of marine resources. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 119

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The LOSC requires the promotion of marine science and empowers coastal states to regulate the conduct of science in their waters (Roach 1996). More generally, ideas of sustainability have led to the development of at least two changes in the intellectual frameworks of those responsible for administering national management systems established under the EEZ framework. Fisheries management in most systems is still based on single-species models developed in the 1950s, aiming at some notion of a maximum sustainable yield (Larkin 1977). But a few cases, management practices have evolved to include multispecies interactions, where relationships among commercial species are considered (Hannesson 1983; Flaaten 1988), and ecosystem perspectives, where the relationships between harvested species and their environment are considered (Burke 1994; Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel 1999). Another change involves attitudes toward risk and uncertainty (Ludwig, Hilborn, and Walters 1993; Wilson et al. 1994; Francis and Shotton 1997) and, more specifically, the introduction of precautionary approaches in the management of fisheries and marine ecosystems (Garcia 1994; Hewison 1996). Institutional changes, such as the creation of EEZs, can facilitate or impede such cognitive developments in several ways. Shifts in rules and decision-making procedures often reflect new ways of thinking, such as precautionary approaches (Garcia 1994); they can provide conveyor belts for the introduction of such perspectives into day-to-day management practices (Nakken et al. 1997). Once embedded into institutional rules, intellectual frameworks shape the background knowledge from which agents draw when making decisions (Walsh 1999). In addition, regimes can provide vehicles for the efforts of leaders of epistemic communities to inject the prescriptions of such transnational networks of scientists and policy analysts into the practice of resource management (E. Haas 1990; P. Haas 1990). The core question here is: How do EEZs affect the development and the introduction of ideas about resource management and conservation and, in the process, the knowledge base of key players? Specific issues include: • • •

Have EEZ-based regimes provided mechanisms for changing the knowledge available to managers of fisheries? To what extent are new sustainability indicators internalized by actors in EEZ-based regimes? How are ideas that are emerging at the global level (e.g., the precautionary approach) reflected in the practices of national EEZ regimes?

8.2.3 Analytical Approaches and Methodological Concerns The basic structure of the Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones program is straightforward. It involves an effort to add to our knowledge of the consequences of institutions through an in-depth study of the impacts of exclusive economic zones in four broad areas: biophysical effects, socioeconomic effects, governance effects, and knowledge effects. This scheme is portrayed in Figure 11, p. 121. 120 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Figure 11

Analytical Scheme

Biophysical Effects Socioeconomic Effects

Exclusive Economic Zones Governance Effects Knowledge Effects

Analytical Concerns The four groups of effects – the dependent variables within this framework – consist of related phenomena that are grouped together for purposes of analysis rather than as statements of fact. Other types of effects might be considered in a comprehensive study of the performance of EEZs. But the objective here is to single out particularly important effects whose analysis promises to contribute to IDGEC’s larger concern with the factors that account for variance in the performance of regimes relevant to large-scale environmental changes. Complex interactions may occur among these dependent variables in many cases. For example, distributive effects may influence the biophysical condition of key ecosystems. Shifts in production for export by individual countries or conflicts between different types of uses can put pressure on marine ecosystems. Shifts in knowledge (such as the transition from singlespecies management to ecoysystems approaches) are likely to produce both biophysical and socioeconomic effects. Analyses of the performance of EEZs must take into account the operation of local, national, and international institutions through which the effects of EEZs manifest themselves. The creation of EEZs would not have far-reaching consequences if the process were not accompanied by changes in national and international institutions intended to capitalize on and give effect to the rights and obligations that EEZs establish. Such institutions can be envisaged as intervening variables in the scheme above. The fact that more than one hundred EEZ-based regimes are now in operation opens up attractive opportunities for analysis. The basic challenge associated with this activity is to demonstrate causal connections between the establishment of EEZ-based regimes covering large marine areas and consequences in the four primary areas outlined in the preceding section. Structured, focused case studies selected to encompass the operation of EEZ-based regimes in a variety of geographical, ecological, socioeconomic, and cultural settings constitute one obvious way forward in this realm (George 1979). But the availability of a sizable number of cases makes it possible to make use of other analytic techniques, including procedures Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 121

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involving statistical inference and qualitative comparative analysis (Ragin 1987; Miles et al. 2001). Data Requirements The availability of data needed to study the performance of Exclusive Economic Zones varies substantially from one class of effects to another. There is also variation in the availability of data regarding links between the EEZ framework and various national EEZ-based regimes. Biophysical data on trends in fisheries are available on a global scale, although a number of caveats apply to sweeping generalizations about biophysical effects.9 A major source for global data, as well as for regional data sets on resource development, is the FAO. Several regional organizations (such as the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and NEAFC in the Northeast Atlantic area) are useful sources of data regarding regional developments in the fisheries. Not surprisingly, national sources of data on such matters vary with regard to the coverage, quality, and compatibility of data sets. Obtaining data on socioeconomic effects presents additional problems. Although no international standards have been set for this type of data, early attempts to generate usable data on trends relating to equity and efficiency can be found in a European Unionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;funded program on fisheries management in the North Atlantic (Symes 1998). Acquiring data on such matters becomes more difficult when we move up the scale from the community level to the national and international levels. A number of studies address issues relating to fishing industries (Neher, Arnasson, and Mollet 1989; OECD 1996), but the extent to which specific regions are covered and the compatibility of these data are unclear. Studies of governance effects and knowledge effects will require the development of new data sets. The FAO and the Department of Oceans and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS) at the United Nations in New York hold most of the relevant information on the EEZs themselves. Assessments of the development and implementation of EEZ-based regimes, however, will require more extended research in individual countries. A promising development regarding knowledge effects is the growing effort to devise reference points as indicators of sustainability (Mace 1994; Nakken et al. 1997). To a certain extent, the PEEZ research program will be driven by the availability of data or resources to develop new data sets. This may lead to choices involving the prioritization of the research foci described in the preceding section and the sequencing of specific research activities over time. Research can begin in areas where good data already exist, even while efforts are underway to develop new or better data relating to other topics. Organization The Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones project (PEEZ) is intended to provide a platform for the work of a number of analysts using the same concepts and data sets but basing their research on different approaches to the demonstration of causal links between institutions and major types of consequences. Over time, this should add significantly to our understanding 122 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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of the performance of EEZs and, more generally, to our knowledge of the ways in which institutions affect human actions relating to large-scale environmental matters. As a point of departure, PEEZ will work through two regional networks, one for the Circumpolar North and a corresponding one for the Southeast Asian region. Overall coordination of PEEZ research and integration of the two regional efforts will involve workshops organized by the PEEZ working group of IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Scientific Steering Committee. 8.2.4 Policy Implications The principal goal of the PEEZ flagship activity is to broaden and deepen knowledge pertaining to IDGECâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Research Focus 2, which asks: Why are some institutional responses to environmental problems more successful than others? By differentiating several classes of effects and examining how they play out in a major issue area that has been characterized by dramatic institutional changes over the last several decades, it should be possible to pinpoint a number of factors that account for variation in the performance of specific institutional arrangements. Findings flowing from the research carried out under the auspices of this activity should prove useful for policy purposes as well. Understanding why the introduction of EEZ-based regimes has failed to solve problems of stock depletions in major fisheries could help to guide the adjustments needed to advance toward the original objectives underlying this major institutional change. Similarly, knowledge of the consequences of these regimes with regard to matters of equity and efficiency could provide the basis for adjustments in major features of EEZ-based regimes in the future. Accordingly, efforts to develop detailed research designs within the PEEZ framework will include consultations with policymakers and scientists located in intergovernmental agencies (such as the FAO) and management agencies in national governments. The result should be a research program responsive to the concerns of managers and policy makers and, in due course, a stream of scientific findings that can help to improve the performance of EEZ-based regimes. 8.2.5 Next Steps The next stage in the development of the PEEZ program is the organization of a workshop designed to prepare collaborative research designs for a series of studies focused on the performance of Exclusive Economic Zones. This procedure should allow flexibility in the analytic procedures selected but, at the same time, serve to ensure that findings are genuinely comparable. The main group of participants in the workshop will be scientists who are able and willing to carry out studies that fit the framework of the PEEZ flagship activity. But for reasons outlined in the preceding section, the workshop will also include policymakers and managers working in this realm. To disseminate information about this activity and to attract interest on the part of active researchers, the PEEZ program is being presented at various international meetings, notably the June 2000 meeting of the International Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 123

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Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP) and the July 2000 meeting of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET). 8.2.6 Notes 1

“Institutions,” as used in this report, are “systems of rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that give rise to social practices, assign roles to participants in these practices, and guide interactions among the occupants of the relevant roles” (IDGEC 1999, 11).

The 1958 continental shelves convention did provide for coastal state sovereign rights to shelf resources as far out as exploration was feasible, thereby paving the way for thinking about sovereignty in non-absolutist terms. Another important development in the 1958 convention was the recognition of the special interest of coastal states in the natural resources adjacent to their territorial waters.

Since some 95 percent of the world catch of marine fish is taken within EEZs, the overfishing problem is largely related to waters under national jurisdiction.

The Code of Conduct aims at assisting countries to improve their management practices through normative guidance and technical assistance. The Fish Stocks Agreement deals with fishing on the high seas but has provisions (such as those dealing with conservation principles) that apply to all waters.

A stock of a living marine resource is a genetically and geographically distinct (sub)population of a species.

The ISA’s authority was somewhat diluted by the 1994 Implementation Agreement, however.

The number of vessels larger than 100 Gross Register Tonnes (GRT) is declining.

However, some earlier international agreements also impose limitations on sovereignty. The international servitudes stipulated in the 1920 treaty pertaining to Svalbard are a case in point (Ulfstein 1995).

Direct now-and-then comparisons are fraught with difficulties because the data underlying various assessments are unlikely to be directly comparable. Substantial variation exists among and within regions with regard to the availability and quality of data. It is not clear how much of the variation in fish stocks can be attributed to fishing relative to natural forces. Biophysical effects of institutional change may take decades to emerge, and variation attributed to institutional factors may be the result of other driving forces.

8.2.7 Selected References Andresen, S., and W. Østreng, eds. 1989. International Resource Management: The Role of Science and Politics. London: Belhaven Press. Apostle, R., G. Barret, P. Holm, S. Jentoft, L. Mazany, B. McKay, and K. Mikalsen. 1998. Community, State and Market at the North Atlantic Rim: Challenges to Modernity in the Fisheries. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Balton D. 1996. “Strengthening the law of the sea: The new agreement on straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks.” Ocean Development and International Law 27: 125-51. Borgese, E. M. 1998. The Oceanic Circle. New York: The United Nations University Press. Botsford, L. W., J. C. Castilla, and C. H. Peterson. 1997. “The management of fisheries and marine ecosystems.” Science 277: 509-15. Burke, W. 1994. The New International Law of Fisheries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Charles, A. 1994. “Towards sustainability: The fishery experience.” Ecological Economics 11: 201-11. Committee on Ecosystem Management for Sustainable Marine Fisheries. 1999. Sustaining Marine Fisheries. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

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Christy, F. T. 1996. “The death rattle of open access and the advent of property rights regimes in fisheries.” Marine Resource Economics 11: 287-304. Churchill, R. R, and A. W. Lowe 1999. The Law of the Sea. Manchester: Manchester University Press. DeFonteaubert, C., D. R. Downes, and T. S. Agardy. 1998. “Biodiversity in the seas: Implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity in marine and coastal habitats.” The Georgetown International Law Review 10: 753-854. Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel. 1999. Ecosystem Based Fishery Management – A Report to Congress. National Marine Fisheries Service, Seattle. FAO. 1997. Review of the State of the World’s Fishery Resources. FAO Fisheries Circular No. 920, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. FAO. 1998. The State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture 1998. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. Francis, R. I., and R. Shotton. 1997. “Risk in fisheries management: A review.” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 54: 1699-1715. Flaaten, O. 1988. Multispecies Fisheries Management: The Case of the Barents Sea. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Friedheim, R. 1993. Negotiating the New Ocean Regime. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Garcia, S. M. 1994. “The precautionary principle: Its implications for fisheries management.” Ocean and Coastal Management 22: 99-125 Garcia, S. M., K. Cochrane, G. Van Santen, and F. Christy. 1999. “Towards sustainable fisheries: A strategy for FAO and the World Bank.” Ocean and Coastal Management 42: 369-98. George, A. 1979. “Case studies and theory development: The method of structured, focused comparison.” Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, edited by P. C. Lauren. New York: Free Press. Goldstein, J., and R. Keohane, eds. 1993. Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Haas, E. 1990. When Knowledge is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haas, P. H. 1990. Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation. New York: Columbia University Press. Hannesson, R. 1983. “Optimal harvesting of ecologically interdependent fish species.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 10: 329-45. Hannesson, R. 1997. “The political economy of ITQs.” Global Trends: Fisheries Management, edited by E. Pikitck, D. E. Huppert, and M. P. Sissenwine. Bethesda: American Fisheries Society. Hewison, G. J. 1996. “The precautionary approach to fisheries management: An environmental perspective.” International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law 11: 301-32. Hey, E. 1996. “Global fisheries regimes in the first half of the 1990s.” International Journal of Marine & Coastal Law 11, No. 4: 459-90. Hoel, A. H. 1998. “Political uncertainty in fisheries management.” Fisheries Research 37: 239—50. IDGEC. 1999. Institutional dimensions of global environmental change – Science Plan. IHDP Report No. 9, Bonn. Iudicello, S., M. Weber, and R. Wieland. 1999. Fish, Markets, and Fishermen: The Economics of Overfishing. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. IWCO. 1998. The Ocean, Our Future: Report of the Independent World Commission of the Oceans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Jentoft, S., ed. 1998. Commons in a Cold Climate. Coastal Fisheries and Reindeer Pastoralism in North Norway: The Co-management Approach. Casteryon Hall, Camforth: The Parthenon Publishing Group. Johannes, R. E. 1978. “Traditional marine conservation methods in Oceania and their demise.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9: 349-64. Juda, L. 1996. International Law and Ocean Use Management. London: Routledge. Krasner, S. D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Larkin, P. 1977. “An epitaph for the concept of maximum sustained yield.” Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 106: 1-11. Litfin, K., ed. 1998. The Greening of Sovereignty in World Politics. Cambridge: MIT Press. Ludwig, D., R. Hilborn, and C. Walters. 1993. “Uncertainty, resource exploitation and conservation.” Science 269: 17, 36. Mace, P. M. 1994. “Relationships between common biological reference points used as thresholds and targets of fisheries management strategies.” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 51: 110-22. McDorman, T. 1992. “The 1991 U.S.—Mexico GATT panel report on tuna and dolphin: Implications for trade and environment conflicts.” North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation 17, 3: 461-66. McGinn, A. P. 1999. “Moving towards sustainable fisheries.” Natural Resources Forum 23: 135—45. McGoodwin, J. 1991. Crisis in the World’s Fisheries. Stanford: Stanford University Press. McLaughlin, R.J. 1997. “Settling trade-related disputes over the protection of marine living resources: UNCLOS or the WTO?” The Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 10: 29-96. Miles, E., ed. 1989. Management of the World’s Fisheries: Implications of Extended Coastal State Jurisdiction. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Miles, E. 1998. Global Ocean Politics. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhof. Miles. E., et al. 2001. Explaining Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence. Cambridge: MIT Press. Nakken, O., P. Sandberg, and P. I. Steinshamn. 1997. “Reference points for optimal fish stock management.” Marine Policy 20, no. 6: 447-62. Neher, P. A., R. Arnasson, and N. Mollett, eds. 1989. Rights Based Fishing. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Norse, E., ed. 1993. Global Marine Biological Diversity: A Strategy for Building Conservation into Decision Making. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. OECD. 1984. Experiences in the Management of National Fishing Zones. Paris: OECD. OECD. 1996. Towards Sustainable Fisheries: Economic Aspects of the Management of Living Marine Resources. Paris: OECD. Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pauly, D., V. Christensen, J. Dalsgaard, R. Froese, and F. Torres, Jr. 1998. “Fishing down marine food webs.” Science 279: 860-63. Ragin, C. 1987. The Comparative Method. Berkeley: University of California Press. Roach, J. A. 1996. Marine Scientific Research and the New Law of the Sea. New York: Taylor and Francis. Sætersdal, G., and G. Moore. 1987. “Managing extended fisheries: A decade’s modest progress.” CERES 20, no. 5: 38-43. Sebenius, J. 1984. Negotiating the Law of the Sea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Sherman, K., and A. M. Duda. 1999. “Large marine ecosystems: An emerging paradigm for fishery sustainability.” Fisheries, 24, 12: 15-26. 126 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Stokke. O. ed. 2001. Governing High Seas Fisheries: The Interplay of Global and Regional Regimes. Oxford: Oxford University. Symes, D., ed. 1998. Northern Waters: Management Issues and Practice. Oxford: Fishing News Books. Ulfstein, G. 1995. The Svalbard Treaty. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. United Nations. 1998. Oceans and the Law of the Sea – Report of the Secretary General. UN A/53/456. Vidas, D., and W. Østreng, eds. 1999. Order for the Oceans at the Turn of the Century. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Walsh, V. 1999. Background knowledge and world politics: The case of marine biodiversity. Unpublished paper, Rutgers University, Newark, N.J. Wilson, J. A., J. M. Acheson, M. Metcalfe, and P. Kleban. 1994. “Chaos, complexity and community management of fisheries.” Marine Policy 18, 4: 291-305. Young, O. 1982. Resource Regimes. Berkeley: University of California.

8.3

The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests (PEF)* Rationale The state of the world’s forests is an emerging global issue. Global environmental changes, and the social, economic, and political processes of globalization that help drive them, are now influencing local forest conditions and management practices. Trade in timber products continues to grow rapidly and consumptive demand from the wealthiest importing nations shows few signs of weakening. At the same time, political changes and alliances are facilitating the evolution of novel institutions and the interplay among institutions from different levels of governance. Some of these alliances are clearly aimed at facilitating further exploitation of forest resources and promoting economic development, whereas others are aimed more at controlling or mitigating some of the environmental and social impacts of these transformations. At the international level, a number of environmental regimes, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity, are evolving in ways that potentially could have a major influence on forest land development strategies of nations. At more local levels, decentralization is facilitating what is in some a cases a return to more community-based rather than state-centered forms of forest management. At these different levels, forests are defined and valued differently. Institutions can thus be seen as both causes of and solutions to problems of deforestation (Bromley 1999). It is in this context of global and local changes that we address some of the key issues in the political economy of tropical and boreal forests. Although we recognize that many of the issues are global in scope, in this paper we focus on just two critical regions, the boreal forests of Canada, United States, and Russia, and the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. The two focus regions provide an interesting mix of natural and institutional realities and challenges. Rapid economic growth over the past few decades in Southeast Asia has been accompanied by rapid conversion of mature forests to secondary * Originally published as Contreras, Antonio, Louis Lebel, and Suparb Pas-ong. 2001. “The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests.” IDGEC Scoping Report No. 3. Dartmouth: IDGEC.

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forests, plantations, and agriculture. The current status of forests, in terms of cover and conditions, however, varies substantially among countries within the region, reflecting differences in histories of exploitation, wars, and original resource endowments (Table 8, p. 128). The loss and fragmentation of original forest cover is a global issue because of the high levels of endemic biodiversity in the region. In contrast, forest cover in the boreal region has remained relatively stable. There is growing concern, however, that the former Soviet-bloc countries will be integrated rapidly into the global economy once political stability conducive to investment is achieved, and that this, in turn, will lead to rapid and non-sustainable exploitation of these forests. The boreal and tropical forests of the world will play a critical role in the regulation of the future climate of the Earth. The tropical forests of Asia could potentially sequester a substantial amount of additional carbon, as many parts are well below potential maximum biomass as a result of human activities such as logging. The boreal forests, for example, contain 40 Table 8

Forest Cover and Forest Cover Change in Southeast Asia and the Boreal Region Country

Tropical Forest Cambodia Indonesia Lao PDR Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam Boreal Forest Canada Finland Iceland Norway Russian Federation Sweden United Statesc

Forest Cover in 1995 (hectares)

% Annual Frontier Foresta Changes from Cover in 1996 as % 1980 - 1995 of Original Forestb

Present Forestb in 1996 as % of Original Forest

9,830 109,791 12,435 15,471 27,151 6,766 4 11,630 9,117

(2.71) (1.18) (1.41) (2.83) (1.75) (3.96) 0.00 (3.58) (1.45)

10.3 28.5 2.1 14.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.9 1.9

65.1 64.6 30.0 63.8 40.6 6.0 3.1 22.2 17.2

244,571 20,029 11 8,073 763,500

0.10 (0.10) 0.00 0.30 0.00

56.5 1.1 0.0 0.0 29.3

91.2 82.3 0.0 90.4 68.7

24,437 209,572

0.00 0.30

2.9 6.3

86.0 60.2

Figures in parentheses indicate losses or negative changes. a. Frontier forest refers to large, relatively undisturbed forest ecosystems. b. Original forest is estimated to be that which might have covered the planet 8,000 years ago given current climate conditions. Current forest includes frontier and non-frontier forests. c. Reflects the whole United States, though the boreal forests are confined to the Alaskan region. 128 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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percent of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reactive soil carbon (McGuire et al. 1995). The longterm effects of sequestering carbon in forests, however, depends greatly on management practices, and also on the impacts of future climate change, for example, on tree demography and disturbance regimes like fire. Thus, the boreal forests could be either part of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;missing linkâ&#x20AC;? of CO2, if they are accumulating carbon (Ciais et al. 1995; Myneni et al. 1996; Randerson et al. 1998), or a carbon source, if recent warming trends enhance fire frequency or decomposition more than they enhance plant production (Kasischke et al. 1995; Kurz and Apps 1995; Zimov et al. 1999). Boreal and tropical forests are managed under dynamic and diverse political structures and processes. The boreal forests are basically governed by two contrasting political and economic systems: the Canadian and Alaskan blocks being governed by a western-style democracy existing in a predominantly capitalist system, whereas the Russian block is governed by a socialistdominated economy that is gradually opening up not only to market forces but also to less-restrictive political arrangements. Southeast Asian tropical forests exist in a setting characterized by equally diverse modes of governance ranging from Western-style democratic systems to systems governed by military juntas. In both regions, economic development has been strongly influenced by foreign investments and fluctuations in financial markets. Goals and Approach The immediate goal of this scoping paper is to identify key research questions about the role of institutions in modifying the drivers of environmental change in the tropical forests of Southeast Asian forests and the boreal forests of Canada, United States, and Russia. The ultimate goal is to develop a research agenda that will contribute toward improving forest governance. We begin our analysis with a simple framework and then proceed to identify key research questions under three broader research themes, namely decentralization, globalization, and environmental regimes (e.g., Pasong and Lebel 2000). The paper ends with a summary of the proposed research agenda and some suggestions on how it might be implemented. Conceptual Framework Systems of forest governance and actual practices modify the influences of the political and social structures and processes, which ultimately drive changes in forest land use and conditions. Changes in forest condition and the social outcomes of forest management and land-uses influence the institutional drivers of future change in a system that feeds back on itself (Figure 12, p. 130). Political transformations involve changes in the power relationship among various social groups and institutions in society. Key social actors include the state, central and local governments, local communities (farmers, ethnic minorities, logging industry employees), nongovernmental organizations, the military, and domestic and international business. Environmental governance is the way that society deals with environmental problems, and involves the interaction of formal and informal institutions Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 129

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and actors within society. Forest governance includes such mechanisms as systems for granting concessions for logging or the right to convert forested lands to plantations and agricultural uses. Forest management practices are the actual activities carried out by resource managers, whether or not they are congruent with the systems of forest governance. These practices determine the actual forest and social outcomes of alternative forest-land uses. Finally, important feedback to forest governance arises from changes in the biogeophysical conditions of forests. In fact, one of the main impetuses for institutional development and evolution is expected to be changes in the perceived state of forest resources or threats to them. Future threats Figure 12

Conceptual Framework Describing how the relationships among the institutional drivers of changes in forest conditions and social outcomes are modified by systems of forest governance and actual management practices Economic, Social, and Political Drivers 1. Decentralization and fragmentation

Systems of Forest Governance (various institutional dimensions of forest governance)

2. Commercialization and globalization of markets

1. State and Indigenous property rights systems;

3. International forest agreement and environmental regimes

2. Resource tenure regimes

Forest Management Practices 1. Fire management 2. Harvesting pratices 3. Regeneration; reforestation management

3. Concession granting and renewal schemes 4. Sustainable forestry guidelines and harvesting practices policies 5. Others

Environmental Feedback

Forest Outcomes

Social Outcomes

1. Changes in landuse and cover (e.g., mature forests to secondary forests or plantations or agriculture

1. Distribution of costs and benefits of uses

2. Losses of biodiversity 3. Reductions/increases in carbon stocks and sequestration potentials Social Feedback

4. Changes in risk of fires, invasion by pests 5. Changes in ecosystem services (e.g., watershed protection)

2. Consumptive and non-consumptive use including non-timber products 3. Changes in vulnerability to natural hazards (including climate change and vulnerability) 4. Conflict and cooperation over management of forest resources

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include regional environmental changes, such as acid deposition, and global environmental changes, such as changing climate and atmospheric conditions. 8.3.1 Research Themes We begin our analysis by presenting a framework in which systems of forest governance and forest management practices are seen to modify the influences of the political and social structures and processes, driving changes in forest land use and conditions. Changes in forest conditions and the social outcomes of forest management and land uses, in turn, influence the institutional drivers of future changes in a system that feeds back on itself. Theme 1: Political Institutions—Effects of Decentralization The manner by which power is distributed between the state and other actors is an important factor that cuts across many issues, including how forests are defined, how benefits and costs are distributed, and how rules are made. Among the emerging institutional arrangements in forestry are political and administrative reform in which central state agencies or provincial administrations are devolving power to more local bureaus, 1 local communities, or civil society actors. Openness and a larger degree of freedom and participation in the public policy process are observable in most countries in the Southeast-Asian region, except perhaps Burma. Although accountability and transparency in public affairs are not yet the rule, social countervailing forces are growing. Rule Making The processes by which rules are made, either through state policies or through customary laws and traditions, are functions of the manner by which power in society is centralized or decentralized. The process of state building in Southeast Asia can be characterized as the expansion of state power by first sequestering away from local communities and civil society the power to legitimize institutional arrangements, and then transferring it to a body, which we call “government.” The state, thus, has always been the dominant mode of institutionalizing power, since it is the institution that is bestowed with the sole authority to possess legitimate and coercive power. In most tropical countries, forest resources have always been considered as state domains and properties, as comprising part of the 2 national patrimony. The military, with an influential role in political institutions and also in business, has played a key role in the development of forest and land resources in many Southeast-Asian countries. The threat of force has been a potent weapon in stifling internal and external political debate about forest lands, and the lack of accountability has provided opportunities for corruption. Under military influence power over natural resources shifts from other stakeholders to the military and its business cronies. The use of force as a means of coercion secures the interests of the military elites, who in turn protect business interests, in what is called “crony capitalism.” Under this pattern of political change, public property rights as well as traditional systems of property rights are often disregarded by the military elites. Resource use under such conditions Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 131

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is unsustainable. Depletion of forests in Thailand, (Laos, Cambodia), and Indonesia during the 1960s to the 1990s may be attributed to large extent to 3 military dominance in the governments. However, states do not exercise monopolies of power over “rule-making” over forest resources. Local communities that are traditionally forestdependent have developed and long upheld mechanisms and processes, or what can be called “institutional arrangements,” which govern the 4 allocation of access and control rights over these resources. Property rights and tenurial systems are much better defined as bundles of rights that govern access and use, widely understood by community members to be legitimate, rather than as fixed documents of ownership issued by the state to its citizens. The difference in the source of authority, with that of the state derived from law and that of civil society derived from custom and collective consciousness, undoubtedly leads to differences in the manner by which forests are managed, and consequently their condition. Here, it must be emphasized that state organizations as well as civil society institutions exist at both national and local levels. Such common property rights to land are often transformed to public and later private property. This transformation of property rights has profound implications for land use, and therefore environmental change. Simultaneously, it has abolished or disregarded the pre-existing forms of property rights. Other forms of pre-existing property rights in societies, thus, have been affected in different ways. Communal property rights on forest land and coastal resources, for example, are largely unrecognized, and have been superseded by public and private property rights (e.g., Peluso 1993; Lynch and Talbott 1995; Magallanes and Hollick 1998). Open-access rights that had been in existence among indigenous people long before the emergence of the claims of local communities or the state have been affected. The state, or private firms with sanctions or concessions from the state, often claim open access areas. Large-scale exploitation of forest resources by governments or business often causes conflicts between people whose livelihood depends on 5 these resources and government or business. One of the impacts of globalization is the weakening of state power and autonomy (see Theme 2). While one of the results of this is the further insertion of the state into the global system, and the exposure of policies, including forest policies, to regional and global imperatives, this also leads to the increased power of civil societies. However, there is a danger in this trend. State-induced policy reform, while opening up the domain of “rulemaking” to include civil society structures and processes, may also corrupt 6 the integrity of civil-society systems of “rule-making.” Furthermore, a possible backlash is that the state will take up more conservation-oriented policies as a response to environmentalism, at the cost of livelihoods and other social development concerns for local communities. In Thailand, the shift of policy from logging to the establishment of national parks threatens the welfare and livelihoods of many communities. The impacts of this on resource quality and social welfare and entitlements are a fertile area for inquiry, although data on the adverse effects of colonization and cultural dislocation abounds. 132 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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It is in this context, therefore, that a rigorous political analysis is required to support any conclusion vis-à-vis the impacts of the transformation in “rulemaking” processes. Democratization and policy reform, while steps in the right direction, may create processes that compromise the interests even of the sectors that are supposed to benefit from these reforms. Dubash and Seymour (1999) argue that the use of environmental adjustments by the World Bank can be enhanced through a clear understanding of the political landscape of recipient countries, by identifying the “domestic constituencies for forest reform, and the external agents who could be mobilized around forest reform” (p. 15). In addition, the analysis should include an appreciation of the dynamics of power relations existing between and among stakeholders at all levels. Access to Benefits and Exposure to Risks In the rhetoric of political leaders, forests are considered part of the national patrimony and are managed for the common good on a sustained basis. Political leaders are supported in their task by science carried out in departments of forestry. This collaboration implies that a public resource like the forests should be managed to benefit the public good, or at least the good of the substantial majority. The multiplicity of goods and services that can be derived from forests and forest lands creates a complex scenario not only in terms of the technical requirements for management but also of the political requirements necessary to handle a multi-stakeholder situation. In practice, however, political actors are often primarily concerned with maintaining political power and controlling the allocation of resources, including lands, government contracts, and loans, and redirecting them to the benefit of themselves and their supporters. The recent history of forest governance in Southeast Asia has facilitated centralized command and control systems in which substantial benefits are captured by the private sector, and have often placed the relevant public and marginalized sectors at risk. As Menotti (1998) argues, this mode of benefits distribution can be further exacerbated during crisis conditions, with the forests becoming even more vulnerable as sources of capital for states deeply in debt. Forests become attractive sources of foreign exchange earnings that can be used to stabilize currency markets. In a situation of liberalized forest trade, enormous pressure will be exerted to exact from the forest the maximum possible value. If unfettered, such practices may greatly compromise not only the forest’s ecological health but also the social and economic health of communities that are dependent on it. Data show that the present forest governance regimes in Southeast Asia 7 are characterized by heavy state subsidies. A similar trend also occurs in 8 countries with boreal forests. Governments are losing while private logging interests are reaping the benefits. These foregone revenues could have been used not only for social development of forest-dependent communities but even more appropriately to finance environmental restoration and forest protection activities. It is important to emphasize that the emergence of community forestry is a complex process. While it is true that states lend legitimacy to community forestry, local peoples have organic community capacities to manage their Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 133

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resources, which ironically are threatened when states formalize these into a policy. It has also been shown that collective action from communities, or as facilitated by mediating civil society institutions such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), help facilitate the development or reorientation of policy toward a more community-based focus. The emergence of community-based forest management, wherein the state decentralizes forest management to local communities, has opened up access to benefits 9 by forest-dependent communities. Communities are granted tenure and are organized to protect the forest through either preventive or restorative 10 intervention strategies. However, this becomes problematic when existing state regulations prevent communities from engaging in extractive activities and when alternative livelihood options are not sustainable due to the absence of viable markets. Forest-based communities are vulnerable to rent seeking by civil-society intermediaries that are involved in social and technical preparatory activities. Consultancy firms, as well as third-party NGOs, participate in the implementation of community-based forest management projects as assisting professionals and intermediaries performing indirect and facilitating labor. However, studies in the Philippines show that in some cases, these intermediaries extract excessive and unwarranted rents (up to 40 percent in some instances), which greatly compromises the delivery of project services not only for the social development of the community but also for the protection and management of the resource (Contreras 1994, 2000; Marquez 1994; and Rico 1996). What aggravates this is the fact that in most instances, community-based forestry projects are funded by the Official Development Assistance (ODA) sources, some of which are loans that have to be repaid. Most forest management strategies are mainly limited to technical management concerns, and do not include social development issues, particularly health, education and protection of rights, including those pertaining not only to resource use but also to broader human rights concerns. Since a significant relationship exists between social development and resource management, there is a need to strengthen the knowledge base for these relationships through research, particularly of the marginalized and vulnerable sectors such as landless peasants, indigenous peoples, women, and children. Research Questions: • •

Under what social and environmental conditions does decentralization result in better forest management practices and outcomes? Why do some forms of resource tenure promote sustainable forest management practices and outcomes, whereas other institutional arrangements lead to forests degradation?

Theme 2: Economic Institutions—Effects of Globalization As society becomes more market oriented, and the formal political institutions evolve to facilitate commerce and market expansion, de facto control over 11 land-use decisions shifts toward business. Patronage networks help build close links between politics and business and help further the goals of their members. Preexisting local property rights systems are often swept aside in the interests of “the state” and business. The extent to which government 134 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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intervenes and tries to control the market varies, but in time, and as global forces become more important, government’s effective role is reduced or transformed (see Theme 1). Concern over environmental degradation leads to central intervention in the form of spatial land-use planning and environmental impact analyses, and at the international level, to regional agreements. The ability of governments to effectively implement these plans and guidelines, however, remains quite limited. The structure of the timber political economy in Southeast Asia is characterized by the dominance of corporate forestry in countries that are 12 also timber exporters. In 1996, Indonesia was the sixth and Malaysia the eighth largest exporter of forest products in the world (WRI 1998). The timber economies of Indonesia and Malaysia largely rest on heavy state subsidies on logging and plantation forest estate which are controlled by rent-seeking elites, even as community-based forestry is only paid lip13 service. Corruption is noted to be high in Indonesia, effectively hampering forest protection and law enforcement (Transparency International 14 1999). With the development of state and private forest industry in Indonesia, forest lands have been seen as, in turn, a timber resource for exploitation by logging, as land to be converted to grow trees for pulp, paper, and plywood industries, and more recently for the development of oil palm plantations. Many of these transformations have been mutually reinforcing, with the key outcome of conversion of native mature forests 15 to secondary forest, tree crops and other uses. Thus, today, non-timber exports such as oil palm surpass timber as the main export-earning primary commodity. Two key environmental problems are associated with this transformation of forests and forest lands. The first is that the rate and scale of these transformations, and in particular, rates of extraction of logs, has been clearly unsustainable, even without any consideration of impacts on biodiversity. The second is that many of the “reforestation” and “downstream” processing schemes have not only failed to restore degraded lands and protect remaining forests, but have often facilitated more intensive and wider conversion of productive forest land. Further liberalization of the timber trade may either encourage or compromise progress toward sustainable forest management. Eliminating tariff barriers, for example, can provide incentives for tropical timber production in Indonesia and Malaysia, and in Canada for its boreal forest production, although there is reason to believe that lowering tariffs may have negligible effects inasmuch as the current tariff structure in timber is already fairly liberalized at low levels. Nevertheless, in situations wherein timber production occurs in an atmosphere of rent-seeking, weak environmental laws, and lack of recognition of community rights, any move toward increased production can intensify negative environmental and social impacts. This is the problem that may be faced by trade liberalization not only in timber but also for nontimber forest products. Financial instability and recession create opportunities for foreign investors to gain access and control forest lands for logging or conversion. The declining Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 135

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economy of the former Soviet Union, for example, has encouraged foreign timber companies to invest in Russian forestry operations and has increased the timber flow to Japan and Korea. Large-scale forestry operations have also increased in boreal Canada. The efforts by transnational corporations to develop new sources of revenue and of northern regions to develop cash economies have led to increased forest harvest, with the short-term goals of increasing revenues, and with relatively little concern for the long term sustainability of these forests (Chapin and Whiteman 1998). A similar situation developed in Indonesia following the regional economic crisis in Asia, which in itself was a product of globalization of speculative financial markets (currencies and shares). The structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund continue to facilitate what is effectively a transfer of control over forest land and resources. Concern over further depletion or degradation of forest resources in one country may become an external driver for deforestation in another. Thus, Thailand has increasingly relied on timber from neighboring Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. Most of this timber is extracted and transported illegally across the border. The banning of logging operations in Thailand had the effect of relocating the operations to its neighbors. In the absence of welldefined regulatory mechanisms, and in the context of political systems that are confronting insurgency problems, as in Myanmar, cross-border logging and timber trade have led to the dislocation of local communities, as well as the use of forest policy to justify military operations. Likewise, limited natural resources in Japan have led its large trading companies to pursue active trade importation from resource-rich countries 16 such as those in Southeast Asia. These include many of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest companies. Most function as trade intermediaries and thus have substantial influence over trade networks. Their success has depended on importing huge volumes of natural resources, and by switching suppliers as sources run out. The chain of business linkages is long; logging is done through a complex chain of sub-contracting, often facilitated by patron-client relationships. One consequence is that the logging business has been able to evade taxes and royalties. Another is that illegal and destructive logging practices have been widespread. Corrupt patron-client networks have facilitated these unsustainable logging practices. The net result has kept prices low and the flow of benefits to the communities in the developing countries much smaller than it should have been (Repetto 1988). A strong and growing forestry industry, however, does not have to wait for concerns about resource levels at home to spread its operations offshore. Profit incentives and a growth strategy are sufficient. Thus, Malaysian companies are now actively logging forest in Pacific Island states. It is clear from the above discussion that a meaningful intervention strategy requires a strong knowledge base on the interplay between global and local market forces and the linkages between state and civil societies. Researchers and policymakers need to understand the dynamics of these relationships, as either reinforcing, antagonistic or irrelevant. Data indicate that global market processes such as trade liberalization reinforce the corporatist mode of forest 136 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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production and governance at the local level, as in the case of Indonesia and Malaysia. This same process may antagonize the environmental and social agenda of local civil societies, and may contradict community-based forest management interventions that are now strong in the Philippines and 17 Thailand. These may also put further stress on forest resources. Research Questions: • •

Under what conditions does integration in the global economy lead to more sustainable management of forests? Is the interplay between global and local markets, on the one hand, and between state and civil society, on the other, reinforcing, antagonistic, or irrelevant to sustainable forest management?

Theme 3: Effects of International Environmental Regimes In Theme 2, we saw how globalization had important implications for forest conditions and social outcomes, through the activities of international finance and business, and facilitated by regional and global institutions promoting further liberalization of trade and investment. In situations where environmental protection is weak or poorly enforced, or local communities and civil society have little power, a common expectation is that liberalization may lead to worse forest and social outcomes. International agreements potentially could provide some counterpoint to these forces of change from outside the borders of traditional forest management units. Thus, the central question addressed in this theme is: How can international environmental regimes promote sustainable management of forests and forest lands in a just way? The logging industry has already made a start. The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) was created as a result of the 1984 International Timber Trade Agreement (ITTA), which was renegotiated in 1994. Facing adverse changes in forest quality, all members have agreed that by the year 2000 they would only export or import tropical timber from “sustainably managed” sources. It should be noted that the ITTA is also intended to promote industrialization and to increase timber exports. The challenge is to reconcile the sometimes conflicting pressures coming from profit-seeking and industrialization, on one hand, and sustainable forest management, on the other, and to recognize what institutional mechanisms are required to enable such reconciliation. The emerging regime on timber certification can provide support to this endeavor, with NGOs and the private sector taking the lead in its development. The issue here is the receptiveness of the governments to adopt this as official state policy. Other regional and global institutional mechanisms have emerged in response to changing forest conditions. The increased frequency of forest fires, which in itself is an outcome of changing institutional policies but is also reflective of current resource conditions, created the need to establish in-country institutions and regional partnerships to handle the problem. The World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, the Forest Stewardship Council, and the Tropical Forestry Action Plan, among other variedly composed institutions, have arisen to promote international cooperation over the use, management, and preservation of forests. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 137

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The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBP) and the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change both have generated awareness over deforestation issues (such as greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity losses) and recommended processes for continued negotiation. While mechanisms for compliance have not actually been established, these global regimes have created awareness, particularly among civil society players, which may enable them to put pressure on their national governments to comply. Furthermore, these conventions have also generated crucial ODA financial and technical assistance to countries in Southeast Asia to conduct their own research on these issues. One other relevant regime is the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which lists some commercially important timber species. It is unclear how disputes on rulings under this agreement will fare under the much stronger General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. Global environmental changes have caused the formation of the abovementioned international regimes with different agendas. There is a need to inquire into the horizontal dynamics that exist among these international regimes, which include not only those directly related to forest and environment but also those dealing with trade, investment, and development as they impinge upon forest and environment issues; their vertical dynamics with local institutions; the horizontal dynamics among local institutions as they react to these international regimes; and, finally, the actual process by which such agreements are arrived at, including the role of various stakeholder, community, and epistemic networks. The vertical interplay between global environmental regimes and local institutions, especially resource tenure arrangements, is critical to actual management practices. The interaction is made more complex by the fact that various stakeholders driving the development of institutions at the various scales emphasize different forest values, which lead to a conflict between local and global resource management agendas. For example, the global environmental regime’s emphasis is on carbon and biodiversity, whereas intermediate-scale institutions are more likely to be concerned with watershed functions, and the smaller-scale arrangements with uses such as the extraction of timber and non-timber products. As economic and ecological crises unfold, the other domains of social conflict, aside from class, are unleashed and find expression not only in rights issues but also in issues that may have a bearing on resource use and quality. Indigenous people’s movements have actively carried an environmental agenda, most of which are centered on access to, control of, and sustainability of forest resources. Women’s movements along the eco-feminist strand strike deep into the heart of destructive forest practices by revealing their masculine and exploitative practices. Environmentalism, which in most instances is perceived to be a middle-class civil society discourse, can also be found in grassroots civil societies expressed in the context of livelihood struggles of the rural poor (Hirsch 1996). Various environmental actors have taken advocacy positions, using both science and politics as tools to push for their agenda. In this context, it is important to inquire into the emergence of “environmentalism” as a reaction to the present globalization, as well as to examine the associated 138 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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political tools and strategies that reflect the manner by which environmental movements and discourses shape the mode by which institutions influence and participate in the generation of knowledge and of policy. Research Questions: •

•

Under what circumstances do international regimes reinforce, or conversely, counteract the intentions and activities of local forest management practices? How can the various international environmental and trade regimes be redesigned so that they interact in ways that will facilitate sustainable and just management of forests and forest lands?

8.3.2 Toward Good Forest Governance: The Research Agenda This paper identified three themes and their associated research questions, which are summarized in the following table: Table 12

THEME

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Effects of decentralization

Under what social and environmental conditions does decentralization result in in better forest management practices and outcomes? Why do some forms of resource tenure promote sustainable forest management practices and outcomes, whereas other institutional arrangements lead to forest degradation?

Effects of global globalization

Under what conditions does integration in the global economy lead to more sustainable management of forest? Is the interplay between global and local markets on the one hand and between state and civil society on the other reinforcing, antagonistic, or irrelevant to sustainable forest management?

Effects of global international environmental regimes

Under what circumstances do these international regimes reinforce, or conversely, counteract, the intentions and activities of local forest management practices? How can the various international environmental and trade regimes be redesigned so that they interact in ways that will facilitate sustainable and just management of forests and forest lands?

The major goal of each of the research themes is to evaluate institutional arrangements with the ultimate objective of achieving good forest governance through a strengthening of existing institutions or designing new ones that best conserve the resource while at the same time ensuring equitable social development. 8.3.3 Methodology Since this report is written within the framework of the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC), its theoretical and methodological basis may be found in IDGEC’s Science Plan (Young, O., A. Agrawal, L. King, P. Sand, A. Underdal, M. Wasson. 1999, pp. 74–80). The goal of IDGEC is to assess Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 139

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the role that institutions play in causing and confronting global environmental change. With regards to the changes in the conditions of forests, this is to be explicated in the political economy of forests in two regions of the world: the circumpolar North and Southeast Asia. This report takes an institutional approach to political economy, in order to account for why the forest practices in these regions are increasingly unsustainable. IDGEC has adopted methodological pluralism, encouraging the use of a variety of procedures drawn from a number of social science disciplines as well as the development of explicit linkages to the work of natural scientists interested in global environmental change. With pluralism, IDGEC suggests the following methods. The overall research will give value to an integrated natural and social science approach that takes into consideration the following: 1. Recognizing alternative knowledge claims, especially traditional and indigenous ecological knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is knowledge in practice. Researchers are encouraged to take indigenous knowledge seriously on its own terms rather than endeavoring to assimilate it into Western scientific knowledge. Traditional and indigenous knowledge is particularly relevant for investigations into indigenous peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s management of forests. 2. Case studies. While case studies present problems of generalization, they can capture the profound complexities of interacting human and biogeophysical systems and the dynamics of global environmental change. Case studies also facilitate efforts to track the development of institutions over time. IDGEC anticipates that researchers working within its framework will continue to develop detailed qualitative and long-term case studies of specific institutions or clusters of institutions in a single biogeophysical domain. Case studies are particularly relevant for the study of the political economy of forests, for they reveal interactions of and interplay among social, economic and political institutions. Researchers may study them at various levels and scales of social organization, from local communities to regional and international alliances. 3. Comparative studies. Comparative analysis is a powerful method in the study of institutions operating at the same or different scales from local to global. Researchers who approach the political economy of forests from sociological and social anthropological perspectives will find comparative methods particularly useful. However, those who approach a research problem from economic or political science perspectives will find comparative analysis equally useful, for it allows broad and long-term analysis of problem situations in different countries or regions. A comparison between boreal forests of the Circumpolar North and tropical forests of Southeast Asia is most interesting in terms of the political economy of both regions and their impacts on their forest resources. However, researchers need a good network of knowledge in order to be successful. A comparison at this scale will have strong global implications. 4. Modeling. Social and political models are different from models in natural science and mathematics. Social and political modeling - not to speak of economic modeling - is 140 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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potentially useful, provided that the purpose of a model is moderate, for example, descriptive, diagnostic, explanatory, or predictive. Constructing a social and political model requires innovative techniques, but is not necessarily too complex for researchers and policy makers to understand. Models can take advantages of scale analysis, in which the model may be scaled up or down to suit its purpose and applicability. Successful forest management of one community or country may well serve as a model to be applied in other communities or countries. Researchers who are more advanced and perhaps more ambitious may want to construct a model aimed at reforming an existing institution or designing a new one. The problem of harmonizing quantitative and qualitative models is well recognized in the IDGEC Science Plan. However, it anticipates that a â&#x20AC;&#x153;stand aloneâ&#x20AC;? qualitative model should yield understanding of the role of institutions in global environmental change, and may provide data that are useful for the construction of an integrated model. For IDGEC, modeling of institutional systems should also provide at least contingent generalizations (that is, generalizations expected to hold under more or less restrictive conditions) as the basis for institutional design principles and innovations that may lead to improvements in the performances of environmental institutions at all societal levels. Data collection methods employed in the social sciences are usually specific to a disciplinary approach and style of inquiry. The study of the political economy of forests is open to an interdisciplinary approach and diverse styles of inquiry, including quantitative, qualitative, descriptive, analytical, and interpretative methods. All require empirical data either of a secondary or primary nature. First-hand empirical data require fieldwork in data collection. All require databases. Several databases on forests at national and international levels are already available. Strategies for Action To pursue the above-mentioned research agenda, the following goals or targets are envisioned: 1. To be able to develop a network of institutions to tackle the research questions from the view of science; and 2. To be able to link up with policymakers and civil society actors within countries and across countries in order to influence policy. The following proposed strategies need to be adopted to be able to accomplish these goals: 1. Use existing networks as a starting point, such as the Southeast Asian Regional Committee for the SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training (START), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Resource Tenure Network, Asian Forestry Network, and Task 1.1.3 of the LUCC project. 2. Use regular review mechanisms of international institutions (e.g., the World Bank in its upcoming Asia Pacific Forest Strategy Review) as a conduit to generate interest on issues, and for possible funding exposure. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 141

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3. IDGEC should encourage interactions among scientists and policymakers within and across the two regions (tropical Southeast Asia and the boreal forests). This paper is heavy on Southeast Asian experiences. The arguments herein, while useful for defining a regional research and policy action, can be enriched by an equally deep boreal analysis. 4. Finally, a follow-on workshop with the purpose of drafting the action plan for this flagship activity is both timely and necessary. 8.3.4 Notes 1

In Southeast Asia, effective political control over forest resources has often been held by states or provinces rather than by central governments (e.g., Leigh 1998, Brookfield and Byron 1990). Maintaining political connections with local leaders is crucial for logging contractors to get licenses and have them renewed. The insecurity of this political rather than institutionalized system creates an economic context in which the common strategy is to log as quickly as possible without regard to future environmental conditions or social costs. Civil society itself is centralized in major urban areas with the result that members often hold quite different perspectives on forest values from rural communities closer to the forest frontier in their daily livelihoods.

In forest-rich countries, the condition of forest resources is seen not only as a valuable economic resource but as a source of national pride and identity (Dubash and Seymour 1999).

The direct business interests of the Indonesian military in logging began during the timber boom in the 1960s, when Suharto handed out timber licenses to loyal military officers as a way to improve military budgets (Brookfield and Byron 1990). By 1978, the military controlled twelve timber companies. Since then, their influence has been less, but is still substantial. For example, the Armed Force owns 51 percent of the International Timber Corporation of Indonesia which operates Indonesia’s largest concession of 600,000 hectares of forest in East Kalimantan, (Suharto’s son owns 34 percent, and Hasan owns the other 15 percent).

For example, the “adat” system, the traditional institutions governing resource use in Indonesia, is still practiced widely in many areas in Indonesia.

One such example for coastal mangrove forests is the development of industrialised shrimp aquaculture in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

In the Philippines, the institutionalization of participatory development has led to the proliferation of NGOs that are less committed to reform and are only interested in rentseeking activities. Through a law passed by the Philippine Congress in 1998, indigenous practices are now recognized as legitimate “rule-making,” but there is the fear that this legislated empowerment may have the effect of “bureaucratizing” indigenous rule-making and processes, and eventually may weaken its indigenous logic.

The low price imposed by government on timber concessions reflects this heavy subsidy, and causes overextraction and market distortion. As just one example of the magnitude of state subsidy, the Indonesian government loses an average of US$1 to US$3 billion annually. Governments of other countries in the region such as Vietnam and Cambodia also heavily subsidize their logging sector, with Vietnam losing 17 percent of its revenue and Cambodia losing a remarkable 63 percent as foregone logging revenues (Sizer, Downes, and Kaimowitz 1999). Stumpage prices in the Philippines, a non-exporting country, remain below their market values.

Canada and the United States, faced with constricting timber markets, have increased logging subsidies to maintain competitiveness (Menotti 1991). It is also reported that Russia foregoes about US$5 billion in income as it collects only 3 to 20 percent of potential timber revenues (Sizer, Downes, and Kaimowitz 1999).

This is particularly true in the case of the Philippines and Thailand.

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In the guise of environmental and civic work, communities render free labor to the state, even as their effective income is reduced in the process. In the end, it is the marginal communities that subsidize the state in forest protection activities, in stark contrast to states that heavily subsidize the activities of private, and presumably wealthier, corporate logging interests. In the Philippines, forest protection work in the context of community-based forest management is an unpaid voluntary work that rests on the strength of social capital and civic-mindedness among forest-dependent communities, and serves as a form of gratuity to the state for granting them tenure, albeit temporarily with a twenty five-year duration.

However, in Myanmar (and Vietnam before entering Doi Moi), the recent trend has been in the opposite direction, namely, from private business interests toward the state. Private property rights and other form of traditional rights have largely been abolished. Collective and state property rights systems were established instead. The state or its functional institutions control the use of resources.

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia remain the two power-house timber economies among the top exporters of forest products in the region (Bourke and Leitch 1998). Malaysia continues to dominate trade in tropical sawnwood, with at least 50 percent share of the total exports from ITTO-member countries. On the other hand, Indonesia continues to dominate 50 percent of total exports of tropical plywood from ITTO-member countries. However, the exposure of these two economies and their markets to the Asian contagion in 1997â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1998 led to drastic declines in the values of both prices and export volumes. Indonesiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plywood production shed 37 percent of its value in 1998. Prices for boards coming from these two countries lost 30 percent of its value in 1997, and another 25 to 30 percent in 1998 (Adams 1998).

See Note 7 above. The Pembinaan Masyarakat Desa Huan (PMDH), or community development program (CDP), introduced in Indonesia in 1991, required concessionaires to support community development activities around its areas of operation. However, this program failed to articulate a participatory management approach, in the sense that what emerged was a dole-out system of assistance provided to communities (Firman et al. 1997). While the role of rural communities in forest management formally recognized in the Basic Forestry Law of 1999 recently passed by the Indonesian parliament, this is not matched by strong legal mechanisms for customary rights recognition and local community empowerment (Down to Earth 1999).

Reports indicate that more timber is produced from illegal logging than from legitimate production (Tickell 1999).

In Indonesia today, a complex mix of competition and mutualism defines the quest for land resources. For example, logging concessions and transmigration schemes have helped provide access, through road building and infrastructure, which facilitates subsequent invasion and conversion rather than regrowth and sustainable harvesting systems. Small holders, state enterprises, and private businesses are moving in to claim land for industrial tree plantations. Even here competition arises between those interested in developing of large-scale timber plantations to supply pulp and paper mills and other secondary wood industries with oil palm. The system for classifying, planning, and allocating land development permits is central to the conversion between forest-land uses, and has been manipulated by the various stakeholders. The Ministry of Forestry, now renamed the Ministry of Forestry and Estates, gives final permission on conversion of forest lands to agriculture. In practice, however, offices at the provincial and regional levels are more important. The office of the Governor and Regional Development Planning Board (BAPPEDA) have power to grant land and to facilitate the development projects they support through the regulatory process. They favor oil palm, as it is consistent with their provincial economic growth goals. The amount of commercially exploitable timber on production forest land is easily understated to gain permission for conversion. In any case, oil companies often start clearing land before official approval is given, and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t stop if approval is not given.

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The trade and investment activities of Japanese corporations have had a huge influence on the logging of old-growth forests in Southeast Asia over the past several decades. The reduced value of logged-over forest and the provision of access provide incentives for further conversion of these secondary forests to commercial crops, other large development projects, and for spontaneous migration into frontier areas. Over 90 percent of Japanese tropical timber imports in the last four decades has come from Indonesia, East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), and the Philippines. During the boom periods in each area, exports to Japan accounted for more than half of that area’s log production. Japan’s influence over logging in the Philippines is by now very low, but the communities there must now live with the degraded resource base, so the impact in a real sense is still very much present.

Sunderlin (1999) and Sizer et al. (1999) anticipate that in the face of economic difficulties and forest trade liberalization, pressures to intensify conversion of forest lands to agribusiness plantation estates will increase. This may heighten the occurrence of fires, since this method has been relied upon as the most convenient and cheapest way to clear forests (Chandrasekharan 1998).

8.3.5 Bibliography Adams, Michael. 1998. “Tropical Timber Trade in Summary.” Tropical Timber Update 8, 4: 18–19. Bourke, I. J. and J. Leitch. 1998. Trade Restrictions and their Impact on International Trade in Forest Products. Rome: FAO. Bromley, D. W. 1999. “Deforestation: Institutional Causes and Solutions.” World Forests, Society and Environment, edited by P. Mati and J. Uusivuori. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, London, Boston. Brookfield, H., and B. Byron 1990. “Deforestation and Timber Extraction in Borneo and the Malay Peninsula.” Global Environmental Change 1: 122–36. Brown, D. 1999. Addicted to Rent: Corporate and Spatial Distribution of Forest Resources in Indonesia, Implications to Forest Sustainability and Government Policy. Jakarta: Indonesia–UK Tropical Forest Management Programme. Brunner, J., K. Talbott, and C. Elkin. 1998. Logging Burma’s Frontier Forests: Resources and the Regime. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, Forest Frontiers Initiative. Cameron O. 1996. “Japan and Southeast Asia’s Environment.” Environmental Change in Southeast Asia: People, Politics and Sustainable Development, edited M. J. G. Parnwell and R. L. Bryant. Routledge: London. Chamruspanth, Viyouth. 1993. “Legal Issues in Forest Management in Northeast Thailand.” Legal Frameworks for Forest Management in Asia, edited by Jefferson Fox, Occasional Paper No. 16. Honolulu, Hawaii: East-West Center. Chandrasekharan, C. 1998. “Controlling Forest Conflagrations.” Tropical Forest Update 8, 4: 14–15. Chapin, F. S, III, and G. Whiteman. 1998. “Sustainable Development of the Boreal Forest: Interaction of Ecological, Social and Consumer Feedbacks.” Conservation Ecology 2. Ciais, P., P. P. Tans, M. Trolier, J. W. C. White, and R. J. Francey. 1995. “A Large Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial CO2 Sink Indicated by the 13C/12C Ration of Atmospheric CO2.” Science 269: 1098–1102. Contreras, A. P. 1994. “The Political Economy of Disguised Plunder: Patterns of RentSeeking in Official Development Assistance to the Environment and Natural Resources Sector.” Professorial Chair Lecture, University of the Philippines, Los Baños. 144 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Contreras, A. P. 2000. “The Underlying Causes of Forest Decline”. CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 30. Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research. Coronel-Ferrer, Miriam. 1997. “Civil Society: An Operational Definition.” Democracy and Citizenship in Filipino Culture, edited by Maria Serena I. Diokno. Diliman, Quezon City: Third World Studies Center. Dauvergne, P. 1997. Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia.” Cambridge: MIT Press. Dauvergne, P. 1997. “Weak States and the Environment in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands. Working Paper 1997/10. Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University. Down to Earth. 1999. “Commentary: New Indonesia Forestry Act” London: Down to Earth. Dubash, Navroz K., and Frances Seymour. 1999. “The Political Economy of Environmental Adjustment: The World Bank as Midwife of Forest Policy Reform.” Paper presented at a conference on “International Institutions: Global Processes ~ Domestic Consequences.” Firman, Mohammad, Priyani Ganevi, and Ari Lestari. 1997. “The Community Development Program by Concessionaires in Indonesia. “ Community Forestry at a Crossroads: Reflections and Future Directions in the Development of Community Forestry. Proceedings of an International Seminar. Bangkok: RECOFTC. Hirsch, P., ed. 1996. Seeing Forest for Trees: Environment and Environmentalism in Thailand. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. IGBP Terrestrial Carbon Working Group. 1998. “The Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Implications for the Kyoto Protocol.” Science 28: 1393–94. Iversen et al. 1993. “Carbon Sequestration in Tropical Asia: An Assessment of Technically Suitable Forest Lands Using Geographic Information Systems Analysis.” Climate Research 3: 23–38. Kasischke, E. S., N. L. Christensen, and B. J. Stocks. 1995. “Fire, Global Warming and the Carbon Balance of Boreal Forests.” Ecological Applications 5: 437–451. Kummer, David M. 1992. Deforestation in the Postwar Philippines. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Kurz, W. A. and M. J. Apps. 1995. “An Analysis of Future Carbon Budgets of Canadian Boreal Forests.” Water, Air and Soil Pollution 82: 321–31. Luangramsi, Pinkaew. 1997. “Reconstructing Nature: The Community Forest Movement and Its Challenge to Forest Management in Thailand.” Community Forestry at a Crossroads: Reflections and Future Directions in the Development of Community Forestry. Proceedings of an International Seminar. Bangkok: RECOFTC. Lynch, Owen J., and Kirk Talbott. 1995. Balancing Acts: Community-Based Forest Management and National Law in Asia and Pacific. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute. Magallanes, C. J. I., and M. Hollick, eds. 1998. Land Conflicts in Southeast Asia: Indigenous Peoples, Environment and International Law. Bangkok: White Lotus. Marquez, C. B. 1994. “Equity Assessment of Selected Contract Reforestation Projects in Western Visayas.” MS Thesis, University of the Philippines, Los Baños. Menotti, Victor. 1998. “Globalization and the Acceleration of Forest Destruction Since Rio.” The Ecologist 28, 6: 354-62. Myneni, R. B., C. D. Keeling, C. J. Tucker, G. Asrar, and R. R. Nemani. 1997. “Increased Plant Growth in the Northern High Latitudes from 1981–1991.” Nature 386: 698–702. Ostrom. E. 1999. “Self-governance and Forest Resources.” CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 20. Bogor: Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 145

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Pas-ong S., and L. Lebel 2000. “Political Transformation and the Environment in Southeast Asia.” Environment 42, 8: 8–19. Peluso, Nancy Lee. 1993. “Coercing Conservation: The Politics of State Resource Control.” The State and Social Power in Global Environmental Politics, edited by R. D. Lipschutz and K. Conca. New York: Columbia University Press. Poffenberger M. ed. 1990. Keepers of the Forest: Land Management Alternatives in Southeast Asia. Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Potter, L, and J. Lee. 1998. “Tree Planting in Indonesia: Trends, Impacts and Directions.” CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 18. Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research. Pravongviekham, Phouang Parisak. 1997. “Local Regulatory Systems in Support of the Lao Swidden-Based Farm Economy.” Community Forestry at a Crossroads: Reflections and Future Directions in the Development of Community Forestry. Proceedings of an International Seminar. Bangkok: RECOFTC. Randerson, J. T., C. B. Field, I. Y. Fung, and P. P. Tans. 1999. “Increases in Early Season Net Ecosystem Uptake Explain Changes in the Seasonal Cycle of Atmospheric CO2 at High Northern Latitudes.” Geophysical Research Letters 26: 2765–68. Repetto R. 1988. The Forest for the Trees? Government Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources. World Resources Institute: Washington. Rico, G. A. M. 1996. “Financial Resource Utilization of Selected Community Forestry Projects in Region XI.” MS thesis. Sizer, Nigel, David Downes, and David Kaimowitz. 1999. “Free Trade Liberalization of International Commerce in Forest Products: Risks and Opportunities.” WRI Forest Notes. Stocks, B. J. 1991. “The Extent and Impact of Forest Firest in Northern Circumpolar Countries.” Global Biomass Burning: Atmospheric, Climatic and Biospheric Implications, edited by J. L. Levine. Cambridge: MIT Press. Sunderlin, William D. 1999. “The Effects of Economic Crisis and Political Change on Indonesia’s Forest Sector, 1997–99.” CIFOR Working Paper. Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research. Tickell, O. 1998. “Forest Crisis in Indonesia.” Timber and Wood Products International August: 8. Transparency International. 1999. The 1998 Corruption Perception Index. Berlin: Transparency International. Walker, B. H., W. L. Steffen, J. Canadell, and J. S. I. Ingram, eds. 1999. The Terrestrial Biosphere and Global Change: Implications for Natural and Managed Ecosystems. Synthesis Volume. Cambridge, UK: University Press. Whittaker, R. H. 1975. Communities and Ecosystems. New York: MacMillan. World Resources Institute. 1998. A Guide to the Global Environment, 1998–99. New York: Oxford University Press. World Resources Institute. 1992. A Guide to the Global Environment, 1991–92. New York: Oxford University Press. Young, O., A. Agrawal, L. King, P. Sand, A. Underdal, M. Wasson. 1999. Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change: Science Plan. IHDP Report No. 9. Bonn: IHDP. Zimov, S. A., S. P. Davidov, G. M. Zimova, A. I. Davidova, F. S. Chapin, III, and M. C. Chapin. 1999. “Contribution of Disturbance to High Latitude Amplifaction of Atmospheric CO2.” Science 284: 1973–76.

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Conclusion |

Conclusion

Institutions figure prominently both as causes of global environmental changes and as elements in response strategies designed to solve or manage large-scale environmental problems. Unlike some of the forces that drive global environmental changes, social institutions are human artifacts. They arise from the interactive behavior of human actors, and they are subject to reform or replacement as a result of conscious initiatives on the part of key policymakers. It follows that improving our knowledge of institutions and learning how to put this knowledge to work in the effort to solve specific problems should constitute a high priority among those interested in global environmental change. The IDGEC project should provide substantial contributions to the body of knowledge relating to institutions both through the assessment and synthesis of past research and through the conduct of new research that will enhance our ability to pinpoint the institutional sources of environmental problems and to (re)design effective regimes to alleviate these problems. Given the complexity of human interactions, it would be a mistake to expect this effort to yield a few simple recipes that any well-informed user can use to address a wide array of environmental problems with a high probability of success. The IDGEC project is more likely to produce a body of insights and contingent generalizations that experts in the science and policy communities can use to help diagnose complex problems and prescribe suitable responses. A process leading to the design and implementation of an interlocking set of land-use arrangements to avoid or suppress threats to biodiversity which is based on systematic assessments of successes and failures in prior efforts to regulate various uses of land, for example, is far more likely to contribute to the protection of biological diversity than a process that is informed only by anecdotal evidence collected and employed in an unsystematic fashion. The fact that institutions constitute a crosscutting theme may emerge as a significant asset in this endeavor. This feature of the IDGEC project makes it essential to compare and contrast the roles institutions play in causing and confronting environmental problems both across levels of social organization and across a range of societal settings. As these studies will show in detail, institutional factors can account for a significant proportion of the variance in human impacts on large biogeophysical systems and in human responses to changes in these systems. At the same time, satisfactory accounts of large-scale environmental processes require the development of effective partnerships between those who focus on the institutional dimensions of global environmental change and those concerned with other anthropogenic drivers and with various biogeophysical drivers. Additionally, a focus on institutions encourages the forging of mutually beneficial partnerships between those in the policy community charged with designing and operating regimes and those in the research community seeking to understand factors governing regime performance. To the extent that these efforts to build partnerships bear fruit, we can hope to make progress in sorting out the dynamics of the human-dominated ecosystems that hold the key to improving our comprehension of global environmental change.

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| Key References

10. Key References The scientific literature on social institutions is immense and spans the full range of the social science disciplines. The last several decades have witnessed a striking growth of efforts to bring this literature to bear on issues pertaining to natural resources and the environment, both directly in the form of analyses of resource and environmental regimes and indirectly in the form of analyses dealing with the environmental consequences of economic and political institutions. Part of the development of the IDGEC project has taken the form of the compilation of references to key works on these matters. A selection of the most relevant of these references from the perspective of the IDGEC project follows. For the sake of brevity, this bibliography does not cite individually many important papers included in edited books. Ackerman, Bruce A. and William T. Hassler. 1981. Clean Coal/Dirty Air. New Haven: Yale University Press. Alexander, Ernest R. 1995. How Organizations Act Together: Inter-organizational Coordination in Theory and Practice. Luxembourg: Gordan and Breach. Anton, Thomas. 1989. American Federalism and Public Policy. New York: Random House. Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme. 1997. Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report. Oslo: AMAP. ASEAN. 1992. Resolution on the Environment and Development adopted at the Singapore ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on the Environment. ASEP. 1994/1996. â&#x20AC;&#x153;ASEAN Strategic Plan of Action on the Environment, 1994â&#x20AC;?. Selected ASEAN Documents on the Environment, edited by K. L. Koh. Singapore: APCEL. Axelrod, Robert. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Axelrod, Robert. 1997. The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Baland, Jean-Marie, and Jean-Phillippe Platteau. 1996. Halting Degradation of Natural Resources: Is There a Role for Rural Communities? Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barber, C. 1989. Institutional Issues in Environment and Natural Resources Management for the Asia Region. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute. Bateman, S., and S. Bates eds. 1996. Calming the Waters: Initiatives for Asia Pacific Maritime Cooperation. Canberra: ANU Press. Bates, Robert H. 1989. Beyond the Miracle of the Market: The Political Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya. New York: Cambridge University Press. Behnke, R. H., Jr., I. Scoones, and C. Kerven eds. 1993. Range Ecology at Disequilibrium: New Models of Natural Variability and Pastoral Adaptation in African Savannas. London: Overseas Development Institute. Benedick, Richard 1991, rev. 1998. Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Berkes, Fikret ed. 1989. Common Property Resources: Ecology and Community-Based Sustainable Development. London: Belhaven. Berkes, Fikret, and Carl Folke eds. 1998. Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bloomquist, William 1992. Dividing the Waters: Governing Groundwater in Southern California. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies. Brennan, Geoffrey, and James M. Buchanan. 1985. The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 148 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Key References |

Broadus, James M, and Raphael V. Vartanov eds. 1994. The Oceans and Environmental Security: Shared U.S. and Russian Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Bromley, Daniel W. 1991. Environment and Economy: Property Rights and Public Policy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Bromley, Daniel ed. 1992. Making the Commons Work: Theory, Practice, and Policy. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies. Brookfield, H., and B. Byron eds. 1993. Southeast Asia’s Environmental Future: The Search for Sustainability. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Cameron, O. K. 1997. “Japan and Environmental Change in Southeast Asia.” Southeast Asia: People, Politics and Sustainable Development, edited by M. Parnwell and R. Bryant. London: Routledge. Campbell, John L., J. Rogers Hollingsworth, and Leon N. Lindberg eds. 1991. Governance of the American Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaire en Droit de l’Environnement, de l’Amenagment et de l’Urbanisme. 1997. Les Institutions Crees par des Conventions Internationales Relatives à la Protection de l’Environnement. Limoges: Faculte de Droit et des Sciences Economiques, Universite de Limoges. Charnovitz, Steve. 1993. “A Taxonomy of Environmental Trade Measures.” Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, 6: 1-46. Charnovitz, Steve. 1996. “Trade Measures and the Design of International Regimes.” Journal of Environment and Development, 5: 168-196. Chayes, Abram, and Antonia Handler Chayes. 1995. The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Clark, Colin W. 1990. Mathematical Bioeconomics. New York: John Wiley. Clark, W. C. and R. E. Munn eds. 1986. Sustainable Development of the Biosphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, W. C., J. Van Eijndoven, and J. Jaeger eds. 2001. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks: A Comparative History of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Acid Rain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clark, William Roberts. 1998. “Agents and Structures: Two Views of Preferences, Two Views of Institutions.” International Studies Quarterly 42: 245-270. Claude, Inis L., Jr. 1988. States and the Global System: Politics, Law and Organization. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Cleveland, Cutler, Robert Costanza, Thrainn Eggertsson, Louise Fortmann, Bobbi Low, Margaret McKean, Elinor Ostrom, James Wilson, and Oran R. Young. 1996. “A Framework for Modeling the Linkages between Ecosystems and Human Systems.” Beijer Discussion Paper Series No. 76, Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics. Coase, Ronald. 1960. “The Problem of Social Cost.” Journal of Law and Economics 3: 1-44. Cooper, Richard N. 1989. “International Cooperation in Public Health as a Prologue to Macroeconomic Cooperation.” Can Nations Agree? Issues in International Economic Cooperation, edited by Richard N. Cooper et al.. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 178-254. Costanza, Robert and Carl Folke. 1996. “The Structure and Function of Ecological Systems in Relation to Property-Rights Regimes.“ Rights to Nature, edited by Susan S. Hanna, Carl Folke, and Karl-Goran Mäler. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Daly, G. ed. 1997. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 149

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Darst, Robert. 1997. “The Internationalization of Environmental Protection in the USSR and Its Successor States.” The Internationalization of Environmental Protection, edited by Miranda A. Schreurs and Elizabeth C. Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dawes, Robyn. 1980. “Social Dilemmas.” Annual Review of Psychology 31: 169-193. Dawes, Robyn M, John M. Orbell, and Alphons van de Kragt. 1986. “Organizing Groups for Collective Action.” American Political Science Review 80: 1171-1185. diPrimio, Juan Carlos 1996. “Monitoring and Verification in the European Air Pollution Regime.” Working Paper 96-47, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Dovers, Stephen R. 1995. “A Framework for Scaling and Framing Policy Problems in Sustainability.” Ecological Economics 12: 93-106. Downs, Anthony. 1972. “Up and Down with Ecology - the ‘Issue-Attention Cycle.’” The Public Interest 28: 38-50. Downs, George W., David Rocke, and Peter Barsoom. 1996. “Is the Good News about Compliance Good News about Cooperation?” International Organization 50: 379-406. Eggertsson, Thrainn. 1990. Economic Behavior and Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ehleringer, James R. and Christopher B. Fields eds. 1993. Scaling Physiological Process: Leaf to Globe. New York: Academic Press. Ellickson, Robert C. 1991. Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Fienup-Riordan, Ann. 1990. Eskimo Essays: Yup’ik Lives and How We See Them. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Fondahl, Gail. 1998. Gaining Ground? Evenkis, Land, and Reform in Southeastern Siberia. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Fox, Jefferson. 1992. “The Problem of Scale in Community Resource Management.” Environmental Management 16: 289-297. Freeman, M. M. R. and L. N. Carbyn eds. 1988. Traditional Knowledge and Renewable Resource Management in Northern Regions. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute Furubotn, Erik and Rudolf Richter eds. 1991. The New Institutional Economics. College Station: Texas A and M University Press. Gadgil, M., F. Berkes, and C. Folke. 1993. “Indigenous Knowledge for Biodiversity Conservation.” Ambio 22: 151-156. Gehring, Thomas. 1994. Dynamic International Regimes: Institutions for International Environmental Governance. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Gibson, Clark, Elinor Ostrom, and Toh-Kyeong Ahn. 1998. “Scaling Issues in the Social Sciences.” IHDP Working Paper No. 1. Bonn: IHDP. Goodin, Robert ed. 1996. The Theory of Institutional Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gowdy, John ed. 1998. Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on HunterGatherer Economics and the Environment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Gunderson, L., C. S. Holling, and S. Light eds. 1995. Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. New York: Columbia University Press. Haas, Peter M. ed. 1997. Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Haas, Peter M., Robert O. Keohane, and Marc A. Levy eds. 1993. Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection. Cambridge: MIT Press. 150 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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Haigh, Nigel. 1996. “Sustainable Development’ in the European Union Treaties.” International Environmental Affairs 8: 87-91. Hanna, Susan S., Carl Folke, and Karl-Goran Mäler eds. 1996. Rights to Nature: Ecological, Economic, Cultural, and Political Principles of Institutions for the Environment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Hardin, Garrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162: 1243-1248. Hardin, Garrett, and John Baden eds. 1977. Managing the Commons. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. Hardin, Russell. 1982. Collective Action. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hayek, Friedrich A. 1973. Rules and Order, vol. 1 of Law, Legislation, and Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Holling, C. S. 1973. “Resilience and Stability of Ecosystems.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4: 1-23. Holling, C. S. and Steven Sanderson. 1996. “Dynamics of (Dis)harmony in Ecological and Social Systems.” Rights to Nature, edited by Susan S. Hanna, Carl Folke, and Karl-Goran Mäler. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Hurst, James Willard. 1964. Law and Economic Growth: The Legal History of the Lumber Industry in Wisconsin, 1836-1915. Washington, D.C.: Belknap Press. IHDP. 1997. IHDP Update 1/97. Bonn: International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change. Imperiali, Claude ed. 1998. L’Effectivite de Droit International de l’Environnement. Paris: Economica. Ives, J. D. and B. Messerli. 1989. The Himalayan Dilemma: Reconciling Development and Conservation. London: Routledge. Jaenicke, Martin, and Helmut Weidner eds. 1997. National Environmental Policies: A Comparative Study of Capacity-Building. Berlin: Springer. Kasperson, Jeanne X., Roger E. Kasperson, and B. L. Turner II eds. 1995. Regions at Risk: Comparisons of Threatened Environments. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Keohane, Robert O. and Elinor Ostrom eds. 1995. Local Commons and Global Interdependence: Heterogeneity and Cooperation in Two Domains. London: Sage Publications. Kerr, Richard A. 1998. “Acid Rain Control: Success on the Cheap.” Science 282: 10241027. King, Leslie A. 1997. “Institutional Interplay: Research Questions.” Background paper prepared for the IDGEC project. Kneese, Allen V. and Charles L. Schultz. 1975. Pollution, Prices, and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution. Knight, Jack. 1992. Institutions and Social Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, K. N. 1993. “Greed, Scale Mismatch, and Learning.” Ecological Applications 3: 560-564. Levi, Margaret. 1988. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press. Levin, S. A. 1992. “The Problem of Pattern and Scale in Ecology.” Ecology 73: 19431967. Levy, Marc A., Oran R. Young, and Michael Zürn. 1995. “The Study of International Regimes.” European Journal of International Relations 1: 267-330. Lichbach, Mark Irving. 1996. The Cooperator’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 151

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11. Acronyms and Abbreviations AAUs AFTA APCEL

Assigned Amount Units ASEAN Free Trade Area Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law

ASEAN

Association of Southeast Asian Nations

BMBF

German Ministry for Science, Research and Technology

CDM CERs

Clean Development Mechanism Certified Emission Reductions

CFCs

Chlorofluorocarbons

CIESIN

Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network

CIPEC

Centre for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change

CITES

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

CMRA COSSA

Carbon Management Research Activity Consortium of Social Science Associations

CPRs

Common Pool Resources

DIVERSITAS

International Programme of Biodiversity Science

EIA

Environmental Impact Assessment

EMEP

Environmental Monitoring and Evaluation Programme

ENRICH

European Network for Research in Global Change

ERUs ET

Emission Reduction Units Emissions Trading

European Union

156 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Acronyms and Abbreviations

FAO

Food and Agriculture Organisation

FIELD

Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development

GATT

General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs

GCTE

Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems, IGBP project

GEC

Global Environmental Change

GECHS

Global Environmental Change and Human Security, IHDP project

GEF

Global Environment Facility

GLP

Global Land Project, joint IGBP/IHDP project

GHGs

Emissions of greenhouse gases

HDP

Human Dimensions Programme (former IHDP)

IASC

International Arctic Science Committee

IASCP

International Association for the Study of Common Property

ICSU

International Council of Scientific Unions

IDGEC

Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, IHDP project

IFRI

International Forestry Resources and Institutions

IGBP

International Geosphere - Biosphere Programme

IGFA

International Group of Funding Agencies

IHDP

International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change

IIASA

International Institute for Applied System Analysis

ILO

International Labour Organisation

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IPO

International Project Office

IRD

International Regimes Database

IRRI

International Rice Research Institute

ISA

International Studies Association

ISSC

International Social Science Council

Industrial Transformation, IHDP project

ITTO

International Tropical Timber Organisation

IUCN

World Conservation Union

JI KP LMEs

Joint Implementation Kyoto Protocol Large Marine Ecosystems

LOICZ

Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone, IGBP project

LOIRA

Land-Ocean Interactions in the Russian Arctic, IASC project

LOSC

Law of the Sea Convention

LUCC

Land-Use and Land-Cover Change, joint IGBP/IHDP project

MAI

Multilateral Agreement on Investments

NACEC

North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation

NAFTA

North American Free Trade Agreement

NEAFC NGOs

Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Convention Nongovernmental organizations Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change | 157

| Acronyms and Abbreviations

NSF

National Science Foundation

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

PEF

The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests

POPs

Persistent Organic Pollutants

SARCS

Southeast Asian Regional Committee for START

Scientific Committee

SPC

Scientific Planning Committee

SSC

Scientific Steering Committee

START

SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training

SULMAR

Sustainable Uses of Living Marine Resources

TEK

Traditional Ecological Knowledge

TNCs

Transnational Corporations

TVA

Tennessee Valley Authority

UNCED

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

UNCLOS

United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea

UNCSD

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

UNEP

United Nations Environment Programme

UNFCCC WCRP

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change World Climate Research Programme

WTO

World Trade Organisation

158 | Science Plan - Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

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