Ozone Depletion And Climate Change: Constructing A Global Response 079146525X, 9780791465257, 9781423749264

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

SUNY series in Global Politics James N. Rosenau, editor

A complete listing of books in this series can be found at the end of this volume.

Ozone Depletion and Climate Change Constructing a Global Response

Matthew J. Hoffmann

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2005 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2384 Production by Kelli Williams Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoffmann, Matthew J., 1972– Ozone depletion and climate change: constructing a global response / Matthew J. Hoffmann. p. c.m. — (SUNY series in global politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0/7914-6525-X (hardcover: alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-6526-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Ozone layer depletion—Environmental aspects. 2. Climate changes— International cooperation. 3. Environmental management—International cooperation. I. Title. II. Series. QC879.7.H64 2005 363.738'75526—dc22

2004024571 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents List of Illustrations

vii

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

List of Abbreviations

xiii

List of Interviewees

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Chapter 1

Participation Matters: Governing Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

Chapter 2

Alternative Stories: Explaining the Rise and Evolution of Universal Participation

21

Chapter 3

The Verbal Model: Adaptation and the Norm Life Cycle

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Chapter 4

Modeling the Norm Life Cycle

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Chapter 5

Ozone Depletion: The Emergence of Universal Participation

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CONTENTS

Chapter 6

The Governance of Climate Change I: Universal Participation and the Framework Convention on Climate Change

123

Chapter 7

A New Global Response? The Evolution of Universal Participation and the Governance of Climate Change

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Chapter 8

The Complexity of Constructing a Global Response

187

Notes

201

Works Cited

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Index

249

SUNY series in Global Politics

257

List of Illustrations Figure 1.1

Steps of Analysis

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Figure 4.1

Schematic of the Model

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Figure 4.2

Population Predictions—Low Noise, No Entrepreneur

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Figure 4.3

Population Predictions—High Noise, No Entrepreneur

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Figure 4.4

Population Predictions—Low Noise, Entrepreneur Present

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Figure 4.5

Population Predictions—High Noise, Entrepreneur Present

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Figure 4.6

Public Rule Usage in Population

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Table 4.1

Effect of the Reach of the Norm Entrepreneur

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Table 7.1

COP 1–3 at a Glance

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Preface Ozone depletion and climate change present the international community with enormous governance challenges. Given the large stakes involved with mitigating or living with ozone depletion and climate change, it is no wonder that the governance of these problems is a crucial concern on the world political stage. Conventionally, studies focus on economic costs and benefits and/or scientific knowledge in their analyses of environmental governance. In contrast, this study is driven by a fundamental curiosity about the social foundations of global environmental governance. Specifically, I find it crucial to uncover how actors understand and frame the problems that they face before attempting to explain the negotiations, treaties, rules, and institutions that most consider to be the stuff of governance. Norms form this social foundation, shaping which actors participate, how they view “problems,” and how they approach solutions. Therefore, examining the evolution of social norms is a necessary aspect of explaining how global environmental governance has unfolded and will unfold in the future. This book investigates the foundations of global environmental governance for ozone depletion and climate change, tracing the evolution of participation norms—what states are required to participate in governance solutions—and examining how these understandings have shaped the global response to these crucial problems. The analysis is informed by constructivist thought about the emergence and evolution of norms as well as insights from the study of complex adaptive systems. Combining these two approaches allows me to integrate macro level change in the normative context through the norm life cycle with micro level change in actors through a process of complex adaptation. The result is an enhanced understanding of social norm dynamics and thus the foundations of governance. ix

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PREFACE

Methodologically, the book undertakes both formal analysis in the form of agent-based computer simulation models and qualitative case studies, and it thus contains my plea for methodological eclecticism. We should not be thinking in terms of either formal analysis or case studies. Instead, the formal analysis enhances the empirical analysis, and in turn the empirical analysis informs modeling efforts. Solid analysis of global governance entails a recursive process of theorizing, modeling, and empirical investigation. This book reports my efforts at both modeling fundamental insights about the evolution of social norms and applying the insights in detailed case analysis of the governance of ozone depletion and climate change. The integration of multiple methods provides a much fuller picture than either method could have independently. The theory and methods combine to tell a story of the emergence and evolution of participation norms and the cooperation and contestation that ensued in the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations between 1986 and 2004. It is my hope that such an analysis will, in some small way, lead to more effective global responses to these and other environmental problems.

Acknowledgements I could not have completed this research and volume without the benefit of the expertise and aid of numerous people. I would be remiss if I did not thank Mary Durfee for diverting me from environmental engineering and sending me into the world of IR. At The George Washington University, Marty Finnemore, Jim Rosenau, and Susan Sell provided incredible support and guidance throughout the research process. Their advice and encouragement have been a continual source of motivation and direction. Marty deserves special credit for reading innumerable drafts, for her inexhaustible patience with a young scholar, and for her always invaluable advice. I owe my interest in complexity theory to Jim Rosenau who has been an inspiration in uncountable ways. Susan worked with me on this project from its first (very humble) beginnings and has been an incredible source of support throughout. I am grateful to my colleagues (faculty and students) at The George Washington University, Indiana University, and the University of Delaware for creating stimulating academic atmospheres. A number of people deserve special thanks for their insights and suggestions on earlier manifestations of this book in drafts and conference papers: Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, Ian Lustick, Audie Klotz, John Riley, Jack Moran, Kelly Kollman, Terry Casey, Jackie McClaren, Maurits Van der Veen, Tyrone Simpson, Steve Wolcott, and David Johnson. Joe Tonon has been a sounding board, resource, and friend throughout this project. Alice Ba took on the onerous task of reviewing multiple drafts of most of this volume and her insights and suggestions have been invaluable. The commentary of the anonymous reviewers at SUNY was detailed and incredibly important in helping craft my arguments and the presentation of this book, and I thoroughly appreciate the work of Michael Rinella and Kelli Williams in sheparding me through the xi

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

publication process. Finally, I want to thank Lisa Daniels, Karen McClelland, Ammar Wasfi, and especially Atsuko Yokoburi for research assistance and Davy Banks for his work on the index. All are blameless in any ambiguity or mistakes that remain. My interest in complexity theory and agent-based modeling would have come to naught if it wasn’t for the advice and aid of Rob Axtell. In addition, this research was enhanced by participating in the Santa Fe Institute’s Complex Systems Summer School. For help in improving my computer modeling skills, I would like to acknowledge my modeling group colleagues at the Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis and the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change at Indiana University, Hugh Kelley, Dawn Parker, Tom Evans, and especially Elinor Ostrom for her constant encouragement. Financially, I would like to acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation through the Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the Biocomplexity Initiative grant at CIPEC (Grant # SES0083511). A General University Research grant from the University of Delaware allowed me to hone the computer model and significantly improve this volume. Parts of the argument developed further in this book appeared first in “Constructing a Complex World: The Frontiers of International Relations Theory and Foreign-Policy Making.” Asian Journal of Political Science 11 (2) (December 2003): 37–57, and in “Entrepreneurs and the Emergence and Evolution of Social Norms.” in 3rd Workshop on Agent-Based Simulation, edited by Christoph Urban, Ghent, Belgium: SCS-Europe. I would like to thank Marshall Cavendish International and SCS-Europe respectively for permission to include the material. Finally, I could not have completed this project without the support of my parents, and most importantly the constant support and intellectual partnership of Lena Mortensen, my best friend and wife.

Abbreviations ABM CBDR CCOL CDM CFC EPA ET FCCC GEF INC IPCC JI KP MP NGO NRDC OECD OMB SWCC UNEP WMO

Agent-Based Modeling Common but Differentiated Responsibilities Co-ordinating Committee on the Ozone Layer Clean Development Mechanism Chlorofluorocarbon U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Emissions Trading Framework Convention on Climate Change Global Environmental Facility Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Joint Implementation Kyoto Protocol Montreal Protocol Nongovernmental Organization Natural Resources Defense Council Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Office of Budget and Management Second World Climate Conference United Nations Environment Program World Meteorological Organization

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Officials Interviewed for the Project Stephen Anderson—December 12, 1997 (former director of Technology Transfer and Industry Programs, EPA Global Change Division; director, Strategic Climate Projects, EPA) Frederick Bernthal—September 29, 1999 (former Assistant Secretary of State, OES, 1988–1990 IPCC Working Group II Chair, 1990–1991) Sue Biniaz—December 3, 1998 (Legal Advisor, U.S. Department of State, OES Bureau) Eileen Claussen—January 26, 1999 (former director EPA Atmospheric and Indoor Air Programs and former Assistant Secretary of State, OES) David Doniger—September 29, 1999 (former counsel National Resources Defense Council) Corrina Gilfallin—October 28, 1997 (Friends of the Earth) Paul Horwitz—November 20, 1997, and July 21, 1999 (Policy analyst for UNEP’s Ozone Secretariat (1989–1990); international advisor, EPA Global Change Division (1990–1993)) Richard Morgenstern—May 10, 1999 (former Deputy Assistant Administrator U.S. EPA, Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation) Alan Miller—October 11, 1999 (former counsel for National Resources Defense Council; currently at World Bank, Global Environment Facility) William Nitze—July 22, 1999 (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, former Assistant Administrator, U.S. EPA, International Affairs Office)

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OFFICIALS INTERVIEWED FOR THE PROJECT

Daniel Reifsnyder—January 25, 1999 (director, Office of Global Change, U.S. State Department, OES Bureau) Stephen Seidell—October 28, 1997, and September 30, 1999 (former senior analyst, EPA Air Office, former member White House Climate Change Task Force)

Chapter One Participation Matters Governing Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

The US desires an integrated climate change treaty, “designed to involve all nations and dynamically reflect and incorporate each nation’s unique circumstances into the development of a truly global response strategy.” —Testimony of Richard Morgenstern, Deputy Assistant Administrator U.S. EPA, 1991 With the Bush administration on the sidelines, the world’s leading countries hammered out a compromise agreement today finishing a treaty that for the first time would formally require industrialized countries to cut emissions of gases linked to global warming. The agreement, which was announced here today after three days of marathon bargaining, rescued the Kyoto Protocol, the preliminary accord framed in Japan in 1997, that was the first step toward requiring cuts in such gases. That agreement has been repudiated by President Bush, who has called it “fatally flawed,” saying it places too much of the cleanup burden on industrial countries and would be too costly to the American economy. —New York Times, 24 July 2001

1

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE GLOBAL? Notwithstanding a common misconception, global is more than a place and it is more than a mere description of the extent or scope of an environmental problem. Modifying environmental problems with the adjective “global” is generally shorthand for expressing that the problem is beyond the control of individual nation-states, that it constitutes something new in the international arena, and/or that it will require international collective action if we are to solve it. The label “global” conveys the very characteristics that make global environmental governance both fascinating and challenging. The label “global” also signifies important ideas about participation in governance processes aimed at solving a given problem. To say “a global response” or “a global solution” implies answers to the crucial question: Who should participate? Conventionally, invoking the global label implies that all states should participate in governance processes— universal participation. The idea of universal participation is, in fact, so embedded in our analyses and consciousness that it is rarely questioned or examined when considering problems such as ozone depletion or climate change; it is simply a de facto characteristic of these problems. This is curious. Across global environmental problems, there has been a wide diversity of participation requirements and understandings. Far from exhibiting a single and obvious way to approach environmental problems with geographically expansive scope, participation in governance processes is actually a contested and inherently dynamic concept. A review of the environmental problems featured in this analysis, ozone depletion and climate change, makes it abundantly clear that these global environmental problems have required different levels of participation over time. The configurations of actors that composed the necessary global responses have been far from stable in the ozone depletion and climate change issues. Before 1987, the global ozone depletion problem only required the participation of between twenty-five and thirty, mostly Northern states in governance processes.1 By 1990, the international community understood the ozone depletion problem to require universal participation, and more than 100 states participated in governance activities through the 1990s. Also in 1990, at the very beginning of the formal negotiations, global climate change required universal participation. However, eleven years later this understanding came under assault with the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol process. Even cursory observation uncovers two major transitions in required participation levels for these global environmental problems: • A transition from global meaning North-only to global meaning universal participation occurred during the ozone depletion negotiations after 1987. The latter understanding of global envi-

Participation Matters

3

ronmental problems locked in throughout the international community and significantly shaped states’ understandings of climate change. Universal participation thus defined participation requirements for the early climate change governance processes, which culminated in the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) in 1992. • Contestation over the meaning of universal participation erupted in the wake of the FCCC negotiations and two divergent understandings of a global response emerged. One side argues that universal means that all states should participate in the negotiations, but that Northern states should take the first concrete actions toward mitigation of the problem (North First). The other side argues for binding commitments for all participants (Universal Commitment). Clearly, the global response to ozone depletion and climate change has changed over time as the international community’s understanding of participation requirements in governance processes has changed over time. This book seeks to explain this evolution by examining the global governance process in both the ozone depletion and climate change issues. I focus dually on the most important state in both issues—the United States—as well as on the international community as a whole. Two sets of questions compose the driving puzzles and frame the analysis of the book: • How can we account for changing U.S. positions on participation in the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations from 1985 to the present represented by the epigraphs that begin this chapter? Why did the United States come to accept/advocate for universal participation in the late 1980s and then (apparently) reject universal participation by withdrawing from the Kyoto process in 2001? • Why do we see variations in participation requirements in the international community from 1985 to the present? The questions can be distilled into a single concern: Who participates in governance activities? Answering this question is more than an academic exercise. How actors in the international community understand the answer is of vital importance as participation requirements are at the foundation of global governance processes. How states understand the global response sets boundaries on governance processes shaping actors’ definitions of the problems, actors’ negotiating strategies, the debates that emerge, and ultimately, the outcomes achieved. It is impossible to give a full accounting of the governance of either ozone

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

depletion or climate change without explaining how participation requirements have changed over time and how they have shaped the governance processes. Unfortunately, the literature on environmental politics, global governance, and international relations has paid too little attention to questions of participation. The level of participation required for specific issues and negotiations is often assumed and taken for granted, rather than explained. Ignoring this facet of the governance of ozone depletion and climate change is a mistake. The governance of these issues cannot be separated from fundamental understandings of who should participate2 and thus neither can our explanations of governance be separated from an explanation of participation. In the pages that follow, I draw upon social constructivist thought and insights from the study of complex systems3 to develop an explanation for the dynamic meaning of global—how and why the United States and the international community’s understandings of required participation have changed over time. In so doing, I develop a full picture of the governance of these issues. I demonstrate that participation is socially constructed by the adaptive actors that participate in the governance processes. Understandings of who should participate are governed by international social norms that emerge through the actions and interactions of such actors. The analysis details the dynamic transitions in participation requirements as well as the effects that those requirements had (and continue to have) on the governance of these issues. I demonstrate that Mostafa Tolba, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), emerged as a norm entrepreneur in the ozone depletion negotiations in the 1980s. Tolba advanced the novel understanding that ozone depletion required universal participation. This idea became a social norm and spread through the international community, becoming locked in and taken for granted between 1987 and 1990. When the climate change negotiations began in the early 1990s, the international community drew upon the internalized norm of universal participation in defining climate change. However, universal participation is open to numerous interpretations. In the 1990s, contestation over the meaning of universal participation, spurred by U.S. entrepreneurial efforts, would signal another transition in participation requirements. In short, I explain how evolving participation requirements emerged and how they influenced U.S. strategies and behaviors, as well as the debates and outcomes of the governance processes—how participation requirements changed over time and why participation matters. Explaining evolving participation requirements and demonstrating why participation matters, also contributes to a larger project—developing a new way to approach global governance itself. By focusing on foundational social norms and utilizing a complex systems perspective, this

Participation Matters

5

book offers a novel way to navigate the complicated terrain of global governance. A combined social constructivist and complex systems approach proves useful for explaining the specific empirical pattern of evolving participation requirements and is thus potentially useful for a diverse range of global governance issues in environmental politics and beyond. The rest of this chapter serves to set the stage for the story of participation in ozone depletion and climate change. I first address global governance and my approach to it, examining the concept of global governance, the importance of social norms, and the justification for focusing on participation. I then focus on the empirical pattern under investigation—dynamic notions of a global response. This section provides an overview of the governance of ozone depletion and climate change and details the transitions in participation requirements in the last two decades. The third section elaborates on the norms-based arguments and provides an overview of the steps in the analysis.

APPROACHING GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Global Governance This study is explicitly concerned with the global governance of ozone depletion and climate change. Unfortunately, a statement like that often conveys very little information as many global governance studies begin with a standard apology or criticism: The rubric of “global governance” is akin to “post-cold war,” which signifies that one period has ended but that we do not as yet have an accurate short-hand to depict the essential dynamics of the new epoch.4 Far from becoming clearer with use, it [governance] currently serves as a catchall term sometimes associated with the notion of “regime,” sometimes with the concept of ‘global order” . . .5 A cottage industry has emerged in the literature dedicated to defining global governance, decrying the lack of definition, or critiquing the entire global governance enterprise.6 Multiple pages could be filled by merely listing the definitions and critiques that abound in the literature. Suffice it to say that there are as many definitions of global governance (GG) as there are perspectives on world politics. Fortunately, the conceptual clutter that surrounds GG is not impenetrable and it is possible to identify what an analysis of global governance entails. At the risk of oversimplification, all definitions have to have two aspects: form and process.7 The first aspect is GG as a noun—something

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

to be achieved: control, government, management, solutions to a problem, rule systems, norms, or projects. The second aspect is GG as a verb—the process that leads to achievement (or not) of global governance (as noun, however conceived). In other words, all definitions of global governance must include (implicit or explicit) understandings of structure and process. Therefore a broad definition is possible: Global governance consists of the processes through which rules (broadly conceived) are constructed, maintained, and changed in political spaces that lack central authority.8 It is clear that global governance studies are concerned with how patterned behavior is achieved in anarchic political spaces—with the emergence of rules, be they treaties, bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements, international customary law, or norms. Further, the emphasis of study is the processes that lead to or influence the emergence of these patterns. In this study, I focus explicitly on how the “global” in global governance has been constructed in ozone depletion and climate change, and the effects that this has had on the form of governance achieved for these two problems. I explain how rules governing participation emerged and changed over time, and how they influenced a more conventional form of governance—multilateral agreements.

Global Governance, Norms, and Complex Systems The approach developed in this book is explicitly social constructivist. Thus, the primary focus is on the social construction of the context for more traditional GG activities. My focus is on the socially constructed conditions that provide the contours for multilateral negotiations.9 Social norms provide definitions of the issues involved. They shape what actors consider to be appropriate courses of action and possible outcomes. My approach to GG thus begins by explaining the conditions that enable and constrain more concrete governance activities—bargaining among states, institutional effects of the UN and other international organizations, and influence of non-state actors. I assume that a full accounting of these latter activities is predicated on a full understanding of the development and evolution of the norms at their foundation. Further, the analysis developed in the chapters that follow demonstrates that “successful” governance requires a solid normative foundation—intersubjective agreement on the appropriate global response. Grasping foundational social norms requires an explanatory framework that allows for the dynamic interaction of the rules of GG (social norms in this case) and the interests/values of the actors involved.10 Such a framework is not restricted to constructivism. Recent, self-labeled GG and “Governance without Government” theorists attempt to incorporate such

Participation Matters

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interactions. They stress the complex emergence of rule-systems driven by the actors in the system, who are, in turn, evolving as they experience life in the system.11 Though impressive theoretical and empirical strides are evident in both GG and constructivist studies, they too often lack explicit frameworks that link rules and actors. Their explanations of the emergence and evolution of social norms at the foundation of GG activities can be enhanced by adopting a complex systems perspective (detailed explicitly in chapter 3). The study of complex systems, or complexity theory, provides a set of ideas and insights about the mechanisms through which agents interact with their environment, changing both in the process.12 Bringing a complex systems perspective together with social constructivism facilitates a full accounting of the development and evolution of foundational social norms, readily applicable to the participation norms that are the empirical target of this analysis.

Global Governance and Participation Participation norms shape the boundaries for the GG of ozone depletion and climate change in important ways and thus need to be included in our analyses.13 First, very simply, explaining the concrete governance activities for ozone depletion and climate change requires a prior understanding of participation requirements. Though rarely negotiated formally, participation norms provide the foundation for other governance processes— multilateral bargaining especially—shaping the governance agenda, the actors’ strategies/behaviors, and the outcomes. The level of participation associated with the label global influences who sits at the negotiating table, what issues are discussed, and thus how global governance structures ultimately evolve. Two implications are crucially important:14 • Development concerns (Right to Development, Financial and Technological Transfer) have always been a part of U.S. negotiating positions for climate change as well as an important component of the international community’s agenda. The United States began the climate change negotiations with an understanding that development would be linked to the climate change negotiations. However, this linkage cannot be explained without referring to a prior understanding of universal participation. Without a universal participation norm in place, Southern states did not have the bargaining leverage necessary to force this linkage. Instead, it is attributable to the universal participation norm and precedent set in the ozone depletion negotiations. • The United States has often been criticized for failing to pursue significant actions to curb climate change the problem. U.S.

8

Ozone Depletion and Climate Change recalcitrance in the late 1980s as well as today is an immutable fact—the United States has not been a climate leader. However, what was clear throughout the early climate change negotiations that led to the FCCC, as well as the latter post–Kyoto Protocol negotiations was that U.S. stalling, delaying, and obstinate strategies were all based on a prior understanding of climate change as a problem requiring universal participation. Universal participation has been at the foundation of the debates between the United States and the EU and between the United States and South.

Second, explaining, rather than assuming, participation requirements avoids the tendency to reify current or obvious understandings of the problems being addressed. Today’s obvious notions of a global response, such as universal participation, have not always been the obvious way to approach global environmental problems such as ozone depletion and climate change—a number of environmental problems with a global scope were approached with less-than-universal negotiations. In addition, obvious approaches may not be the best approaches. Third, “obvious” requirements or phenomena in world politics always need to be explained as they inevitably cease to be obvious eventually. For instance, if we are to understand how the climate change negotiations might change course (an especially pertinent concern given the second Bush administration’s turn away from multilateral approaches) we need to understand how participation requirements evolved to that point. Governance processes are always wrapped up with participation requirements, and ozone depletion and climate change are no exceptions. If we hope to explain the GG of these problems, both historically and as they unfold today, we must firmly grasp the dynamic evolution of participation requirements.

PARTICIPATION IN OZONE DEPLETION AND CLIMATE CHANGE Ozone depletion and climate change15 were the first global atmospheric problems to confront the international community—global in the sense of the scope of the problems. They are similar problems in that they are caused by anthropogenic emissions of gases, but vastly different in their complexity and in the difficulty of achieving solutions. They have been joined together in the public imagination (often being confused for one another), and the governance of ozone depletion is often discussed as a precedent for the governance of climate change.16 To set the stage for my arguments about participation, this section provides a broad overview of

Participation Matters

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ozone depletion and climate change—how the international community came to understand these problems and how it has dealt with them.

Global Environmental Problems and Participation Ozone depletion and climate change are significant entries on the growing list of international or global environmental problems that the international community has recognized in the last three decades. Since the 1970s, a number of environmental problems have been labeled international or global—acid rain, decline in whale populations, seabed mining/ocean pollution, biodiversity loss/endangered species, and trade in toxic waste among others. These problems are among the most daunting and important issues facing the international community. They span boundaries and thus do not fit well into a system of states defined by sovereign borders. Solving the problems thus inherently requires collective action. The international community has attempted the necessary collective action or global response in numerous ways since global or international environmental problems rose to prominence: the International Whaling Commission, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, Law of the Sea, the Basel Convention (Hazardous Waste), Law of the Sea, and the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances, to name a few. These agreements and conventions represent the diverse approaches for addressing global environmental problems—extant approaches run the gamut from bilateral agreements, to small-scale multilateral agreements (among mostly Northern states or only among the states that contribute to the problem), to large-scale multilateral negotiations that approached universal participation. There was no obvious way to approach global environmental problems, and yet in the 1980s and 1990s, the international community locked in to universal participation as the appropriate way to address ozone depletion and climate change and other global environmental problems.17

Lock-in Around Universal Participation The story of the lock-in around universal participation begins with the international community’s efforts to address ozone depletion—and the transition that occurred in 1987. The context for this transition was the initial recognition of the problem and the initial North-only participation requirements at the foundation of early governance efforts. Ozone depletion is caused by a simple reaction of ozone molecules and the chlorine found in a certain class of chemicals, the most important of which are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).18 In essence, chlorine breaks ozone molecules and starts a chain reaction that can last for years. This chemical reaction is of interest because stratospheric ozone absorbs the ultraviolet (UV) part of solar radiation. UV radiation causes skin cancer and can severely damage plant life. Thus, a thin layer of ozone molecules

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change

protects humanity from skin cancer and agricultural catastrophe—a layer under siege from synthetic chemicals.19 The potential for ozone depletion was recognized in the 1970s and caught the imagination of the international scientific community. Numerous studies were undertaken in the late 1970s and early 1980s, designed to ascertain if ozone depletion was happening and if CFCs were the culprit. The sense of urgency exploded in 1985 when the British first discovered the Antarctic ozone “hole”—a significant thinning of the ozone layer or drop in the ozone levels (up to 30 percent).20 This was the first confirmation that indeed the ozone layer was being depleted— though, crucially, this discovery did not prove the hypothesized connection between ozone depletion and CFCs. However, the evidence for this connection began to accumulate. In 1986 a NASA/World Meteorological Organization (WMO)/United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report found that the concentrations of the two most important CFC chemicals (CFC 11, CFC 12) had doubled between 1975 and 1985, and they confirmed that these chemicals were long-lived in the atmosphere.21 Finally, in March 1988, the Ozone Trends Panel, a NASA-sponsored group of international scientists, concluded both that the ozone layer was being depleted and that CFCs were the cause.22 From this point forward, the scientific questions became how much depletion, how fast, and what could be done to stop and reverse the depletion; the debates surrounding the ozone-CFC connection evaporated. The political response to ozone depletion that paralleled the scientific activities was not recognizable as a “global” response in the way that we think of global responses today. Universal participation was certainly not obvious when the international community began to address this global environmental problem. Between 1977 and 1987 international efforts to address the depletion of the ozone layer only required the participation of Northern states. Early responses to ozone depletion came from only a handful of states. Spurred on by the ozone depletion theory, the United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) governing council called for an international meeting to address ozone depletion in 1976. A World Plan of Action was the result—a plan that called for further study.23 The United States, Canada, Finland, Sweden, and Norway (the Toronto Group) did call for international regulations. In addition, spurred by domestic political pressure, the United States was the first to take regulatory action: In 1977 an ozone protection amendment was added to the Clean Air Act and in 1978 the United States banned CFCs in nonessential aerosols.24 The international community as a whole, however, was not ready for such quick action, and at the second intergovernmental meeting on regulating CFCs in 1978, governments even rejected coordinated, voluntary CFC cutbacks.25

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The real momentum for international action began in the early 1980s due to the work of UNEP. In 1980, UNEP called for international reductions in CFCs, and then in 1981 they sponsored the first multilateral negotiations on the ozone depletion problem. In 1982, UNEP convened the negotiations for what would become the Vienna Convention—the Ad Hoc Group of Legal and Technical Experts for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. These negotiations would last for roughly three years and they produced the Vienna Convention in 1985. This convention called for further study and, most importantly, for the negotiation of a series of protocols to reduce CFC use. There were four rounds of protocol negotiations in 1986 and 1987, culminating in the adoption of the landmark Montreal Protocol in September 1987. With few exceptions, Northern states negotiated the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol, two landmark ozone depletion agreements. In fact, fewer than thirty-five states (over two-thirds Northern) attended each of the three rounds of negotiations leading up to the Montreal session.26 As Southern states were not important CFC producers, their participation was not seen as required and they did not participate. Most of the negotiations took place between the United States and European nations. However, a striking change occurred at Montreal in 1987. Southern states began to participate in large numbers for the first time (thirty-seven of the fifty-seven state participants were Southern). It was thus at Montreal that universal participation first began to emerge as a serious potential participation requirement. The transition in participation, signaled by the Southern attendance at Montreal, would soon transform how the entire international community viewed global responses to environmental problems. An important aspect of the Montreal Protocol was the notion of continual review and renegotiation. As such, after the Montreal Protocol entered into force in January 1988, subsequent meetings of the parties served to modify and enhance the protocol. Universal participation quickly rose to prominence during these post–Montreal Protocol meetings and this new requirement significantly shaped the governance of ozone depletion. Southern states were now actively participating in large numbers and development issues began to dominate the agenda. Ninetysix states (sixty-one Southern) participated in the 1990 London Amendment meetings—the most important post-Montreal session.27 After London, many developing nations signed the protocol, and it became an agreement of global scope. Universal participation now defined ozone depletion, a development that would have ramifications for how the international community addressed climate change. Universal participation emerged in the ozone issue. It locked in during the climate change negotiations. Influenced from the very beginning by universal participation, the climate change negotiations followed a

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different trajectory. When the international community first began to address climate change in 1990, confronting this global environmental problem already required universal participation—the international community had locked in to universal participation. This understanding shaped how the international community came to define the problem and address it. Climate change results from the greenhouse effect whereby various gases (carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs, water vapor, and others) absorb solar radiation that would otherwise be reflected back into space from Earth. This greenhouse effect itself is not a problem—it keeps the planet warm and allows life to flourish in the forms we are familiar with. The carbon dioxide and other gases in our atmosphere that form the greenhouse keep the earth thirty-four degrees centigrade warmer than it would be in absence of substantial carbon dioxide levels.28 The greenhouse effect potentially becomes a problem because of the effects from anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases in the last 150 years. Emissions since the Industrial Revolution, and especially in the last fifty years, have caused dramatic increases in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide—most arising from the burning of fossil fuels. Though the effects of changes in carbon dioxide concentrations are not fully understood, most scientists agree that warming will occur and that warming has the potential to alter climatic patterns—melting polar ice caps, affecting everyday weather, increasing the frequency and severity of storms, and altering long-standing temperature patterns.29 Although the greenhouse effect was well known for more than onehundred years, climate change did not become an urgent matter on the world scientific agenda until the late 1970s—part of the same awakening to global environmental problems that catalyzed scientific interest in ozone depletion. In 1979, the WMO sponsored the First World Climate Conference where they confirmed the plausibility that burning fossil fuels and deforestation could lead to warming and that such warming could have broad ramifications.30 In 1985 scientists again came together under WMO auspices in Villach, Austria. A consensus emerged surrounding the notions that anthropogenic sources were causing increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and that this could raise the surface temperature of the earth. The political response to climate change is not easily distinguishable from the scientific response. In 1988, the political response began with the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This UN-sponsored group was designed to come up with the definitive statement on the science of climate change as well as explore potential policy responses to it. The IPCC’s first report was ready in 1990 and was the foundation for the international negotiations to address climate change. The report

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found with certainty that human activities are “substantially increasing the atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gases.”31 In addition, the IPPC was confident that climate change is a long-range problem because of the atmospheric lives of the gases involved, such that “immediate reductions in emissions from human activities of over 60% [are needed] to stabilize their concentrations at today’s levels.”32 The uncertainties that the IPCC was unable to eliminate included questions about the predictions with regard to, “the timing magnitude and regional patterns of climate change.”33 In the end, the document, “reaffirmed that global warming is a serious threat,” but did not present definitive proof of the mechanisms of climate change or the potential effects caused by anthropogenic emissions.34 A 1989 ministerial meeting in the Netherlands began the international political process in earnest, and in 1990, the WMO and UNEP convened the Second World Climate Conference (SWCC). Soon after the SWCC and the publishing of the reports of the IPCC working groups, the UN created the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) for Climate Change and charged it with negotiating a framework convention for climate change. The INC process took two years and encompassed five sessions leading up to the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED—the Earth Summit) in 1992 where the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) was signed. In contrast to the initial ozone depletion negotiations, more than one hundred states attended each of the negotiating sessions that culminated in the Framework Convention on Climate Change.35 Universal participation was part of the international community’s fundamental understanding of climate change. Everyone knew that all states should participate in the negotiations and most states did participate. The participation of the global South from the very beginning meant that development was an early and crucial aspect of the negotiations, where in the ozone negotiations development concerns came much later. In addition, the negotiations were much broader both because the nature of climate change is more complex, and because of the greater number of voices (and interests) in the negotiations. These are remarkably different paths for two global atmospheric problems to take and the brief descriptions illustrate the very recent transition in the required level of participation in efforts to cope with these “global” environmental problems. In December 1986, only twenty-five states attended the first round of the ozone protocol negotiations. In contrast, in February 1991, more than one hundred states attended the first negotiation for a climate change convention. In four short years, the international community switched from a small-scale, North-only multilateral approach for the ozone depletion problem to requiring universal participation for both ozone depletion and climate change.

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Evolution of Universal Participation—the Continued Climate Change Debate While ozone depletion was considered to be on the way to solution in the 1990s—with international consensus achieved, the Montreal Protocol and its amendments have been the most successful governance outcome in global environmental politics—the FCCC was only the barest first step in the governance of climate change. The lock-in around universal participation that shaped the FCCC negotiations remained in place through the 1990s. Universal participation overtly shaped the post-FCCC negotiations in that development remained a key aspect of the debate, the G-77 was a powerful negotiating voice, and equity concerns were of primary importance. The fact that all countries were around the table put all kinds of issues on the table (just as they were at Rio). The initial conditions of the late 1980s and early 1990s put the climate change regime on a path that constrained potential outcomes and governance processes. However, the influence of universal participation was more nuanced through the 1990s as the implications of universal participation evolved and the international community diverged in its understanding of participation requirements. In the post-FCCC negotiations, different variants of the universal participation norm came to be at the foundation of the debates in the Kyoto negotiations and beyond. Normative contestation over the implications of universal participation is driving the evolution of both the universal participation norm and the governance activities in the climate change issue. Like the ozone agreements, the FCCC was designed to be flexible and evolve over time. Also, following the ozone depletion precedent of the Vienna Convention of 1985, the FCCC was merely a statement of principles that called for the negotiation of specific protocols to instantiate those principles. These negotiations took place at several conferences of the parties (COP) throughout the 1990s, the culmination of which was the Kyoto Protocol, ultimately negotiated and signed in 1997. Subsequent COPs have addressed the details left ambiguous in the Kyoto Protocol. While numerous debates flowed through these negotiations, participation played a crucial role and shaped the entire course of the negotiations in the 1990s. While all states understood climate change to require universal participation, different interpretations of this requirement emerged. Universal participation thus shaped what was taken for granted (all states should participate, development is a crucial issue) as well as what was debated (how states should participate). During and after the FCCC negotiations, the Southern states (G77 ⫹ China) and Europe steadfastly adhered to an interpretation of universal participation that held that Northern states should take the first action and Southern states would follow at a later date (North-first variant). This understanding flowed directly from the two-track proceeding in the

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ozone depletion negotiation and was also justified by moral (polluter pays) arguments about the historical responsibility of Northern states for the problem. The United States came into and left the FCCC negotiations with a different interpretation of the universal participation norm. The United States held that universal participation entailed concrete actions by all parties (universal commitment variant). This understanding did not emerge fully formed during the FCCC negotiations, where the United States was most concerned with holding off the EU and its insistence on binding emissions targets, but it would come to dominate U.S. positions in the subsequent years. In addition, this understanding itself was not homogeneous throughout the U.S. government or over time. The differences over the ultimate meaning of universal participation were at the foundation of a (if not the) key debate throughout the negotiations—developing country commitments. Evolving participation requirements thus fundamentally shaped the recent climate change governance efforts by catalyzing a debate over the meaning of participation—participation in the process or participation in the commitments.

MOVING FORWARD: OVERVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT Why did ozone depletion start out as a North-only problem and come to require universal participation? Why did climate change require universal participation from the very beginning? Why have variants arisen in the understanding of universal participation? How does participation matter? This book answers these questions by broadly examining the ozone depletion negotiations from 1985 until 1990 and the climate change negotiations between 1988 and 2004 and specifically focusing on United States negotiating positions, strategies, and behavior. As mentioned, the argument draws upon the insights of social constructivism and complexity theory, and the argument is evaluated through both formal models and case study analysis.

Norms and Participation The argument that unfolds throughout the course of the book claims that ozone depletion and climate change went “global”—came to require universal participation—through processes of social construction and complex adaptation. Specifically, I argue that a norm requiring universal participation emerged in the midst of the ozone depletion negotiations and came to significantly influence the manner through which the international community perceived and addressed climate change. Climate change required universal participation from the very beginning because of understandings of appropriate participation generated in the ozone depletion negotiations. In turn, contestation over the nature of appropriate participation through the 1990s has driven further evolution of the universal participation norm.

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This argument hinges on the claim that the level of participation in negotiations to address environmental problems is an inherently political (rather than scientific) issue, molded by normative understandings. In other words, the number and identity of participants are not obvious or objectively known, rather, adaptive actors construct suitable participation requirements through their interactions. Deciding on appropriate actions and even who should be at the table to address a problem is always a contentious process; it is not objectively informed by the characteristics of a problem, or decided through strategic choices. Obvious definitions are constructed notions and must be understood within a historical context.36 Constructivism is thus the natural approach because it explicitly focuses on the process whereby social norms and political actors interact. It is concerned with how political actors create social norms and how those social norms shape the actors’ identities, interests, and behaviors. In addition, social constructivism is ideal for explaining how the evolving universal participation norm influenced the governance of ozone depletion and climate change because of its attention to the ways in which social norms structure the opportunities and constraints for international politics. The key for the constructivist explanation for the lock in around universal participation is the connection between ozone depletion and climate change. Both scientists and policymakers alike designated both problems to be global in scope. However, while the scientific designation of global remained stable over time, the definition of a global response has evolved over time. In essence, when policymakers called ozone depletion a global environmental problem in 1983 a different set of responses was implied than in 1989. Before 1987 the negotiations to address ozone depletion only required the participation of OECD nations. After Montreal, the next global environmental problem on the agenda—climate change—required universal participation. Participants in the negotiating process have observed the link between the ozone depletion negotiations and subsequent perceptions of climate change highlighted in the constructivist explanation. Paul Horwitz of the U.S. EPA perhaps stated it best when he noted that after Montreal there was a sea change in how environmental issues were viewed: “You could not now have an environmental negotiation on any issue and only have 25–30 countries around the table.”37 The constructivist claim is that universal participation was a U.S. commitment in climate change because the ozone depletion experience had changed the way that subsequent, similar global environmental problems were defined and addressed. The 1990s saw further evolution of the meaning of global, as a once taken-for-granted understanding of global responses (universal participation) was contested. Norms are not permanent, static structures—even internalized ones. There is space for slippage in norms—not every actor will

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have the same understanding of what the norm requires. This leads to norm contestation. In the case of climate change, while all states internalized the requirement of universal participation, not every state had (or has to this day) the same understanding of this norm. Two variants emerged in the FCCC negotiations and these variants defined crucial debates in the negotiations throughout the 1990s.

The Norm Life Cycle and Complexity Theory I claim that a social constructivist approach is the best way to explain the puzzle of participation. However, constructivism is not a singular discourse—multiple approaches are comfortable with the label constructivism. The perspective I employ is a framework developed by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink specifically designed to explore the emergence and evolution of norms—the norm life cycle (NLC).38 This framework explicitly addresses the emergence and evolution of norms and hypothesizes that norm entrepreneurs are crucial catalysts of norm dynamics. The NLC is a broad-brush view of norm emergence and change. However, alone it is not sufficient to bring the norms-based explanation to life. The NLC lacks a theory of agent action necessary to sufficiently detail the linkage between norms and actors. I turn to complexity theory, or a complex systems approach to fill this gap. Complexity theory provides a clear model of agent action—an adaptive model—that complements the NLC. This adaptive model completes the account of norm emergence and evolution found in the NLC. Integrating the two produces a powerful framework for examining the emergence and influence of a universal participation norm—it provides hypotheses for explaining the dynamic nature of “global” responses to ozone depletion and climate change.

PROGRESSION OF THE ANALYSIS The rest of this book serves as an assessment of the claims made in this first chapter, and the analysis proceeds in clear stages. First, it is necessary to justify the need for a norms-based analysis of participation in ozone depletion and climate change. If I used a different theoretical lens, I might claim that universal participation is not a norm at all, but a result of the strategy of powerful actors with given interests, or determined directly by the objective scientific knowledge of epistemic communities. Chapter 2 discusses these alternatives explicitly, and places the argument of this volume into the context of the international relations literature. Not surprisingly, I find these alternative explanations wanting.39 The assessment of the constructivist/complex systems perspective on global environmental governance proceeds through three linked stages

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change Figure 1.1 Steps of Analysis Stage 2 Agent-Based Models

Stage 1 Verbal Models Stage 3 Case Study Analysis

(See Figure 1.1). The analysis begins by building a verbal model of the emergence and evolution of a universal participation norm. It is necessary to theoretically operationalize the norms-based argument. I undertake this task in chapter 3; providing a detailed discussion of the NLC, complexity theory, and the framework that links the two. This chapter fully specifies the norms-based argument and provides a series of empirical expectations/hypotheses for testing the argument. The second stage of analysis is a formal assessment of the verbal model. I simulate the NLC using agent-based computational models drawn from complexity theory. The insights of the norm life cycle are sophisticated, but, unfortunately, as with other constructivist ideas this verbal model has not been formalized because it works from assumptions that do not fit nicely into traditional formal, rational models. Agent-based modeling is a useful tool for formalizing such advanced analytic frameworks because it allows for flexible implementation of assumptions about agents and processes of interaction. Simulating the verbal framework on a computer formalizes its inherent logic and allows for rigorous assessment of its deductions and conclusions. Agent-based modeling provides a social laboratory to simulate the emergence and evolution of social norms and to generate boundary conditions and further empirical expectations/hypotheses that the verbal model implies. Chapter 4 thus begins telling the story of universal participation by simulating the NLC. The chapter introduces the modeling method, details the model of the NLC, and discusses the implications of the results of the modeling for explaining the dynamic global responses in ozone depletion and climate change. The third stage of analysis consists of qualitative case study analysis—the subject of chapters 5–7. Armed with empirical expectations and the norm life cycle/complexity theory framework, I turn to the empirical case studies of the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations.

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In chapters 5and 6 I trace the social construction processes that led to the lock-in around universal participation. Chapter 5 chronicles the transition from a North-only participation requirement to universal participation in the ozone depletion negotiations. Mostafa Tolba, director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), emerges as a norm entrepreneur who convinces a critical mass of Southern states to participate in the ozone negotiations. The action of these Southern participators alters the social context for all states, and the United States and others come to accept the appropriateness of universal participation after 1987. Chapter 6 then proceeds to relate the influence of this nascent norm on the climate change negotiations, discussing how the United States internalized the universal participation norm and faced climate change with this understanding. Chapter 7 details the evolution of universal participation and how contestation over the meaning of “global” continues to shape the governance of climate change. These are not three separate case studies that “test” the verbal model. Instead, taken together, they explain/trace the process of norm emergence and evolution, and they demonstrate how participation matters in the governance of ozone depletion and climate change.

CONCLUSION In the early 1990s, universal participation became the way to address ozone depletion and climate change. After the transition from North-only to universal participation that followed the Montreal Protocol, this underlying definition influenced how states approached the climate change problem. The lock in around universal participation has fundamentally shaped the global governance of these issues. Because of universal participation, development issues have been at the forefront of the discussions and the negotiations have taken place under a very large spotlight—the whole world is watching and participating. In ozone depletion, universal participation has led to tremendous success—the Montreal Protocol process will potentially solve the ozone depletion problem this century. In climate change, the results of universal participation have been mixed. There have been positives in that universal participation makes climate change a very prominent problem and increases the equity of the discussions (if not the results of the negotiations). However, there are potentially negative consequences as well in that the climate change negotiations have been far from efficient, and universality has facilitated stalling by some states opposed to significant actions for reducing global warming. In both cases, however, the governance of these issues has been fundamentally shaped by participation requirements.

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What does it mean to be global? The answer is time and context dependent. Clearly collective action is necessary to address the challenges of ozone depletion and climate change. However, if we want to understand and improve global responses we must understand how the participation requirements entailed by the global label have changed over time and influenced governance processes. This book, through computational and qualitative means, explores how adaptive actors constructed an evolving requirement for universal participation and the impact that this process of social construction has had and continues to have on the governance of ozone depletion and climate change.

Chapter Two Alternative Stories Explaining the Rise and Evolution of Universal Participation THE PUZZLE OF PARTICIPATION? At first glance, and without further evidence, the dynamic nature of participation requirements—the transition to universal participation in the ozone depletion, the lock-in of universal participation in the early climate change negotiations, and the evolution of universal participation in the recent climate change negotiations—may not appear to require a normsbased explanation. Of course, global environmental problems require global (read universal) participation in efforts to solve them. After all, the sources and consequences of these dilemmas are worldwide in scope, and as observer after observer has noted, these problems cannot be solved by the actions of individual states. And, of course states will have divergent understandings of participation—they have different interests, different power, and different ideas. In addition, as others would argue, there has been a clear, broad commitment to universal participation across many issues on the world political stage—universal participation is not a new phenomenon. The United Nations system, the GATT/WTO system, the Law of the Sea, all exhibit universality in participation. Large-scale multilateral approaches to international/global issues abound. However, the commitment to universal participation in the ozone depletion and climate change issues requires a deeper look. The context of multilateralism is crucial but indeterminate in this case, as this context was constant throughout the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations, yet we see two transitions in participation requirements. 21

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Ironically, though universal participation is understood to be an obvious choice, traditional approaches to world politics cannot account for it, and further, they cannot account for the evolution in this obvious choice. Universal participation was not the only way to define ozone depletion in 1988, nor was it the only way to define climate change in 1990. Existing notions of universality notwithstanding, ozone depletion and climate change could have been defined in any number of less than universal ways, as have many “global” issues. The necessary task is thus to explain why this particular understanding or norm rose to prominence in these particular issues. This is especially important given how fundamentally ideas of universal participation have influenced the course of the international community’s efforts to address ozone depletion and climate change as well as how those ideas have begun to change. In this chapter, I first make the case that universal participation has become conventional wisdom regarding global environmental problems. I then demonstrate that even though there is consensus that global environmental problems require universal participation—to the point that it is no longer even questioned—there are no satisfactory explanations for why global environmental problems require universal participation extant in the literature. This is extremely troubling for two reasons. First, because participation requirements decisively influence governance processes and outcomes, leaving them unexplained leads to deficient explanations of governance. Second, when “obvious” participation requirements are left assumed, rather than examined, we lose the ability to explain change in those requirements—a deficiency highlighted by the evolution in participation in the 1990s and the subsequent change in governance processes. I address three potential alternative stories of the commitment to universal participation in depth and demonstrate their inability to account for the rise of current conventional wisdom. I also highlight their subsequent difficulty accounting for the evolution of universal participation.

UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION AS CONVENTIONAL WISDOM In academic treatments, universal participation has become an accepted necessary factor in regime building.1 Downs et al. claim that the acceptance of universal participation as necessary is a hallmark of the “transformational” approach to regime design.2 This approach is based on the idea that participating in a regime can transform the states that join, and that the regime will thus grow stronger over time. Inclusive, broad participation is thus a major prescription because it ensures the support of all relevant actors, mitigates the occurrence of free riding, facilitates the deepening of commitment through building community pressure, and legitimates the entire process of negotiation.3

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According to Downs et al., the popularity of the transformational approach has led to wide acceptance of the notion that negotiations need to include all parties that have a part to play in the issue at hand. As Oran Young and George Demko argue, “[T]he exclusion of relevant players or issues can result in the establishment of regimes that soon become dead letters.”4 In addition, Peter Haas cautions that “widespread representation of relevant parties is necessary for negotiations to be regarded as legitimate and for countries to be willing to comply with the ensuing regime.”5 Adherents to the transformational approach thus justify their call for broad participation for both practical and normative reasons. Noninclusive agreements with narrow participation are less likely to succeed and they are less legitimate (which is also a consideration in the probability for success). It should be noted that the studies proclaiming the inherent value of universal participation were undertaken after universal participation had already become the dominant modus operandi in environmental negotiations. These studies did not question why universal participation came about, but rather justified it post hoc. In the policy world, the universal participation requirement achieved even greater acceptance and became immune to challenge. This was certainly the case in the United States. Frederick Bernthal, the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of climate change in the late 1980s, claimed that no other options (other than universal participation) were even discussed when the United States began to address the issue.6 The United States pressed this issue internationally as well. At an early climate change negotiating session, the United States argued in a draft framework convention, that the final document must “stress the need for all nations to participate in any international responses to climate change, in accordance with the means at their disposal and their capabilities . . . ”7 The United States was not alone in this conviction. According to a State Department analysis of the FCCC negotiation process, “at the outset of negotiations, it was widely agreed that the Convention should strive for as broad participation as possible, including from among developing countries.”8 Germany, France, and Britain all stressed notions of universal participation in their draft climate change conventions.9 Universal participation was the only option discussed for the FCCC—in terms of both negotiation and implementation. Everyone understood from the outset that climate change required universal participation and no one questioned the transition from North-only participation to universal participation in the ozone depletion negotiations. Because everyone understood this, it is rarely questioned. Why did the United States and the international community lock in around universal participation in the run-up to climate change? Curiously, potential explanations found in international relations theory that explain participation levels with arguments about efficiency/ effectiveness, the scientific characteristics of the issue at hand, or the

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strategic behavior of the most powerful actor involved all fail to provide satisfactory explanations.

EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS: UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION AS A RATIONAL CHOICE On first inspection, the transition to and lock-in around universal participation is immediately surprising because such a commitment explicitly contradicts the expectations of the positive political economy literature. The drive for inclusive negotiations and especially the overwhelming consensus of those involved that climate change had to be addressed via universal negotiations flies in the face of revered rational choice findings about large-scale negotiations. Rational choice and neoliberal institutionalist scholars have long claimed that the larger the negotiations, the more complicated they become and the less chance there is to achieve cooperation.10 Much of the neoliberal institutionalist enterprise on regimes is founded on the importance of small numbers (or K-groups).11 Miles Kahler notes, “Neoliberal skepticism about multilateralism emphasizes the obstacles to cooperation in groups with large memberships. Any advantages of multilateralism pale when compared with the apparent inefficiencies of such a cumbersome system of rule creation and governance.”12 According to rational choice, broad participation makes for difficult negotiations.13 Further, both empirical and formal analyses find that negotiations with broad participation often lead to ineffective agreements. According to Downs et. al., agreements that are constructed through a “strategic” approach (i.e., inclusiveness is much less of a concern) “vastly outperform transformational agreements with regard to the depth of cooperation achieved today.”14 In addition, strategically constructed agreements with initially low participation are able, “contrary to transformationalist predictions, to expand their membership to include the ranks of previously excluded states.”15 Even Peter Haas (a proponent of the transformational approach) calls for research on “starting small” and building up. He argues that “future research should focus on alternatives to negotiation including a large number of parties and assess the advantages and disadvantages of beginning negotiations with some subset of the interested players (perhaps even surrogates for some parties) and gradually drawing increased numbers of players into the process.”16 Rational choice expectations about efficiency and starting small were in some ways borne out. The governance of ozone depletion (especially the Montreal Protocol and London Amendments) took place in exactly this kind of incremental process with great success. The Montreal Protocol and its amendments is the exemplar of global environmental agreements. James Sebenius advised that the same should be done for climate change.17 The ozone depletion negotiations and the Montreal Proto-

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col itself, an obvious source of precedent for climate change, began as a small agreement that expanded. Rational choice does not explain, however, why climate change began with universal participation. In fact, Sebenius, writing when the climate change negotiations were just being conceived, argued that a small, expanding agreement would be the best course to follow.18 He cautioned against inclusive negotiations, arguing, “It would be a very time-consuming mistake for climate change negotiators to create a universally inclusive process with respect to both issues and participants, together with the requirements of consensus on an overall package deal.”19 True to rational choice theorists’ expectations, the climate change negotiations have been more problematic than those for ozone depletion.20 We know from rational choice that large negotiations are clumsy and often produce ineffective agreements. While the proliferation of universal negotiations has led some scholars to search for the merit in large number negotiations, the rational choice arguments about the efficiency and effectiveness of small-scale negotiations remain relevant. The United States and international community’s lock-in around universal participation cannot be explained through rational choice—universal participation was not the most efficient or effective means for negotiating.

THE GLOBAL SCOPE: SCIENCE NECESSITATES UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION In rationalist approaches to environmental negotiations, the “identity of the participants is known at the outset and fixed during the course of negotiations,” and “the alternatives or strategies available to the parties are fully specified.”21 This “knowledge” is usually derived from the characteristics of the issue at hand. Perhaps then, the United States and the rest of the international community had to undertake the apparently inefficient/ineffective universal participation requirement because of the characteristics of climate change itself. Academics and policymakers alike stress the complicated and ubiquitous nature of climate change and note that in the middle of the twenty-first century, the South will surpass the North in emitting greenhouse gases.22 The sources of greenhouse gases are omnipresent in both the North and the South, and the effects will be felt globally (if not equally felt). Rowlands notes, “A shift in temperature and precipitation patterns would have consequences for all of the planet’s inhabitants. Therefore, global involvement is once again crucial.”23 Climate change is somewhat different from ozone depletion in this manner. In ozone depletion, the sources of the emissions were limited, as were the economic sectors contributing to the problem. In climate change, every economic sector contributes to the problem (agriculture, forestry, industry, electrical generation, transportation), and the sources of emissions

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are everywhere. It is easy to extrapolate these characteristics of the climate change problem to questions of the design and requirements for the negotiations and put forward the claim that climate change had to be addressed through universal negotiations. Both the South and the North had to be present at the table from the outset because of the nature of the problem. As Oran Young argues, “there is no way to check global warming without the active participation of the developing countries.”24 There are three problems, however, with relying on problem characteristics to determine participation requirements. First, explanations based on the characteristics of ozone depletion and climate change usually turn to “science” to discern the relevant characteristics that justify a level of participation. However, as Karen Litfin makes abundantly clear, science does not provide policymakers with information that enables them to make unbiased, objective policy.25 An interesting statement from U.S. Congressman Boehlert during a hearing on ozone depletion further supports Litfin’s thesis: Thank you Dr. Watson. You are a scientist, and it is important to get some scientific input here. I might add, parenthetically, that when scientists agree with the position I have stated I applaud them, and when they don’t, I think they are wrong. That’s the way we operate on Capitol Hill.26 Science is actually made up of multiple and often-contradictory discourses and thus “it” cannot provide natural or obvious definitions for environmental problems or answers to questions of participation and actions.27 Science certainly informed the negotiating process in both ozone depletion and climate change, highlighting the global scope of the problems. However, scope information alone does not explain participation requirements. If this were the case, then the scientific information confirming that the ozone depletion problem was global in scope should have produced universal negotiations well before 1988. The scientific information produced before 1987 was viewed with North-only participation in mind—the accepted participation requirements/definition of the problem shaped how scientific information was viewed and used to define the issue. Scientific information is always viewed through sociohistorical lenses and it is these lenses that define and determine definitions, not the information itself.28 As Meyer et al. claim, “The point is that no matter how dire or widespread, environmental problems do not automatically generate organized solutions nationally or internationally.”29 The solutions for and even the definitions of the problem instead result from historical and political processes. Second, and related to the first, if ozone depletion is more limited, why did the participation requirements change from North-only to univer-

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sal? At the height of the governance activities surrounding ozone depletion (1987–1990), CFC production was restricted to seventeen companies.30 Science certainly informed the international community of the global scope of the problem and provided crucial information throughout the governance process—its role should not be downplayed. But the key point is that science does not determine participation. It does not provide an objective basis for deciding who participates. Scientific information is used in a political process and it can be used to justify a number of participation requirements. We cannot look to science to explain the transition from North-only to universal participation in the governance of ozone depletion. Finally, science is also indeterminate in the climate change issue, even though climate change is more obviously a global problem with global causes and consequences. Science cannot explain the lock-in around universal participation observed in the early governance of climate change. While India and China are certainly important players, it is not clear, given the characteristics of climate change, that all or even most of the South had to be involved from the very beginning of the negotiating process. In fact in 1990, the United States, the EU, Japan, the USSR, China, and India accounted for almost three-quarters of the energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide and even without China and India, the remaining four accounted for more than 60 percent.31 Though it was not discussed as a serious policy option at the time, in hindsight even U.S. officials close to the negotiation and policy process are willing to admit that the problem could have been (or could be) addressed if six to seven key states got together.32 William Nitze, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, explicitly argued, “Frankly if you had the US . . . the Annex I countries33 plus China and India, then you have enough critical mass [to deal with climate change].”34 There is no question that climate change presents both problems and consequences that span the entire globe. The question is whether the characteristics of the problem itself determined a universal course of action in 1991. The scientific characteristics of the climate change problem could have determined or been used to justify a range of potential courses of actions. The scientific characteristics of the climate change problem were (are) just as conducive to a process of incrementally growing participation (as happened in the ozone depletion negotiations) as they were (are) to universal participation. The characteristics of the climate change problem certainly did not force a commitment to universal participation.

UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION AS U.S. STRATEGY Universal participation was not rational (strictly speaking), nor was this commitment necessitated by the scientific characteristics of the problems.

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A third alternative story stresses the influence of powerful actors in shaping governance processes.35 Realist or hegemonic analysis is rarely applied to “low” political concerns such as global environmental politics, but the logic of the analysis can certainly inform an explanation of a transition to and lock-in around universal participation. The explanation is simple—the strategies and interests of powerful actors determine participation requirements and their evolution. Perhaps, then, universal participation emerged and locked in because of U.S. strategic maneuvers. The United States was and remains unquestionably the most important single actor in both the ozone depletion and climate change issues. Beyond its general status as hegemonic power,36 the United States was the largest single producer of CFCs37 and the United States alone accounts for 20–25 percent of the greenhouse emissions at the root of the climate change problem.38 Further, the U.S. was not (and remains not) interested in taking strong internationally binding actions to address climate change in the early 1990s. Thus, drawing again on the rational choice literature, it is initially plausible that the U.S. commitment to universal participation was a strategic maneuver designed specifically to stall the climate change negotiations. Given what is known (from some theoretical perspectives) about the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of large-scale negotiations, calling for universal participation could have been a brilliant strategic move to disrupt, slow, or even derail the negotiations. Stephen Seidel has opined that Southern participation may have been called for as a deliberate roadblock.39 Given a preference for impeding significant action, it would certainly make rational sense for the United States to call for universal participation if it knew that universal participation would slow or stall the negotiations. From this viewpoint a rational course of action would be to call for universal participation and then refuse to give developmental aid—this would be the best roadblock for negotiations as it would introduce Southern actors into the negotiations, while also denying the “carrots” that could induce their cooperation. In fact, though the United States committed to giving financial and technological assistance, it is often criticized for giving too little.40 There are, however, a number of problems with this story of participation. First, it still cannot explain the transition to universal participation observed in the ozone depletion negotiations. The United States was a leading state in the fight to solve ozone depletion—it had no interest in slowing or stalling these negotiations.41 In addition, the United States was not the actor responsible for pushing universal participation in the governance process for ozone depletion. In fact, the United States came to accept universal participation in ozone depletion rather late in the game.

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Second, the strategic hegemon perspective cannot explain the lockin around universal participation in the early 1990s. In fact the causal arrows are reversed. The idea of universal participation was understood from the very beginning and shaped U.S. strategy. U.S. climate change strategies for delay and denial did not pre-date an understanding of climate change as requiring universal participation. While the idea that the United States used universal participation to slow the negotiations (even though the United States still committed to development assistance) is attractive and fits with the avowed U.S. commitment to defeat binding measures, it is not clear in the empirical record that the United States used universal participation as a strategy. Rather, the understanding of universal participation shaped and served as the foundation for subsequent U.S. strategy.42 Five observations highlight the flaws in this perspective on participation • There is no evidence that officials in the United States consciously chose universal participation in the climate change negotiations. Instead, it appears that administration officials began with a definition of climate change as requiring universal participation before any deliberation about strategy or even U.S. preferences in the climate change issue took place. • There is evidence that all relevant officials within the United States, both those dedicated to taking significant actions and those dedicated to defeating binding measures, agreed that universal participation was crucial.43 • The United States was committed to the principle of development assistance from the very beginning of the negotiations, a commitment that would blunt any universal participation strategy to stall the negotiations. • Though the United States advocated universal participation, it was not necessarily the leader on this aspect of the climate change issue. The United States as hegemon did not set the participation agenda. States around the world already accepted the need for universal participation and the United States did not have to pressure (or even encourage) other states to participate. • Outside the United States, states that were pushing for a strong agreement on climate change were also convinced that addressing climate change required universal participation. Rather than being a strategic choice, the evidence illustrates that universal participation was taken for granted by everyone involved.44

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THE CRUMBLING OF CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: EVOLVING NOTIONS OF UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION Of course, the transition to universal participation and lock-in around it are not the only aspects of participation in these governance activities that need to be explained. The 1990s saw an evolution in universal participation that was at the foundation of a crucial debate in the climate change negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol (and beyond)—a debate that culminated with the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto process. As noted in chapter 1, although all participants understood that climate change required universal participation, they did not all agree on what this meant. Europe and the Southern states tended to view universal participation to mean universal participation in the process of negotiation while the Northern states would take the first concrete actions. The United States and some others claimed that universal participation meant universal participation in commitments as well as negotiations. Just as the notion of universal participation itself shaped the ozone depletion negotiations post 1987 and the FCCC negotiations, so too would this contestation over universal participation shape the governance of climate change in the 1990s and early 2000s. The question remains, however, can the perspectives noted above (rational choice, science, hegemony) explain the evolution? The short answer is no. In the case of rational choice, neither side of the universal participation debate meets the criteria of an efficient and effective means of negotiation. Universal participation is still at the foundation of both the North-first and universal commitment perspectives on participation. Both of these alternatives contain within them the notion that all states should participate in governance activities—both call for large-scale negotiations and collective action. Science is similarly unable to explain the evolution. The science of climate change did not change significantly, yet participation requirements were contested.45 In fact, each side used “science” to push its own understanding of participation. In advocating common but differentiated responsibility, the United States drew upon the scientific estimates that Southern contributions to the problem would outpace Northern contributions in the twenty-first century. In advocating North-first, the Southern states and Europe called upon scientific understandings of the historical responsibility for the problem. Once again, science informs governance, but is indeterminate in terms of specific requirements. Finally, the hegemonic explanation for participation requirements does provide some understanding of the evolution of participation. Certainly the universal commitment interpretation is in line with U.S. desire to, at the very least, share the costs of combating climate change, and ideally to scuttle any serious climate change efforts altogether. However, the

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fact that the United States is almost entirely alone in its interpretation and that it has had no followers out of the Kyoto process underscores the weakness of the hegemony argument. The most important player has pulled out of the process in large part because of (or at least justified by) its interpretation of universal participation, and the most of the rest of the world has continued on with a different interpretation. Of course, hegemony may win out in the end. The U.S. pullout could signal the death knell for multilateral approaches to climate change—it is too early to tell. However, even if that is the case, the hegemony perspective is still a flawed explanation. U.S. strategy, even in pulling out of Kyoto, was shaped by a universal participation norm—the United States still views climate change as requiring universal participation. The hegemony perspective cannot help us to understand why.

CONSTRUCTIVISM AND UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION—THE STORY LEFT STANDING International relations theories often treat the level of participation in a negotiation as a wholly unproblematic issue. Everyone knows who should be there. Before 1987, everyone knew that ozone depletion was a global problem that required only Northern participation. After 1987 everyone knew that ozone depletion required universal participation. By 1990 everyone knew that climate change required participation. After 1995, what everyone knew was contested. Observation tells us that there is a great deal of variation over time in what everyone knows. In addition, what everyone knows about participation has significant influence over what everyone does in the governance of these issues. Thus, we cannot take participation for granted and we must explain why states understood participation as they did. What the above demonstrates is that the dynamic participation requirements were not derived from the dictates of rational choice in committing to universal participation. They were not driven by scientific necessity, either. Finally, the hegemonic interests and strategy do not explain the changes over time. Given the failings of these other perspectives, I pursue a social constructivist explanation for the emergence of universal participation in the ozone depletion negotiations, its lock-in in the early climate change negotiations, and its evolution in the more recent climate governance activities. Deciding on appropriate actions and even who should be at the table to address a problem is always a contentious process, not objectively informed by the characteristics of a problem, or decided through strategic choices. Obvious definitions are constructed notions and must be understood within a historical context.46 Rather than obviously or naturally

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defining these issues, universal participation came to define ozone depletion and climate change (and other global environmental problems) through a historically contingent, path-dependent process of social construction. Crucially, this same path-dependent process continued beyond the signing of the FCCC in 1992, and explains the evolution (contestation over the meaning of universal participation) observed throughout the 1990s up to the present.

Chapter Three The Verbal Model Adaptation and the Norm Life Cycle

Chapter 1 asserts a norms-based and complex systems explanation for the dynamic nature of global responses in ozone depletion and climate change: the transition to universal participation in the ozone depletion issue, the lock-in around universal participation in the initial climate change negotiations, and the contestation over universal participation in the 1990s. Addressing the puzzle of participation and providing an accounting of the governance of ozone depletion and climate change requires fully grasping how the United States and the international community came to understand the requirements for these global environmental problems. While perhaps plausible on its face (and certainly more plausible than the problematic alternatives discussed in chapter 2), the constructivist/complex systems explanation remains merely an interesting hypothesis until rigorously assessed. As noted in chapter 1, the first step toward this assessment is to operationalize the argument theoretically—to build a verbal framework that explains the observed transitions in global responses over time. There are two components to the verbal framework. The first is the norm life cycle (NLC) drawn from the constructivist literature.1 The NLC explains norm emergence and norm evolution, focusing on the role that norm entrepreneurs play in catalyzing norm dynamics. This macro process provides an overarching view on norm dynamics. The second component is the process of complex adaptation drawn from complexity theory. The NLC is a sophisticated overview of norm dynamics, but it lacks microfoundations—a theory of agentic action. Complex adaptation provides such a micro process, an adaptive model of actor behavior that explains 33

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the relationship between actors and norms. Taken together the NLC and complex adaptation provide a full accounting for norm emergence and change over time, presenting a detailed explanation for the emergence and evolution of participation norms in ozone depletion and climate change. I begin with a discussion of norms and the NLC, describing both the theoretical foundations for the NLC as well as the process itself. I also discuss what is missing in the NLC. This leads to an examination of complex adaptation and how the insights of a complex systems approach are both compatible with constructivism and useful for enhancing the NLC. Finally, I present the full verbal model and its explanation of the transitions in participation requirements in the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations.

NORMS AND THE NORM LIFE CYCLE Approaching norm emergence and change requires a firm grasp of the characteristics of norms and the behavioral logic of social constructivism. What follows is not a full-scale review of the nuances of social constructivist thought.2 Instead, it is a condensed discussion that describes the foundations of the NLC.

Norms and Constructivist Behavioral Logic Scholars of virtually every theoretical, methodological, and epistemological bent use norms in some way to explain or describe behavior at all levels of politics.3 This creates confusion when different scholars define and use the concept in very different ways.4 Constructivists tend to consider norms as standards “of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity.”5 Norms thus explicitly shape agents’ interests, identities, and behaviors. Beyond this baseline definition other crucial characteristics include: 6 • Compliance with the standard or strategy throughout (most of) a population. Norms exist when actors follow the “rule” that the norm dictates. A norm for universal participation exists when all states participate. • Stabilization of expectations around the standard—shared expectations. Norms structure what agents understand about the world around them. A universal participation norm leads states to expect that all states will participate. • Self-reinforcement. Once established, social structures exhibit stability as norms elicit self-reinforcing behavior and eventually may be institutionalized and taken for granted. 7

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For constructivists, these social norms are not objective aspects of the world, nor do they exist only in the minds of individual agents. Norms are intersubjective phenomena that are instantiated through actors’ behaviors and beliefs.8 A focus on intersubjective reality distinguishes social constructivism from other approaches to world politics. Constructivists, with diverse beliefs about the world, have in common a philosophy that “the manner in which the material world shapes and is shaped by human action and interaction depends on dynamic normative and epistemic interpretations of the material world.”9 Thus, there is a world of meanings and knowledge as well as an objective, material world.10 This intersubjective world—a world of shared knowledge where objects require human agreement to exist—is where the important governance “action” takes place. Knowledge structures or intersubjective meanings (or norms) enable practices or actions. For instance, norms of participation structure states’ understanding of ozone depletion and climate change, enabling their strategies and behaviors. Actor behavior can only be understood (both by actors and observers) and is only undertaken within an intersubjective context of shared knowledge about the world. Agents exist and act in a world where limits and possibilities are bounded and defined by intersubjective meanings or knowledge structures. Intersubjective meanings render actions, “plausible or implausible, acceptable or unacceptable, conceivable or inconceivable, respectable or disreputable.”11 Agents’ understandings of the world, and thus their actions are necessarily enabled/constrained by the structured institutions, collective meanings, or normative social context in which they are embedded.12 Social norms thus do more than influence actors’ behaviors; they fundamentally shape the very conditions for action. Hence, social norms are integral to constructivist behavioral logic—the logic of appropriateness.13 Actions are based upon institutional, moral, or normative standards—preferences and interests themselves are shaped by what is considered appropriate.14 As James March and Johan Olsen argue, “Action is often based more on identifying the normatively appropriate behavior than on calculating the return expected from alternative choices.”15 As norms put boundaries on appropriate behavior they have an elemental role in determining the behavior of actors. Participation norms put boundaries on possible global responses—shaping the behavior of states in the governance processes for ozone depletion and climate change.

The Norm Life Cycle A brief description of norms and constructivist behavioral logic does not constitute an explanation for the observed transitions in global responses. Operationalizing the argument asserted in chapter 1 requires understanding norm emergence and change as well. Finnemore and Sikkink

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provide a potential mechanism for norm emergence and evolution in the NLC. They posit a process of four linked stages: entrepreneurial action; formation of a critical mass; norm cascade; and internalization. They begin by positing a catalytic role for norm entrepreneurs in fostering norm emergence. Norm entrepreneurs are agents (individuals in Finnemore and Sikkink’s treatment, though organizations and states could play this role as well) that, dissatisfied with the social context, advocate different ideas about appropriate behavior from organizational platforms that give their ideas credence. Norm entrepreneurs work to persuade other agents to alter their behavior in accordance with the norm entrepreneur’s ideas of appropriate behavior. They attempt to alter other agents’ perceptions of the social context—alter what an agent thinks is appropriate behavior. How this alteration takes place is currently a matter for debate among constructivists.16 For now it is enough to acknowledge that norm entrepreneurs are engaged in changing agents’ minds or preferences or altering the set of rules that agents might follow. When a critical mass of agents has accepted the new ideas as appropriate, then, Finnemore and Sikkink claim, a norm has emerged—as intersubjective phenomena, norms must be followed in order to exist.17 From a complex systems viewpoint, this could be viewed as a driven threshold system.18 The norm entrepreneurs provide a constant input of ideas into the system and work to change the behavior of agents. When the number of agents accepting the new ideas crosses a threshold a norm cascade ensues. In the cascade stage, the norm acceptance rate rapidly increases—Finnemore and Sikkink describe it as a contagion.19 Multiple agents, outside the critical mass, now begin to accept the appropriateness of the behavior for which the new norm calls. The final stage in the cycle is internalization. The norm is taken for granted, and conformance with its dictates is no longer (or at least rarely) questioned.20 Three points need to be emphasized about this framework. First, it is an evolutionary framework. Change in some agents alters the context, driving change in other agents as all strive to do “well”—act appropriately. Second, it provides a mechanism for norm emergence—norm entrepreneurs supply the ideas that would be norms. Finally, within this framework we see the seeds for norm change as well as emergence. Finnemore and Sikkink make clear that norm entrepreneurs always propose norms within a social context already characterized by norms: “[E]fforts to promote a new norm take place within the standards of ‘appropriateness’ defined by prior norms.”21 According to their framework, innovation is produced endogenously by norm entrepreneurs whose ideas (or at least the plausibility of them) must be shaped by the structural characteristics of the intersubjective world in which they live. As Manicas argues, “[E]ven the effort to consciously and deliberately abolish a structure and constitute new ones must use materials which are at hand as the legacy of previous

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structurations.”22 Established norms change when norm entrepreneurs convince agents to change their standards of appropriateness. This framework presents a broad-brush look at norm emergence and change. It gives us a first cut at explaining the transition from one established norm (North-only participation in ozone depletion) to another (universal participation in ozone depletion and climate change).

What Is Missing in the NLC? Constructivism is an inherently dynamic view of the world. The notion of mutual constitution of agents and structures upon which it rests puts all the parts of social life in motion. Agents are dynamic, as their wants, actions, and even perceptions are affected by the changing (sometimes slowly) context in which they find themselves (their intersubjective environment constitutes them). Structures are also dynamic as the rules of the game and notions of appropriateness are instantiated only by the actions and interactions of the agents—even status quo or robust structures require continual action in their reproduction. Articulating such a dynamic perspective has been no easy task for constructivists. In fact, friendly critics of constructivism (often from within constructivist ranks) have noted deficiencies in the move from the overarching philosophy of mutual constitution to the construction of analytic frameworks for studying empirical puzzles. The most important of these critiques tend to cluster around the lack of mechanisms describing how agents interact with the rules and norms that compose their social context. Essential to empirical studies is discerning both how agents come to understand social structure (how structure constitutes agents) and how agent practices create social structure. As Jeff Checkel points out, “[C]onstructivism, while good at the macro foundations of behavior and identity (norms, social context), is weak on the micro level. It fails to explore systematically how norms connect with agents.”23 Similarly, Iain Johnston argues, “[I]t is unclear how exactly pro-normative behavior is elicited once the models of ‘appropriate behavior’ are displayed or communicated to agents at the unit-level.”24 Constructivists are still struggling with the micro-macro relationship.25 The key lacuna is discerning the relationship between social structures and agency. The NLC is an important step in the right direction as a sophisticated macro process that connects agents and structures through the concept of entrepreneurship. Of course, leadership or entrepreneurship is a far from novel concept in political science.26 Entrepreneurship is a popular factor for explaining solutions to collective action problems, equilibrium choice, the emergence of cooperation, as well as norms. Yet despite the intuitive notion that entrepreneurs play a role in establishing and altering normative structures and the existence of insightful empirical work, constructivists have been criticized for failing to

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definitively demonstrate how agents forge norms and how norm entrepreneurs actually influence norm dynamics. The NLC is a leap forward in explaining this process, but it has yet to be fully explored. In addition, while the norm life cycle provides an overarching framework for examining the emergence, influence, and evolution of norms, Finnemore and Sikkink left open micro processes—the manner through which an agent accepts, decides to use, and internalizes an entrepreneur’s suggestion.27 The NLC lacks an explicit theory of agentic action. This critique is not limited to the NLC, as some observers question the compatibility of the logic of appropriateness with individual action and norm change in general. Sending claims that the logic of appropriateness is “untenable as a theory of individual action” and unable to account for change in norms.28 In their search for satisfactory mechanisms for agent action and the connections between social norms (or social structures more generally) and actors, constructivists have advocated for persuasion, socialization, social networks, social learning, and socioevolution.29 Unfortunately, these processes are too often specific to empirical accounts and are difficult to generalize beyond specific cases. In fact, all of these processes may be at work. What is missing is a generic mechanism that links social norms and agents. How does the norm become part of an actors’ understanding of the world? How do actors choose behavior operating under a logic of appropriateness? How did states come to understand the norm of universal participation? When we say that an agent has internalized a norm, or that the agent learned, or an agent is being socialized/persuaded, we need to have a general sense of what this means at the micro level. We need to generically link the external rules (norms) with agents’ internal understanding in a way that can account for persuasion, socialization, social learning, and others. We need an approach that explicitly models that actor-norm connections and feedback processes inherent in the NLC. Complexity theory and its complex adaptive process is one such approach.

COMPLEXITY THEORY—A BRIEF INTRODUCTION Importing ideas from the natural sciences is not necessarily a popular undertaking in international relations. However, complexity theory enjoys the advantage of being philosophically similar to constructivism. It is not like other imports because it is not like other natural science approaches. Complexity theory rejects Newtonian, reductionist, linear thinking and is instead interested in understanding irreducible, path-dependent systems with history.30 Complexity theory is focused on understanding the processes taking place within complex systems. It contains ideas as to

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how evolving, adaptive agents interact with each other and with their context, altering both in the process. It contains specific processes useful in enhancing a framework to structure inquiry into the dynamics of global responses to ozone depletion and climate change.31 Complexity theory is a product of interdisciplinary problem solving. Scholars from such diverse disciplines as economics, physics, genetics, ecology, and computer science found that the problems they were encountering had some broad similarities. As John Holland notes, “We are learning . . . that the mechanisms that mediate these systems [a variety of complex systems] are much more alike than surface observations would suggest.”32 Essentially, these scholars were confronted with and began examining systems where simple33 agents interacting cause the emergence of complex, irreducible macroscopic behaviors/structures. One key aspect of these systems is that agents interact or coevolve with the environment in which they exist and with the other agents in the system to continually reproduce the environment or system. In this way the systems evolve to “nowhere.”34 Complexity theory is a framework for exploring the dynamics of that kind of phenomena. It can be thought of as a theory of process—the process of complex adaptation at work in complex systems, whether they are immune systems, economies, ecosystems, societies, or political systems. Complexity theorists have pursued understanding of these similar systems through both analytical and computational methods and have discerned multiple characteristics, patterns, and processes inherent in complex adaptive systems.35 CAS are composed of multiple, heterogeneous agents. The patterns evident in CAS are a result of agent interactions.36 There is a lack of centralized control in CAS. CAS are not in equilibrium. The list of characteristics (which could be used to describe the international system) can go on. However, this is not designed to be a comprehensive exploration of CAS. Instead, I specifically draw upon a subset of complexity theory’s insights—a description of adaptive agents and the process of complex adaptation—in an effort to improve the NLC with an explanation of microprocesses. Complex adaptation is a feedback process between adaptive agents and a dynamic context. It proceeds in clear stages and the adaptive model of agents is embedded within these stages: • Adaptive agents are defined by internal rule models or schemata.37 These rule models represent the agent’s internal (or subjective) understanding of the world around them. The rule models encapsulate the experience of the agent and they drive agent behavior. With the rule models, the agents perceive and define their situation, predict the consequences of action, and act. In most applications of adaptive agents, the rules are behavioral, but they can also represent identities, interests, and goals.

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change • The actions that adaptive agents undertake and the interactions in which they participate reproduce/alter their context. Macro patterns, or social structures in our case, emerge from the actions and interactions of the agents. In complex adaptation, macro patterns are discussed as emergent properties of the system. 38 • The agents’ context is not passive, however. In a complex adaptive system, the context influences agents’ internal rule models through co-evolutionary processes. When some agents change their behavior this alters the context for the other agents. A new context “forces” agents to alter their rule models as the context determines what rules, goals, and interests are appropriate.39 Adaptive agents are always trying to fit with their context. When their rules (or subjective understandings) are appropriate for their context, the agents fit and are successful. When their rules do not fit, the agents are not successful. • Adaptation in this coevolutionary process is facilitated by evaluations of agent behavior. This can take place in two ways. • In some treatments of CAS, agents are endowed with hardwired, unchanging rules, and evolution is at the population level. In other words, agents that have rules that do not fit with the context are selected out of the population. This is similar to natural selection and fits with a neorealist perspective on world politics. • In other treatments individual agents evaluate their own behavior and rule models and can alter their own rule models. This is more relevant for a discussion of mutual constitution. Agents evaluate outcomes, or the results of actions and assess the fitness of their rule models.40 Internal rule models are strengthened, weakened, changed, or kept in relation to the evaluations. • Macro patterns produced by agent actions and interactions do more than constrain potential actions; they become incorporated, through the evaluation process, into the agents’ rule models.41 In this way an agent’s context shapes her internal rule models—her interests, identity, and behavior—while the agent’s actions feed back and affect her context.

What a CAS perspective provides is a model of agent behavior and a feedback process that dynamically links the internal understandings that agents have of their context with the context itself. The similarities to the social constructivist notion of mutual constitution are striking. Agents behave and

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alter structure (social norms), which in turn alters the agents. Complexity theory, however, offers a more detailed description of the processes inherent within and between agents and the processes that link agents and structures. Especially important are rule models, coevolution, and evaluation. As noted, internal rule models define the agents in complex systems. This assumption or description of agents is based on recognizing that human beings are much better at inductive reasoning than they are at deductive reasoning. As Arthur notes: Modern psychology tells us that as humans we are only moderately good at deductive logic, and we make only moderate use of it. But we are superb at seeing or recognizing or matching patterns—behaviors that confer obvious evolutionary benefits. In problems of complication then, we look for patterns; and we simplify the problem by using these to construct temporary internal models or hypotheses or schemata to work with.42 The rule models, then, are learned from experience and are used to anticipate the future. Murray Gell-Mann notes that the experience of the agent is embedded in the rule models.43 This is highly compatible with some views of behavior in political science as well. March and Olsen, for instance, note that “The results and inferences of past experience are stored in standard operating procedures, professional rules, and the elementary rules of thumb of a practical person.”44 Rule models enable agents to describe situations they find themselves in, predict the consequences of behavior, and prescribe courses of action.45 The rules are, in essence, the identity and history of the agent. They encapsulate what agents understand about their world—how the world works, what they want, who they are, and how they should behave. These rule models represent a way to make concrete the internal understandings of social structure needed to fully specify the NLC. The rule models are a tangible concept for representing the understandings that states had of necessary participation in ozone depletion and climate change. Explaining the transition in global responses also requires that the internal understandings have the potential to change. In complex adaptation internal rule models are not static.46 Because, in the case of individual adaptation or learning, the rule models are determined by the experience of the agent, they change over time as an agent’s interactions and contexts change. Altering rule models is a matter of adapting to a context, coevolving with other agents and the social context. However, as the context that agents in a complex system face is dynamically created by agent actions and interactions, there is no set utility or means to optimize their rules. Agents are adapting or evolving in an ever-changing environment (rather than optimizing on some objective, equilibrium

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basis) and new rules and changes in rules can come internally or externally.47 Agents’ internal rule models coevolve with their social context— a context that their actions and interactions have created. Thus, agents are not adapting to a social context in a vacuum—they are adapting to a reality that is shaped by interactions with other agents doing the same thing. The agents coevolve with each other and with their social context. Stuart Kauffman describes coevolution as the process whereby, “as we evolve, so do our competitors; to remain fit, we must adapt to their adaptations.”48 Agents occupy “niches” that are created by the existence and actions of other agents. In essence, they are constrained by their environment, while also altering their environment. This is, again, not a foreign concept to political scientists. Rosenau observes that “[e]ach organism’s adaptive actions. . . . can pose an adaptive problem for those with which it is interactive.”49 In the ozone depletion and climate change cases, if some states change their participation behavior, this alters the context within which other states are embedded. Perhaps the most important aspect of complex adaptation for the NLC is the notion of evaluation—important because through evaluation, social norms shape (constitute) agents. And unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), complexity theory does not rigorously circumscribe how agents evaluate outcomes. In essence, complexity theory leaves evaluation at a very general level. The agents do something, either implicitly or explicitly, to determine whether the outcome was good or not—whether goals (which can be implicit or explicit) were met.50 As I will discuss below, in computer simulations of CAS, this is not a large obstacle because the computer modeling environment forces the theorist to define quantitative measures for evaluation. It becomes a numerical exercise. It is less clear how evaluation takes place in political life. The work on persuasion and socialization currently underway in constructivism is illuminating potential evaluation processes in specific issues. I suspect that evaluation will take place in varied manners in different agents and different issues.51 There is almost certainly no one process of evaluation, though domestic politics is a key aspect of evaluation of state rule models. This is precisely why it may prove fortunate that complexity theory leaves open the details of evaluation. In complex adaptation, evaluation is simply a matter of negative evaluation weakening rule models, leading to their discard, or positive evaluation strengthening rule models, leading to further use. As simple as this is, it is founded solidly in psychology. Andrew Betz et al. impart the findings of the social influence literature and argue that a person can be socially influenced when “one has a weak belief in the veridicality of one’s own position.”52 In addition, Karl Dieter Opp argues that “the higher the net utility of a recurrent behavior pattern—compared with the net utility of other behavioral alternatives, the greater is the intrinsic

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value of this behavior, or equivalently, the stronger are the preferences with regard to this behavior.”53 The rule models are given credit when evaluations are positive and credit is taken away when the evaluations are negative.54 Obviously, how the positive or negative evaluations are arrived at and communicated is important. In the next section I provide some thoughts for how we might think about this in the ozone depletion and climate change cases, as these processes are case-dependent. A CAS perspective provides a simple, explicit model of agent behavior currently missing in constructivist thought—an adaptive model—as well as a relatively simple feedback process connecting agents and their context—complex adaptation.55 Agents act on the basis of rules. Their actions affect their context (social norms). That context in turn alters agents’ internal rule models as the agents evaluate their actions and incorporate their experience into their rules. Of course, the actual experience of political agents in world politics is anything but simple. The process by which states, for instance, decide what they want is enormously complex and influenced by multiple international and domestic factors. This is especially true when states address inherently normative or moral issues such as apartheid, weapons taboos, global environmental governance, and humanitarian intervention.56 The simplicity inherent in the adaptive agent model and complex adaptation is, ironically, an advantage precisely because of the complicated nature of world politics. Using the concepts of complex adaptation to model agents, their interactions, and their mutually constitutive relationship with their social context allows one to begin with a relatively simple framework— one that is general and not content-bound—into which can be placed the complicated details and content of the situations and relationships being investigated. The simplicity of the adaptive model and complex adaptation process provides a flexible backbone or foundation for structuring inquiry into the GG of ozone depletion and climate change.

COMPLEX ADAPTATION AND THE NORM LIFE CYCLE To be clear, a CAS perspective does not replace the NLC; rather the processes inherent in a CAS perspective represent a way to clarify the details of agentic action within the NLC. CAS complements the macro process of the NLC with a micro process of agency. However, the validity of this assertion and the compatibility of complex adaptation and constructivism are not immediately apparent to all observers. Complexity theory is most often associated with highly mathematical concepts and computer models, while constructivists have concentrated on the role of norms, ideas, and values— often inherently nonmathematical concepts. Fortunately, constructivism and complexity theory are compatible on a number of levels.

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Despite arising from vastly different intellectual lineages, complexity theory and constructivism exhibit strikingly similar worldviews. Similarities are found in the approaches’ views on history, teleology, change, and agents. At their core, both approaches deny that interesting systems are simple, linear, or Newtonian. In Newtonian systems, the whole can be understood by examining the parts. However, social and many natural systems cannot be understood solely by breaking them down into smaller parts. As Daniel Stein has argued, “[T]he behavior we’re interested in evaporates when we try to reduce the system to a simpler, better-understood one.”57 This fundamentally different way to view the world is common to both approaches, and it leads to similar consequences in both.

The Role of History Path dependence and the critical importance of history are hallmarks of complexity theory.58 Complex adaptive systems are sensitive to initial conditions and these conditions can put systems on historical paths.59 The path or history of the system is crucial precisely because the trajectories are indeterminate—prior actions (history) determine the path. Constructivists posit this same type of historical dependence. Giddens discusses it in terms of unintended consequences, and argues that “human history is created by intentional activities, but is not an intended project.”60 The unintended consequences of action, which serve to reify/alter structures, put history on a path, closing off some avenues and opening others. As a short example of the similar philosophies present in the two approaches, compare these two quotations about the importance of history. The first is from a constructivist’s study of the chemical weapons taboo and the second is from a complexity theorist’s study of the economy. As the result of the marriage of chance occurrences, fortuitous connections, and reinterpretations, the purposes and forms of moral structures often change to embody values different from those that animated their origins.61 Under increasing returns, by contrast, [allocation of resources] becomes path dependent. It is nonergodic—many outcomes are possible, and heterogeneities, small individisibilites, or chance meetings become magnified by positive feedbacks to ‘tip’ the system into the actual outcome “selected.” History becomes all-important.62

Evolutionary Approaches and Teleology The importance of history is intimately related to a common commitment to nonteleological thinking. Giddens makes a strong statement against teleology in his critique of “evolutionary” approaches to social theory.63 The

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entire constructivist enterprise is held together in part by a commitment to showing how “natural” or “obvious” or “superior” structures or social facts are actually socially constructed and often heavily influenced by historical contingency, rather than a law-like progression toward some end.64 Complexity theory is no different, though it is an evolutionary approach. Holland, as noted above, considers the evolution of complex adaptive systems to be going nowhere.65 Because agent interactions always alter the playing field for new behavior and adaptation, there is no such thing as evolving toward some global maximum—all adaptations are local and contextual both in terms of time and space, and fitness is always an endogenous criterion. In complexity theory, the process of complex adaptation is general, not the progression of a system through stages, and there is no movement toward some objective criterion of fitness. As Scott Page puts it, “If we are headed toward an equilibrium (other than heat death) someone keeps moving the darned thing.”66

Change The two approaches also have similar ideas about change. Complexity theorists and constructivists both conceive the sources of change to be ubiquitous and endogenous to the systems being studied. Constructivism arose in part because traditional theories of international politics were so poor at explaining change.67 As Cohen argues, “[A]ll historical practices and circumstances are subject to change.”68 Anarchy, and indeed all of world politics, is what agents make of it.69 In complexity theory formulations, agents, in trying to improve their lot and achieve their goals (whatever those goals may be), are constantly altering the context in which they are embedded with their practices and interactions. Holland notes that complex adaptive systems constitute a “moving target.”70 Both approaches contend that agent practices create the environments or structures within which agents are embedded. In this sense these systems evolve to “nowhere” because there is no set equilibrium or natural path of progression. Systems are path dependent and their paths—their histories—result from the constant interaction between and constitution of agents and structures.

Agents Perhaps most important are the approaches’ common conceptions of agents. Both constructivism and complexity theory consider that agents are driven by internal models of reality, and are generally adaptive.

Internal Rule Models Both approaches similarly consider agents to be rule-driven entities where the rules allow agents to perceive their world and decide upon actions. Agents in constructivism are not structural automatons. Instead, they

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have an internal (subjective) understanding of their intersubjective reality. Jutta Weldes argues that agents (as state officials) “create broad representations . . . of the nature of the international system and the place of their state in that system.”71 They populate their representations of the world with objects (states, self, institutions, etc.) and give those objects identities via their previous experience.72 Social norms (as social structures) thus must be conceived in two related ways. They are real (intersubjective), external facts to a singular agent when multiple agents follow their dictates. Manicas argues that because structures “exist as legacies of previous structurations, they are ‘outside’ the individual, external facticities.”73 However, they also exist as subjective models of the world, internal to agents, affecting the way they view the world and take actions within it. Giddens notes that actors “routinely and for the most part without fuss—maintain a continuing ‘theoretical understanding’ of the grounds of their activity.”74 Though structures may seem to be solely external, they persist, “between instances of social reproduction only as ‘memory-traces’ sustained by knowledgeable social agents.”75 An interesting way to conceive of this comes from Wayne Sandholtz. He posits that “rules and standards exist as social facts [and hence external to agents]; ideas, understandings, and expectations exist in individual minds.”76 Social norms are “out there”; individual agents can feel their effects and from an individual agent’s perspective the rules are objective, external facts. Universal participation is a real fact of life in the governance of ozone depletion and climate change. However, the rules are also “in there” in that an individual agent has an understanding or model of the structures in her “head.” Each state knows that universal participation defines ozone depletion and climate change. Subjective understandings of intersubjective phenomena drive, through domestic political processes, the behavior that (re)produces the external and intersubjectively real structures, which in turn are interpreted.77 There is constant interplay or mutual constitution between the structures that form the external reality for the agent and the internal models of that external reality through which agents make decisions and take action. These internal models are compatible with the notion of internal rule models from the study of complex adaptive systems—from which agent-based modeling techniques are drawn—and schemata from social psychology.78 In complexity theory, rule models, in that they encapsulate the experience of the agent, contain “pictures” or blueprints of the context they find themselves in—they are subjective understandings of the agent’s social context. Social agents are in a social environment, and thus the “pictures” found in those rule models contain social structures. In both cases, internal models allow for change because they are not structurally determined—they are shaped by intersubjective social norms,

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but there is no one-to-one correspondence between social structures and internal models. This is what allows for the norm slippage observed in the latter climate change negotiations. What each states “knows” about universal participation may be slightly off from what other states know. In addition, in both complexity theory and constructivism, the rules do not specify behavior for every conceivable situation in which agents find themselves. Instead, the internal rules allow agents to undertake generalized responses to stimuli and to thus construct responses to new situations.79 Holland argues that internal rule models are composed of “building blocks” or concepts that allow agents to recognize a variety of situations.80 The rules allow agents to reason by analogy in unfamiliar circumstances. Anthony Giddens similarly argues that social rules of procedure for going on in life (or for constructing a representation of the world) do not “specify all the situations which an actor might meet with, nor could [they] do so; rather, [they] provide for the generalized capacity to respond to and influence an indeterminate range of social circumstances.”81

Adaptation Adaptation is a fundamental aspect of a complex systems perspective, as discussed above. However, social constructivists of diverse theoretical stripes also use evolutionary logic and adaptive behavioral assumptions82— though at times implicitly. Coevolution is not foreign to constructivism. Norms arise as some agents accept new precepts as appropriate. When a group of agents accepts a new appropriate behavior, the resultant behavioral changes alter the social context (or the intersubjective understanding of what behavior is appropriate) for the other agents in a population, catalyzing change in other agents (as they strive to act appropriately). Eventually, through this process, new intersubjective agreement is reached and a norm emerges. Indeed, intersubjective agreement does not materialize automatically from the logic of appropriateness—norms do not arrive fully formed. “Norms do not as a rule come into existence at a definite point in time, nor are they the result of a manageable number of identifiable acts. They are, rather, the resultant of complex patterns of behavior of a large number of people over a protracted period of time.”83 An overarching adaptive process thus actually unites often-contradictory constructivist accounts of agent actions within mutually constitutive relationships. Agents want to behave appropriately (they have goals that are socially determined). Of course appropriateness is not an objective standard, but rather is defined by how agency instantiates social structures. There is no objectively “best” participation requirement for environmental problems; instead, these requirements emerge from the actions of states. Norm emergence and change is thus a matter of agents adapting to dynamic notions of appropriateness. Agents change their interests and behavior84 through persuasion, socialization, argumentation,

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coercion, or social learning, to name just a few of the competing mechanisms currently debated in the constructivist literature.85 Mutual constitution is an adaptive process that links agents and structures in a coevolutionary mechanism. Adaptation, despite some common misconceptions, does not imply an individualist ontology. The goals, interests, and behaviors of the agents in social constructivist thought—even when conceived as adaptive agents— are all socially (intersubjectively) defined. What the agents think is appropriate is determined by social structures. Bernstein argues that adaptive perspectives “put greater emphasis on institutional structural factors than even some other constructivist authors who focus on how agents produce change through persuasion and argumentation.”86 Further, adaptation allows for change within a logic of appropriateness. For any particular issue, there may be multiple interpretations or strains of appropriateness or internal understandings of intersubjective reality. Individual agents provide the dynamism in social structures by continually trying to act appropriately and thus continually reproducing (perhaps) slightly different social structures.

Compatibility and Synergy Beyond mere compatibility, integrating the NLC and a CAS perspective provides a full account of norm emergence and evolution. The NLC provides a macroanalytic structure for explaining norm dynamics, and the insights of complexity theory provide a microagentic process to bring the NLC to life. In specifying the connection between actors and norms, complex adaptation facilitates an updating of the NLC and mutual constitution. Moving from agents to structures, CAS provides a model of agent action. Internal rule models represent agents’ subjective understandings of their context and they drive agent behavior. Emergence is the process through which agent actions and interactions combine to alter social structures. Universal participation emerged through a process of entrepreneurship and subsequent changes in states’ internal rule models and behavior. Moving from structures to agents, CAS provides a model of the connections between social norms and agents. Internal rule models are again crucial, as these rule models are subjective “pictures” of an agent’s social context that are built through experience. Coevolution and evaluation are the mechanisms whereby changes in social context are translated into changes in internal understandings—structures constitute agents through coevolution and evaluation. As states came to understand universal participation they added it to their rule models. The resulting behavioral changes drove more and more states to adopt it. Further adaptation in the rule models brought about the evolution of universal participation into two variants.

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APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: EXPLAINING THE EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION While complexity theory augments our understanding of the NLC in general, the specific concern is explaining the emergence, influence, and evolution of a specific norm for universal participation.87 CAS insights imbue the norm life cycle with micro processes in each of its stages, thus providing a general sense of how individual agents react to and interact with ideas and norms—allowing me to fully operationalize the norms-based argument asserted in chapter 1.

Stage One: Transition from North-Only to Universal Participation According to the model, the transition in participation requirements in the ozone depletion negotiations took place through the first three steps in the NLC: entrepreneurship; the formation of a critical mass; and a cascade around universal participation.

Entrepreneurship The verbal model hypothesizes that a norm entrepreneur suggested a change in appropriate understandings of participation requirements during the ozone depletion negotiations. A norm entrepreneur advocated for universal participation. Further, the verbal model claims that some states add this suggestion to their rule model—they change their understanding of what a global response to ozone depletion requires. This adding may occur through varied processes—persuasion, socialization, or coercion. In states, the adding is a domestic political process. The model also claims that such a change in the agents arises through adaptation. States that currently understand ozone depletion to require North-only participation negatively evaluate their internal rule models. Weakened rules are subject to change. As the agents change their internal models, they will change their behavior—participating if they are not already participating (most of the South before 1987) or calling for universal participation if already participating. In chapter 5, I demonstrate that the former (the initiation of Southern participation) occurred first. In general, if the framework holds, agents (states) will add a rule calling for universal participation to their internal rule models at the behest of a norm entrepreneur during the ozone depletion negotiations— facilitating the transition between a North-only participation requirement and a universal participation requirement.

Emergence of Critical Mass When a number of agents begin acting in accordance with a universal participation rule—participating and expecting everyone else to participate in

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the ozone depletion negotiations—we will see the emergence of a nascent universal participation norm. These actions alter the reality for all the agents—they change the structural context for ozone depletion. For as Kratochwil argues, “Actors are not only programmed by rules and norms, but they reproduce and change by their practice the normative structures by which they are able to act, share meanings, communicate intentions, criticize claims, and justify choices.”88 Change in some actors will move the international community toward universal participation. An emergent critical mass around universal participation will significantly alter the dynamics of the global governance of climate change—new actors and issues will become the focus of the negotiations. States not in the critical mass will find it more and more difficult to navigate the governance processes with an internal model that does not fit with the new social context defined by the universal participation norm.

Cascade and Transition The cascade that the NLC predicts is a coevolutionary process whereby the internal rule models of states in the critical mass have changed and, through their actions, they have altered the social context in which all agents are embedded. Actors will now face a reality of universal participation. If the framework is correct, the changed social context will force rule model evolution through evaluation in the other agents, as they will no longer be able to reach their goals (they may even change their goals) using rule models that no longer fit with their social context. Through domestic political processes, states will change their understanding of their social context. If actors do not understand the universal participation requirement, they will not be able to effectively participate in the governance process for ozone depletion. If a critical mass of agents accept and act in accordance with a rule calling for universal participation, agents that follow a rule calling for less than universal participation will find themselves unable to reach their goals in the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations by acting through ill-fitting rule models. The altered social context (notions of appropriate levels of participation) induces other agents to alter their rule models through negative evaluation. Even though participation is socially constructed, it has real consequences. The understanding of participation that agents have in their rule model and that exists in the social context shapes how agents address the ozone depletion and climate change problems. If an agent is out of step with the intersubjectively understood participation requirement, she is unlikely to behave correctly, and this will lead to negative evaluations of her rule model. Through adaptation, states not in the critical mass will quickly alter their rule models and accept the norm of universal participation.

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Stage Two: Lock-in around Universal Participation The NLC framework further hypothesizes that after the transition from North-only to universal participation in the ozone depletion negotiations, the observed lock in that influenced the early climate change negotiations arose through internalization—the fourth stage of the NLC. In the internalization stage, the new idea becomes an intersubjective reality—it becomes natural and locked in. This is hypothesized to have occurred between the ozone depletion negotiations and the climate change negotiations. Universal participation becomes an ingrained part of agent rule models—constituting identities, interests, and behaviors. The new norm will become ingrained and natural as its dictates are followed and positive feedback reinforces the actions taken. Once multiple agents have been persuaded or socialized to include a new rule in their internal models, that rule must produce behavior that is positively evaluated or the rule will not continue to be used and the norm will erode. Through positive evaluation or increasing returns, action based on the rule model (or norm) becomes habit and the view of the world embedded in the norm becomes taken for granted. As this happens the rule becomes more and more immune to negative evaluation. Evaluation is again crucial. John Holland and other complexity theorists who utilize internal rule models when modeling rely significantly on agent evaluations of their own behavior.89 However, as noted above, complex adaptation does not specify how evaluation occurs in all issues or systems and instead allows for flexibility. Holland discusses the method of picking internal rule models as credit assignment—essentially, a rule that produces a “good” outcome for an agent is assigned credit, and the more credit a rule has, the more likely an agent is to utilize the rule in similar situations.90 In computer simulation applications of complex adaptation, evaluation of outcomes is a fairly straightforward matter, as most deal with quantifiable criteria for “goodness” and thus the agents in computer models need only be able to add and compare numbers to evaluate outcomes. In contrast, in international relations evaluation is an oft-complicated political process whereby a multitude of actors within the agent in question attempt to induce both their own judgment about the outcome and their own picture of the social/political reality (rules to be included in the internal model of the agent). Domestic political process is the key determinant of evaluation for states. Actors such as NGOs, the EPA, Dupont, and Congress all evaluate outcomes for the United States.91 After an event, for instance the signing of an international environmental agreement, these actors decide whether or not the outcome was positive or negative and they attempt to convince the state that their judgment is valid—via persuasion or coercion or some other mechanism.92

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These attempts are filtered through domestic political institutions and rules. For instance, when environmental NGOs try to persuade the United States that an agreement was good or bad for the environment their arguments go through established channels (i.e., hearings, formal consultations, letter-writing campaigns, etc.) and their arguments interact with the interests/judgments of the agencies charged with formulating U.S. policy positions (rule models).93 In judging the outcomes, these internal actors and external actors (UNEP other states, international NGOs) also advocate for the appropriateness of their perception of the world—a set of rules. They are attempting to alter or reify the agent’s internal rule model. Once a judgment on the value of the environmental agreement is reached, the agent revises or reifies her internal rule model based on the evaluations of the subagents. The subagents present different views on rules to incorporate in the agent’s model or which rules currently in the agent’s rule model should be active or if the agent should take the suggestion of the norm entrepreneur.94 Evaluations weaken or strengthen rule models and persuade (or socialize, or coerce, or suggest) the state to reinforce or alter its rule model. In the climate change case, the NLC hypothesizes that positive evaluation during the ozone depletion process strengthened the universal participation rule, leading to internalization and lock in. The United States and the international community thus approached climate change with universal global response because the internalized universal participation norm determined states’ understandings of the problem.

Stage Three: Evolution of Universal Participation The NLC framework also addresses the second transition in global response—the divergent understandings of universal participation that emerge after the FCCC negotiations. This is hypothesized to result from further internalization—universal participation becomes taken for granted—as well as the norm slippage that adaptive agents with internal models produce. Ironically, the transition to divergent ideas of a global response in the later climate change negotiations can be attributed to the fact that the universal participation norm was internalized and moved toward takenfor-granted status. Internalization is not an endpoint. The verbal model posits that the internal understandings that actors have of the universal participation norm are not static. They continually change through evaluation and continual interpretation. This is especially interesting in the case of states, because as the people who represent states change (i.e., transition from Bush to Clinton), the interpretation of social norms changes—internal rule models change. The verbal model hypothesizes that the second transition in global responses can be attributed to the continued adaptive behavior of agents,

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constrained by the overarching universal participation norm. States, still trying to fit with universal participation but driven by numerous other forces (domestic and external), continually interpret what “fitting” with the universal participation norm entails. Thus, slippage or divergence arises through the same process (complex adaptation and the NLC) that drove the emergence of universal participation in the first place.

Empirical Expectations Incorporating CAS insights into the norm life cycle provides a simple, flexible framework for structuring inquiry that is grounded in micro-level processes. I can discern rule models in the agents of interest, observe the rule models producing behavior, and observe the evaluation of the outcomes. In this way, I can trace the evolution of both actors and social norms and explain the emergence and evolution of the universal participation norm. When approaching the empirical record with the explanation formulated above, the following outcomes and occurrences would constitute a successful “test” of the verbal model: 1. I must see a norm entrepreneur pushing universal participation in the ozone depletion negotiations. The norm entrepreneur is recognizable via his/her platform and through the advocacy of universal participation. 2. I must see that the United States incorporates the new rule (norm) only when old rules are weakened by negative evaluation. 3. I must see that positively evaluated rules become taken for granted over time and reused in similar situations—that is, climate change. 4. I must see that continual interpretation and evaluation of the universal participation norm leads to norm slippage (divergent understandings of universal participation in the United States relative to the rest of the world).

CONCLUSION: THE NEXT STEPS This chapter began the analysis of the norms-based approach to GG in earnest. The verbal model fully specifies how and why the observed transitions in global responses for ozone depletion and climate change occurred. However, the verbal model is only the first step—it is merely a conjecture, a candidate explanation for the empirical pattern. The next stages of the analysis formally and empirically test the verbal model; demonstrating that there is an abundance of evidence to support this candidate explanation.

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Chapter Four Modeling the Norm Life Cycle The verbal model developed in the previous chapter is a potential explanation for the transitions in participation requirements in the ozone depletion and climate change cases. It presents a series of conjectures about how a universal participation norm could emerge and evolve in these issues. In this chapter, I assess those conjectures formally through agentbased modeling (ABM) techniques. I pursue formal analysis for two reasons. First, it is crucial to assess the plausibility of the claims made in the verbal framework in the abstract. Do the dynamics described in the norm life cycle actually produce the emergence and evolution of norms? Does the norm life cycle actually work the way it is described? Formal analysis rigorously explores the logic of the verbal model to see what outcomes the framework implies and to see if it implies outcomes that are comparable to the empirical targets. I attempt to “grow” evolving norms in the computer by simulating the NLC, in order to explore what types of behavior are possible (and likely).1 Second, simulation analysis provides me with a social laboratory where I can experiment with the processes contained within the NLC. These experiments point to further insights that enhance the case studies of the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations and they facilitate outlining the boundary conditions of the verbal framework. When will a norm entrepreneur be able to catalyze the emergence of norms? Under what conditions will norms emerge? Modeling the norm life cycle is a rigorous way to find answers to these questions. While the model developed below is abstract and not designed to simulate actual negotiations, it does test the verbal model in crucial ways. Most importantly it explores how norm entrepreneurs influence the connections between norms and actors. 55

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This chapter proceeds by first introducing the agent-based modeling (ABM) method. This is followed by a formal operationalization of the norm life cycle—the Pick a Number model. I then present the results of the simulation exercises and comment on their significance for the empirical project. The results confirm the plausibility of the norm life cycle as an explanation for the emergence and evolution of norms, and they provide a number of important insights regarding the influence of the norm entrepreneur and the importance of the complexity of the social context within which the agents exist.

AGENT-BASED MODELING Constructivists rarely formally model their insights because they reject many of the strictures of dominant rational choice formal modeling (given interests, strict methodological individualism, logic of consequences). ABM is a useful modeling environment for constructivists precisely because it is not restricted to rational choice techniques. ABM is a computer simulation technique with a distinguished history in computer, cognitive, and physical science that finds its roots in early artificial intelligence efforts. More recently, ABM has begun to make inroads into the social sciences. A number of economists, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists have begun to apply ABM to specific and general puzzles.2 The essence of this type of modeling lies in the creation of artificial agents that can be envisioned as individuals, organizations, or even states. The modeler endows these agents with individual characteristics (attributes that change from simulation to simulation), the ability to perceive their environment, and decision-making apparatus. The modeler then places the artificial agents in an artificial environment (social and/or physical if modeling spatial/environmental interactions) and lets them interact. The goal is to simulate and understand processes through which macro patterns emerge from the actions and interactions of agents (and their context). As Epstein and Axtell explain: We view [ABM] as laboratories, where we attempt to “grow” certain social structures in the computer—or in silico—the aim being to discover fundamental local or micro mechanisms that are sufficient to generate the macroscopic social structures and collective behaviors of interest.3 This is a very general view of ABM. Thus described, game theoretic modeling could be undertaken in an ABM environment, though simulation is less utilized in game theory given the attractiveness of closed form analytic solutions often available. ABM is a useful alternative to tradi-

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tional formal analysis because it can be used to explore complex/complicated problems that are too messy for game theory and other types of mathematical analysis. ABM efforts usually begin by noting how the interesting problems in social science are analytically intractable. To analyze much of social life with traditional quantitative/modeling tools it has been necessary to abstract away much of the messiness that makes politics and other social endeavors interesting—nonlinearity, heterogeneity, nonrationality (strictly speaking), incomplete information, changing values and preferences, and even limited computational ability. Traditional tools such as game theory, econometrics, and other forms of mathematical analysis have a difficult time dealing with these noted characteristics of human beings and social life. They simplify—assuming linearity, homogeneity, rationality, stable preferences, and unlimited computational ability—in order to reach tractable solutions. To be clear, I am not condemning simplification—all modeling and indeed all analysis entails simplification. However, it is difficult to justify abstracting away the interesting parts of social life in the name of analytical tractability when other, similarly rigorous, methods exist that do not have to make similar simplifications. The flexibility entailed by the ABM methodology—it is possible to endow the agents with almost any kind of attributes and decision-making rules imaginable—allows scholars to move beyond restrictive rationality and still retain rigor. This is an especially welcome development for constructivists, plagued (unfairly) with criticisms of being “unscientific” in a social context that values science.4 With ABM, it is possible to model constructivist relationships between agents and structures; that is, agents that are in a mutually constitutive relationship with their social context. The agents in many ABM applications are heterogeneous and adaptive, rather than homogeneous and rational. These adaptive agents have limited computational ability and “live” in a world of less than complete information. Instead of calculating the optimal course of action based on (often) full information of all alternatives, adaptive agents “rely on heuristics or rules of thumb,” that are learned over time, through experience.5 This is entirely compatible with the constructivist notions that agents follow norms or rules that are learned through experience within a social context. In addition, adaptive agents “inhabit a world that they must cognitively interpret—one that is complicated by the presence and actions of other agents and that is ever changing.”6 They “generally do not optimize in the standard sense . . . because the very concept of an optimal course of action often cannot be defined.”7 Adaptive agents feel their way around and learn from experience in a highly uncertain world. Further, the context or world that agents inhabit is a product of their own actions and interactions. The study of complex adaptive systems and constructivism similarly hold that agents and their intersubjective context continually recreate one another.

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ABM is a technique that facilitates computational explorations of relationships and populations that are inherently path dependent and not in equilibrium—the way that constructivists envision political systems. It provides a social laboratory for thought experiments—useful for social scientists and those natural scientists whose subject matter is inherently historical and not easily explored through experimentation (for ethical, moral, or practical reasons). In addition, ABM retains the rigor of formal theory and (for those that desire it) the stamp of science. Robert Axelrod calls it a “third way” to do science; combining aspects of both inductive and deductive approaches: Like deduction, it starts with a set of explicit assumptions. But unlike deduction, it does not prove theorems. Instead, a simulation generates data that can be analyzed inductively. Unlike typical induction, however, the simulated data comes from a rigorously specified set of rules rather than direct measurement of the real world.8 However, as mentioned above, formal modeling has not been the tool of choice for social constructivist analysis. A number of the theoretical strictures of constructivism directly conflict with the foundations of most traditional formal modeling. Traditional formal modeling tends to be methodologically individualist, committed to objectivity, and wholly positivist epistemologically, in contrast with constructivism’s denial of ontologically primitive agents or structures, ontological commitment to intersubjectivity, and debated epistemological foundations (interpretivist or pseudo positivist). Is ABM any different? Can mutual constitution and the norm life cycle be captured in an agent- based model? Both Jeffrey Checkel and Stefano Guzzini warn constructivists against implementing their insights through individualist behavioral models.9 Guzzini cautions constructivists against “mixing an intersubjective theory of knowledge with an individualist theory of action,”10 while Checkel laments that “all too many constructivists rely” on behavioral models that “are decidedly individualist in nature.”11 ABM may appear to exhibit exactly these problems. In these models social structure is often a very simple aggregation of agent actions, something Guzzini blames for “individualist reductionism.”12 Additionally, the focus of ABM is the decision making of individual, autonomous agents. However, the ABM approach is not as individualist as it may appear, and the abstraction of some components of constructivist thinking may not be so damaging. First, while the method of social aggregation is usually explicitly modeled in a simple fashion, this is, in some ways, immaterial to the question at hand of whether entrepreneurs can catalyze change. The more important

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point is that in ABM simulations the social context emerges directly from agent behaviors—agency constitutes social structure. Second, as discussed in chapter 3, a focus on internal decision rules does not necessarily equal an individualist ontology. Constructivists have struggled with how to characterize individual agency—how to describe the process whereby agents make decisions and take actions.13 This is a relatively easy task for rationalist thinkers because of their reliance on methodological individualism.14 However, when agents are socially constituted, exist in intersubjective reality, and are assumed to follow a logic of appropriateness, the task becomes more difficult. At the same time, Checkel concedes “where to draw the line between individual and social ontologies is no easy task.” Individual agents, whether they are states or individuals, take actions. Constructivists rightly point to the need to represent this action as embedded in social relations—social structures define the goals, identities, and interests that lead to individual action. Fortunately, the notion of internal rules fits very well with Guzzini’s suggestion that constructivists turn to schemata,15 and the composition of internal models can be represented in ABM applications as socially determined. Because of its flexibility in defining agents and their behavior, ABM is a useful tool for exploring constructivist insights in general, and the norm life cycle specifically. ABM is ideal for exploring the norm life cycle and the influence of norm entrepreneurs on norm emergence and evolution in preparation for examining the influence of an actual norm entrepreneur in the ozone depletion negotiations. In the modeling exercises that follow I put the norm life cycle on the computer and demonstrate how stylized norm entrepreneurs can catalyze both the emergence of norms and change in established norms over time. While this type of modeling study does not, by itself, generate empirical support for my arguments about universal participation, it does establish that norm entrepreneurs can in principle influence the emergence and evolution of norms, as constructivists argue.16 In addition, the modeling results outline the boundary conditions for the influence of norm entrepreneurs, and highlight additional empirical expectations that structure the case studies in chapters 5, 6, and 7.

MODELING THE NLC Norm entrepreneurs, political entrepreneurs, and moral entrepreneurs have all been called upon in explanations of the emergence of cooperation, norms, conventions, coalitions, and agreements. However, it is not enough to assert the efficacy of norm entrepreneurs or to merely correlate the existence of a norm entrepreneur with the emergence of norms, conventions, or cooperation.17 Most entrepreneurship studies endeavor

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to show how norm entrepreneurs transmit their ideas and persuade actors to accept those ideas.18 Constructivists have focused in on organizational platforms and processes of socialization and persuasion in accounting for the influence of entrepreneurs. Others look at access, social/political capital, power, and financial resources. These studies are mainly interested in explaining how an entrepreneur is able to alter other agents’ behaviors (or motivations or interests or beliefs). These studies tend to assume that if they can show how an entrepreneur can convince agents to accept a new idea, then they have explained the emergence of the cooperation, coalition, norm, etc. and shown the effect of entrepreneurs. The model developed in this chapter problematizes what most studies take for granted: How persuasive entrepreneurs can alter the dynamics of interacting, interdependent agents toward intersubjective agreement and sketch out the conditions under which this can take place. I ignore the question of how the entrepreneur is able to convince individual agents to take her suggestion (it happens automatically) and instead focus on the unexamined assumption that a persuasive entrepreneur can influence the outcomes that arise from the interactions of heterogeneous, interdependent agents. I seek to understand under what conditions a norm entrepreneur can catalyze norm emergence and to establish a baseline notion of the dynamics of influence of norm entrepreneurs. Will entrepreneurs always influence an outcome? Is their influence epiphenomenal? Is it possible that they have no influence at all? I put the NLC into a computer model in order to “see” if the norm entrepreneurs and norm dynamics outlined are sufficient to generate norm emergence and evolution. The model results demonstrate that under certain conditions, norm entrepreneurs can in fact catalyze norm emergence and norm change—conditions that subsequently inform the case study analysis of ozone depletion and climate change.

Pick a Number The Pick a Number model19 is a modification of a common way to choose who gets to go first in childhood games. The contestants pick a number between one and ten and the winner is the person whose number falls closest to the number selected by a third party. I have extended this game by removing the exogenous arbiter—the person who thought of the number the others were trying to guess. Instead the agents in the simulation must pick a number between zero and one hundred in an attempt to match the group outcome, defined as the average (arithmetic mean) of the choices from the entire group.20 In the simulations presented below, there are ten agents. The goal for each of these agents is to pick a number close to the entire group’s choice—to act appropriately given the social context that is the average

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of the individual predictions. The tools available to the agents for making their predictions are simple rules. In the simulations presented here the agents have available to them a universe of seven rules. The rules themselves are simply random choices drawn from a uniform distribution of integers within specified boundaries:21 1. 0 and 10 2. 15 and 25 3. 30 and 40 4. 45 and 55 5. 60 and 70 6. 75 and 85 7. 90 and 100 Each agent is initially randomly assigned three of these rules (without repeats) and therefore each agent has three ideas about the appropriate number. Therefore, out of the universe of seven rules, at any one time each agent only has three to use in deciding which number to pick.22 The agent uses one of these three rules—her operating rule—to pick the number that is sent to the entire group. Each agent determines which rule is her operating rule by keeping track of scores for each rule in her repertoire. Each rule starts with a score of 100. This score tracks the usefulness of the rule—the score rises and falls depending on how close its predictions have been to the group outcome—and the rule with the currently highest score is the operating rule.23 Once the group outcome is known, agents compare their three predictions (one operating, two potential) with the outcome and reward (add 1 to the score) or penalize (subtract 1) their rules depending on the closeness of the prediction. “Close enough” is governed by a precision parameter. In most runs of the model, precision is set at 5 percent. Rules that predict the group outcome within plus or minus 5 are rewarded and others are punished. For example, if the group outcome was 45, then rules predicting between 40 and 50 would be rewarded. Potential rules can become operating when their score exceeds that of the current operating rule. For instance if nine of the agents have rule 5 as their operating rule and one agent is using rule 2, but has rule 5 as a potential rule, eventually, the agent’s operating rule will be punished and the potential rule 5 rewarded enough to elevate rule 5 to the operating rule role. In order to facilitate adaptation and change over time, at set intervals each agent discards a poorly performing rule and is randomly assigned a new rule from the universe of rules.24 The new rule starts with a fresh score

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of 100. This can be thought of as akin to a change in domestic politics (if the agents are states) or an internal policy entrepreneur. Internally, someone or some organization has convinced the agent to change one of the rules it could possibly use to make a prediction. Following constructivist thought, the model assumes that intersubjective agreement is positive for the agents. The reward/punishment procedure is drawn from the constructivist assumption that agents attempt to behave appropriately, which is defined as the intersubjectively agreedupon behavior. The punishments can be interpreted as either internal (conscience or cognitive dissonance from breaking a norm) or external costs associated with acting inappropriately,25 while the rewards are the benefits from acting appropriately. This scoring mechanism could be viewed as individualist and based on the logic of consequences in violation of constructivist tenets. Fortunately, this is not the case for three reasons. First, the agents’ decisions are entirely socially conditioned because the only information they have is social. Their entire world consists of a drive to behave appropriately and an ability to recognize their social context. Second, this model does not simulate coordination in the rationalist sense of agents getting a higher payoff if they choose the same strategy (though the model could be modified to explore these issues).26 Remember that only the rules, not the agents, are rewarded or punished—the agents themselves gather no utility from matching the group outcome. There is no competition to be the best “matcher.” Instead, the rules help the agents reach their goal of acting appropriately. Change in the rules (altering the operating rule and dropping poorly performing rules) is quantified in this model, but the quantification is merely a simplification and representation of the multiple mechanisms that constructivists have identified for norm compliance and behavioral/ normative choice. Finally, in practical and functional terms, a decision based on a logic of appropriateness looks very similar to a decision based on consequentialist logic—that is, they are similarly processed on the computer. The agents assess whether their rules produce behavior that matches the social outcome. If not, they change those rules. In order to program this on the computer, I have chosen to quantify how well the rules are doing and to reward and punish the rules depending on their performance. The model does not explicitly address how the agents recognize their social context (outcome). The automatic recognition of the social context in the model is general enough to accommodate the multiple, debated notions of how agents come to recognize their social context—persuasion, argumentation, socialization, social learning. These mechanisms also act to devalue some rules and increase the value of others. I do not model these mechanisms explicitly; I am not attempting to simulate social learning or per-

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suasion. Instead, by using a general mechanism for rule valuation, I can discern the fundamental effects of norm entrepreneurship. The social context these agents find themselves in and adapt to is the other important component of the model, and it is wholly produced by the combined actions of the population of agents. It is a very limited world, where agents only perceive the group outcome (average prediction). The catch for the agents is that it is a noisy world. While the true outcome is exactly the average of the prediction from the population, the outcome that each agent perceives is obscured by noise.27 The noise is a measure of what I call social complexity. It can be conceived of as the ambiguity of the social environment—the higher the noise levels, the less clear agents are on what the appropriate group outcome should be. Thus, social complexity represents how easy or difficult is it to ascertain the appropriateness of the group outcome. Essentially, the agents are given varied degrees of blurred vision. While the true outcome flows from the agents’ actions, because of the noise (or a complex social environment), the agents do not “see” or cannot judge the outcome directly. For instance, think of this in terms of contributing to a collective good. Even if all the players individually feel that 75 is the appropriate level of contribution (i.e., they all predicted 75), there may be some uncertainty in the correctness of the outcome or conversely the outcome may be communicated poorly to the players—noise. An additional aspect of the social context is the existence of a natural attractor in this system—a preordained norm that is intrinsically attractive given the dynamics of the model. Rule 4, which produces predictions between 45 and 55, is a natural norm in this system.28 Averaging random numbers between 0 and 100 will produce a mean of around 50 in the long run. The results demonstrate that when the noise in the system is low enough, the agents learn to gravitate toward rule 4. When the noise is high, the agents have a difficult time finding this rule—the intrinsic worth of rule 4 is being obscured by a complex social environment. This baseline model contains rule-following agents with limited computational abilities—they are goal seekers, but not strategic agents. Driven by a logic of appropriateness, they want to match their predictions with the group outcome. The behavior is socially driven— the agents only know social facts, though they do have an individual understanding of them. In addition, the agents are adaptive—they change their active rule when it fails to help them meet their goal (i.e., when they are acting out of step with the social context) and they keep it when it performs well. In the baseline model the agents act in an uncoordinated fashion, trying to reach consensus on rule use in a noisy environment. Norm emergence requires intersubjective agreement— common use of a rule, and once it emerges the norm is self-reinforcing in that norm following behavior is rewarded and norm breaking is

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punished. Norm change can only occur when agents begin to follow a different rule. Figure 4,1 is a model schematic. The baseline model explores the conditions under which the agents can find the natural attractor—the focal point or natural norm in the system—by themselves through uncoordinated, adaptive behavior in situations lacking a norm entrepreneur. From there, the real test of the norm life cycle begins and norm entrepreneurs are introduced into the model. Norm entrepreneurs suggest a rule to the agents at specified intervals (every fifty rounds in all the simulations presented). Each agent replaces her currently worst performing rule with the norm entrepreneur’s suggestion. The suggested rule starts with a score of 100. Sometimes the injection of a suggestion produces a cascade of behavior that leads to norm emergence or change. In the base version of the model this stylized entrepreneur is able to reach all agents simultaneously and automatically convinces all the agents in the simulation to add the suggestion to their repertoire of rules. Crucially, the agents will only use the suggested rule if their other rules have been weakened through past punishments—that is, just because a new idea about appropriate behavior is presented, that does not mean it will automatically influence behavior. Figure 4.1 Schematic of the Model

In Figure 4.1, the octagons represent individual agents. In each round, each agent presents her prediction to the group as a whole. The predictions are averaged and noise is incorporated. The agents then observe the group outcome and evaluate their rules. The ⫹/⫺ 1 shown in the hexagons on the right represent the evaluation of each agent’s operating rule.

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Modeling Social Constructivist Insights: What Can Be Learned? The childhood activity that gives the model its name is a simple, abstract representation of sophisticated processes of social construction—much as the Prisoner’s Dilemma is an abstract representation of collective action problems. Agents in the norm life cycle and in this model strive to behave appropriately (pick the “correct” number). Rather than being an objective criterion, the appropriate behavior is defined by the intersubjective social context (group outcome—in the model the social context is a single issue or policy area with multiple options) that in turn is constructed from the behaviors of the agents within it (aggregated choices of individual agents). This model is not a 1:1 mapping of real norm emergence. Instead, the model is an abstraction of the norm life cycle. In order to better discuss what the model can tell us, let me be clear about some of what the model leaves out: • No communication—agents interact indirectly through the group outcome.29 • The rules are contentless, except in their proximity to a prediction of 50. • The model does not address how norm entrepreneurs convince agents. • The model does not differentiate between powerful agents. • All agents are affected by noise in the same way. • The agents are not strategic. • The agents are not ideological about the rules. • There are no norm complexes. • No competing norm entrepreneurs. The impact of each of the subtractions from reality mentioned above can be investigated by altering the model. However, the current model is useful precisely because by abstracting or controlling for certain aspects of the “real” world, I am able to isolate exactly how norm entrepreneurs effect norm dynamics given the logic of the NLC. This model thus provides a baseline assessment of the NLC and the effects of norm entrepreneurs independent of other factors that may influence norm emergence and evolution. The model simplifies in order to get at the essential question of how and when can norm entrepreneurs influence norm dynamics? What are the boundary conditions for norm entrepreneurship independent of the characteristics of the entrepreneur? The goal is to discern the conditions where we will be likely to see the emergence and evolution of social norms.

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RESULTS Multiple simulations of the model were run, altering key variables. I investigated the effects of: including/excluding the norm entrepreneur; varying levels of noise on the outcome; and varying the reach of the norm entrepreneur. The overarching exploration looked at the impact of a norm entrepreneur on the ability of the agents to reach intersubjective agreement, so all the simulation runs are split into runs with and without norm suggestions. In this section I report the results with minimal interpretation. The discussion section that follows discusses the theoretical and empirical significance in more detail.

Life Without Norm Entrepreneurs When norm entrepreneurs are absent from the system, two types of macro patterns emerge in the simulations. Depending upon the noise levels in the system, the simulation exhibits a strict dichotomy between stability and volatility in the system. Figures 4.2 and 4.3 are typical runs without norm entrepreneurs. As the noise in the system increases the simulation switches from stable to volatile. Each figure reports the average predictions (group outcome) made in each round by the agent population over one thousand rounds. Each of these simulations was run with ten agents and a precision level of 5 percent. The only variable altered from run to run was the level of noise added to the average prediction. In Figure 4.2, the predictions reach a stable level relatively quickly as the agents arrive at the same rule. As the noise increases in figure 4.3, however, the agents are unable to come to agreement and thus the average predictions fluctuate wildly. These figures demonstrate that when the noise level is low enough, the agents hit upon the dominant rule (often very quickly) in the system, rule 4.30 As the noise increases (as the agents are less able to see the true outcome and are thus less certain about its appropriateness), the agents are unable to come to agreement on any rule and the average prediction reflects this uncertainty. The agents are unable to find a rule that can be intersubjectively agreed upon and thus the agents continually cycle through rules. Without norm entrepreneurs the agents’ actions produce either a volatile or incredibly stable macro pattern with a strict breakpoint between the two types of patterns. The macro patterns, in turn, alter/reinforce agent behavior and identity (constituting agents) leading to cycling in rule use or the domination of a single rule. The dynamism of the system is either out of control (volatility) or disappears (stability). We see the natural norm emerge or no norm at all. However, this simple set of outcomes does have interesting implications. The model suggests that there are situations where norm entrepreneurs are entirely unnecessary for norm emergence. When an idea is intrinsically attractive and the social complexity is low enough such that all the agents can appreciate the attractiveness of the idea, the idea can become a norm without any entrepreneurial effort.31

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Figure 4.2 Population Predictions—Low Noise, No Entrepreneur 10 Agents, 6% noise, 5% precision 100 90

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Figure 4.3 Population Predictions—High Noise, No Entrepreneur 10 Agents, 10% noise, 5% precision 100

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Life with Norm Entrepreneurs In contrast to the dichotomous patterns exhibited when the system lacks norm entrepreneurs, their presence creates different patterns. First, norm entrepreneurs are able to influence which rule rises to dominant status when the noise/precision levels would otherwise lead to stability around

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change Figure 4.4 Population Predictions—Low Noise, Entrepreneur Present 10 Agents, 6% noise, 5% precision 100

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the dominant rule. See Figure 4.4 for a demonstration of this effect. The simulation depicted in Figure 4.4 is similarly configured to the simulation run in Figure 4.2, except that a norm entrepreneur is now present. The impact of the norm entrepreneur was significant. The agents still crystallized around a single rule for the majority of the simulation, but instead of the dominant rule 4, the agents crystallized around rule 1 (which returns a prediction between 0 and 10) after the suggestion of the norm entrepreneur. The norm entrepreneur was able to alter the manner in which the agent population crystallized around a single rule—a rule that generates a prediction far different from the otherwise dominant prediction that hovers around 50. Repeated trials demonstrated that any of the rules can rise to normative status under these conditions.32 Here we see that when agents can clearly discern what is appropriate (a situation of low social complexity), the norm entrepreneur can have a huge effect on norm emergence (though as per the above results, the norm entrepreneur is not necessary to catalyze norm emergence). The norm entrepreneur’s suggestion locked the population into a particular norm (and it was not the intrinsically attractive rule). This pattern is reminiscent of technological lock-in discussed in the increasing returns literature in economics where a firm or even an individual offers a new technology that can rapidly become the entrenched standards.33 The QWERTY keyboard34 and the VHS VCR35 are classic examples. Entrepreneurs (or even historical accident) provide the initial advantage to a rule (a few more VHS ma-

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chines, or a few more QWERTY type-writers) in an environment with few extant alternatives, and the positive feedback or increasing returns built into the model and drawn from the constructivist framework act to lock-in the rule. Politically speaking this could represent institutional lock in or the role of power. The U.S. Constitution is a good example of institutional lock in. The U.S. state could have been organized in any number of ways—but there were few practical alternatives in the beginning. The Articles of Confederation was one potential idea that faded quickly, and entrepreneurs (the framers) presented a new notion of political organization. This new idea gained currency quickly and became locked in, impervious to other suggestions. Powerful entrepreneurs can have the same effect. For instance, when a dominant power in international relations makes a suggestion, there may be little noise associated with it. This effect is amplified in certain conditions, for instance when a hegemon makes a suggestion at the conclusion of a war.36 The setup of the Bretton Woods institutions after World War II is a pertinent example. The social complexity surrounding the configuration of the global economy was very limited and overwhelmingly influenced by the United States.37 Lock-in is not the only effect that norm entrepreneurs can have on the system. At higher levels of noise, entrepreneurs catalyze metastable patterns in contrast to a strict breakpoint between volatility and stability. Norm entrepreneurs allow the system to walk the line between volatility and stability and they create patterns of rising and falling norms over time. Metastable patterns occur when pockets of stability arise but do not last— there is stability in the system but it is not robust. In these simulations, the agents can coalesce around any of the rules and we see the rise and demise of intersubjective agreement among the agents. In essence, the norm entrepreneurs are able to catalyze intersubjective agreement, but the agreement does not dampen the dynamism of the system. Instead, the agreement (or norm) lasts for a while before eroding via agent choices and new norm entrepreneur suggestions. The stability erodes because the system is too noisy to support long-term stability and norm entrepreneurs periodically prod the system with new suggestions. Norm entrepreneurs are thus able to catalyze both norm change and norm evolution. Figure 4.5 demonstrates the impact of norm entrepreneurs on a simulation similar to the one run in Figure 4.3. Figure 4.6 shows rule usage in the entire population. In this figure, each pattern represents a rule, and prevalence of a pattern represents the percentage of the population that is using that rule in every round. When only one pattern is present (vertically) as happens at round 101, 301, and 701, then all the agents in the population are using a single rule (rule 5 at 101, rule 4 at 301, and rule 2 at 701). The more a pattern is displayed, the more agents are using the rule.

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change Figure 4.5 Population Predictions—High Noise, Entrepreneur Present

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Figure 4.6 Public Rule Usage in Population 10 Agents, 10% noise, 5% precision 100%

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These figures demonstrate that metastable patterns result from the norm entrepreneur’s suggestions at a level of noise high enough to cause volatile outcomes in systems lacking an entrepreneur. The norm entrepreneurs catalyze periods of intersubjective agreement among the agents—they make it possible for agents to crystallize around a rule for relatively short periods in an environment that would otherwise lead to volatile patterns. I suspect that this pattern is representative of the majority of social life, where we see neither permanent lock-in nor constant searching for a norm. Most studies of norms in the constructivist literature detail norm change—

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shifting development initiatives at the World Bank,38 changing global environmental attitudes,39 the spread of human rights,40 the downfall of apartheid,41 or the growth of a chemical weapons taboo.42 Finnemore details the evolution of development initiatives at the World Bank—from a focus on raising GNP to poverty alleviation and now onto sustainable development— and points to the role of a norm entrepreneur, Robert McNamara in bringing about the change to poverty alleviation.43 Most social life seems to walk this line between stability and volatility—things do not stay the same forever but neither do they change daily. Norms rise, govern behavior, fall out of favor, and are replaced. This pattern is evident across all levels of politics. Political ideology within the United States, for instance, swings between liberal and conservative—not on a day-to-day basis, but rather on a decade-to-decade basis. The relations between the superpowers in the cold war went through identifiable phases as well. What this model, designed to analyze norm emergence and evolution, potentially captures is a general dynamic whereby interdependent agents can reach intersubjective agreement—there exist stable expectations or a stable pattern of behavior—and those agents can alter that agreement—change is inevitable as well. Finnemore and Sikkink have captured this dynamic in the norm life cycle. The results of the model support their conclusion that norm entrepreneurs are a key factor in creating the dynamic by providing the input of new ideas. The most important result of the modeling exercises is that the norm life cycle is able to produce these empirically relevant metastable patterns—the norm life cycle captures essential, recognizable patterns and is thus a strong candidate explanation for norm dynamics. The model demonstrates that the constructivist expectations for norm entrepreneurs are indeed plausible. Norm entrepreneurs are able to engender the rise of norms in a population of agents that cannot reach them through uncoordinated behavior and they can catalyze change in the existing normative structure as well. Importantly, this metastable pattern only arises in the model when norm entrepreneurs are present, and only at levels of social complexity where the noise (10 percent) would drive an entrepreneurless system into volatile patterns. Norm entrepreneurs alter the system dynamics and are required to produce patterns we would recognize as norm emergence and change. Thus, this model, designed with constructivist insights as its foundation, strengthens the theoretical claims of the constructivist approach to norms.

Reach of the Entrepreneur While the above results are valuable, they are just the beginning. Just how robust are the effects of norm entrepreneurs found in these initial analyses? Under what conditions do norm entrepreneurs have which effects? To begin to answer these questions, I undertook sensitivity analysis on the

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model in order to assess the importance of entrepreneur reach.44 I investigated the impact of limited reach—the effects if the norm entrepreneur could not influence the whole population, but rather just a portion of it. For this analysis I let the reach of the entrepreneur vary (30–40 percent of the population, 40–50 percent, 50–60 percent, 60–70 percent, 70–80 percent, 80–90 percent, 90–100 percent) in order to check whether these changes made a significant impact on the mean number of rounds where a norm was present. Table 4.1 presents the results of this analysis. What we see is that even norm entrepreneurs with a very limited reach (as low as 30 percent of the population of agents) are able to significantly increase the number of rounds in which there are norms present. The next statistically significant increase in the mean number of rounds with a norm does not come until the reach of the entrepreneur is extended to 60–70 percent of the population. This makes sense, as now the entrepreneur can reach enough agents to instantly create a norm if agents’ current rules are performing poorly (the definition of norm used here is 70 percent of the population using the same rule). We see further that once the reach of the entrepreneur reaches 80 percent, there is another significant improvement but that further increases do not significantly influence the mean number of rounds with a norm. In essence, norm entrepreneurs are able to influence the population even when they cannot reach a large percentage of the population, and their influence grows with their reach. This is in line with the expectations of the norm life cycle. The norm entrepreneur is a catalyst that alters the social context when only a few other agents accept her suggestion. This disruption in the social context leads other agents to change their behavior and eventually a norm emerges.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE GOVERNANCE OF OZONE DEPLETION AND CLIMATE CHANGE This is a simple model. However, even given its simplicity, it produces complex patterns and demonstrates that stylized norm entrepreneurs can play a role in forging intersubjective agreement and that they contribute to norm evolution as well as emergence. It shows in a general, formal way that norm entrepreneurs can alter the dynamics of a system of interacting agents sometimes catalyzing the emergence and evolution of norms. While not an empirical test of the NLC, the modeling exercises and results do confirm its plausibility, and entail important implications for theory building and empirical investigation. First, it is useful to know that assumptions at the foundation of my argument actually can produce the outcomes they expect—the metastable pattern of emergence and transformation of a normative structure. The logic of the enhanced NLC is embedded in the model, and that logic produces norms

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Table 4.1 Effect of the Reach of the Norm Entrepreneur Minimum Reach of Norm Entrepreneur 0% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Mean Number of Rounds with a Norm Present

95% Confidence Interval

31 82 113 125 198 232 347 403 499

15–37 51–112 84–142 103–147 171–225 204–260 294–400 360–446 443–555

Significant Change from Previous Reach Yes No No Yes No Yes No No

In all of the simulations run for this sensitivity analysis: a norm is considered to have emerged when 70 percent of the agents are using the same rule, there were ten agents, there were one thousand rounds, norms were suggested every fifty rounds, the noise in the system was 10 percent, and the required precision was 5 percent.45 The means and confidence intervals were calculated from thirty runs that differed only in random number seeds.

and norm change when norm entrepreneurs provide the catalyzing influence that Finnemore and Sikkink envisioned. In that sense, the plausibility of the book’s argument is established (this is akin to an existence proof in rational choice).46 However, what is interesting about the exercises is not that I was able to identify norms, but that the results facilitate identification of the conditions under which norms emerge. The model of the norm life cycle framework produced three potential patterns—stability around a rule, volatility, or metastability. All three have empirical analogues as mentioned in the results section. The crucial question is how and when norm entrepreneurs influence which pattern arises and which pattern fits the empirical puzzle of participation. The modeling exercises suggest that social complexity and norm entrepreneur reach are crucial. Social Complexity Many studies of norms highlight the importance of fit in explaining the emergence of particular norms.47 For a new norm to emerge, it is crucial that the content of that norm is compatible with other values/norms in the social system. Content—what a nascent norm actually calls upon agents to do or not do—is certainly an important factor in explaining the emergence of specific norms. For instance, the fit of universal participation with notions of multilateralism and other notions of inclusivity in governance processes is crucial.

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The Pick a Number model captures some of the importance of content in that rules that predict numbers close to 50 fit with the structure of the social system. However, the more important insights from the model arise from a focus on context instead of content. The model results suggest that it is necessary to consider how contextual conditions (amount of ambiguity in the system, the number of rules in the system) affect norm emergence and evolution independent of the content of the norms. The model implies that context can play a fundamental role. There are contextual conditions where no norms will arise, regardless of the content of the rules. The social context that the agents find themselves in is a key determinant of the influence of the entrepreneurs as well as the structural patterns that emerge. When the social context is too complex (noise is high, the rules/population ratio is high)48 the agents cannot find intersubjective agreement, even when helped by the suggestions of a norm entrepreneur, because they cannot discern what the appropriate behavior should be. When the social context is this noisy, we are unlikely to see norms arise across a population regardless of the activities of norm entrepreneurs. In this context, we may not see any international norms emerge. This situation is not relevant for the cases at hand. The observed lock-in around universal participation demonstrates that a social norm did indeed emerge. When social complexity is low in the model (low noise, low rules/ population ratio) two outcomes are possible. In the absence of norm entrepreneurs, interacting agents are able to find the natural norm with no outside help, and it rapidly diffuses through the entire population. When the social complexity surrounding an issue is relatively low, the natural norm that emerges will face relatively little challenge, and self-reinforcement and reification will ensure that the norm stays stable. This set of conditions does not apply to universal participation either. Certainly, conventional wisdom holds that universal participation is natural for global environmental problems. However, the empirical pattern being investigated is change over time in participation requirements—the international community has not hit on a moral truth or natural participation requirement. Participation is still being actively constructed. When norm entrepreneurs are present in low complexity environments, lock in is the likely result. Even when a natural norm is available in the system a norm entrepreneur can catalyze stable intersubjective agreement around any number of possible ideas. Again, a number of potential sets of institutional rules may have been better than Bretton Woods. This is suggestive in that it reminds us to consider that current phenomena— political organizations, boundaries, norms, technologies, etc.—are not necessarily the “best,” but often result from particular initial conditions and path dependent processes that can be initially shaped by entrepreneurs.49

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The lock in seen under these modeling conditions is potentially applicable—the norm entrepreneur makes a suggestion and the international community locks in to the suggestion. In addition, conventional wisdom would again indicate that because of the global scope of the problems, there should be little social complexity around the notion of universal participation. However, the lock-in observed in the model under conditions of low social complexity is an incredibly stable state—the evolution currently under way in universal participation makes it possible that universal participation may lose normative status altogether. In addition, it is important to remember that universal participation arose in a transition from a different norm—North-only participation. The low social complexity conditions do not lead to patterns of changing norms— the lock-in is immediate and permanent. Both stable and volatile patterns were evident regardless of the existence of a norm entrepreneur in the system. The metastable pattern was also associated with a relatively high level of social complexity—high enough to produce volatile patterns. This is the most interesting and relevant result because when norm entrepreneurs are present at this level of complexity the appropriateness of actions is not set in stone, but neither is it entirely open. The norm entrepreneurs’ suggestions have the most interesting influence in this region precisely because the social complexity is such that their suggestions will have an immediate impact on the social context (affect what is thought of as appropriate)—remember that the metastable patterns result from a noise level that is too high to sustain norms without an entrepreneur—but will not freeze the system. It is in this range where agents need the help of a norm entrepreneur to reach intersubjective agreement. Norm entrepreneurs help agents manage high degrees of social complexity. This set of conditions produces the modeling results most relevant for the study of universal participation in ozone depletion and climate change. First, under these conditions, we see norm emergence and change. This is comparable to the stunning transition between Northonly participation and universal participation observed in the ozone depletion negotiations. Second, these results suggest that in considering the second transition we have to bear in mind that the United States may have acted as a norm entrepreneur when it broke away from the Kyoto process—an entrepreneur suggesting that universal participation itself is no longer appropriate. Thus, according to the model results, norm entrepreneurs are going to have different effects in each of the social complexity regions: • Low social complexity: very stable, long-lived norms (the natural norm or not).

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Ozone Depletion and Climate Change • High social complexity: no norms, constant cycling, norm entrepreneurs have little effect over the whole population, though they can influence pockets of agents. • Medium social complexity: a pattern of emerging and dissolving norms—norm entrepreneurs are able to lower complexity enough for the agents to reach intersubjective agreement and thus norms emerge.

Theoretically, this suggests a refinement of the norm life cycle to include conditionality based on the social context. We cannot fully explain norm emergence and evolution without considering contextual conditions. Assuming that norm entrepreneurship is constant (or at least reasonably so), the model suggests how entrepreneurship interacts with the context of a social system to produce norms or not—independent of the content of the norms or characteristics of the norm entrepreneur herself. This conditionality adds nuance to a powerful constructivist framework and facilitates explaining when entrepreneurs are likely to have which effect, thus extending the framework’s reach to explain successful norm entrepreneurship as well as unsuccessful attempts. One criticism of entrepreneur research is that all of the results are positive—little if any variation in the dependent variable. People tend to do entrepreneur research on cases where a norm emerged or where cooperation was achieved. This makes it difficult to sort out whether or not entrepreneurs had an effect. These modeling exercises are thus valuable by pointing out the conditions under which norm entrepreneurs will not have an effect. In addition, because this model makes no normative statement about the content of the norms that arise and get reinforced, this model provides a process for exploring both good and bad norms—something constructivists have been criticized for avoiding. The simulations merely model increasing returns to intersubjective agreement and the dynamics evident are independent of whether or not the content of the norm is good or bad. Empirically, the model results imply the need to focus efforts not just on the content of the norm and the characteristics of the potential norm entrepreneur, but also on the context of the social system of interest. The model suggests that in exploring the emergence and evolution of the universal participation norm it is crucial to consider social complexity and the effect that a norm entrepreneur has upon it. Social complexity is an elementary concept in the model, easy to quantify and calculate. It is merely a random draw from a uniform distribution. Empirically, it is more challenging to assess (this is discussed further in the following chapters). Social complexity will be related to: the number of competing ideas,

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the range of interpretations agents have of the social context, the power of the entrepreneur, the power of initial proponents that the entrepreneur convinces, and the history of the issue at hand. Incorporating social complexity may broaden the analysis, but the model suggests that such contextual conditions are important determinants of the outcome of entrepreneurial activity. Explaining the emergence and evolution of universal participation requires taking social complexity into account.

Reach A second refinement of the NLC that emerges from this modeling analysis regards the reach of the norm entrepreneur. Finnemore and Sikkink already highlight the importance of the organizational platform in explaining the efficacy of the entrepreneur. This analysis confirms that importance. Powerful norm entrepreneurs (the more agents she can make a suggestion to) lead to a greater number of norms over time. This is not surprising as the model was built assuming the importance of the organizational platform. However, the sensitivity analysis uncovered a not entirely expected and certainly relevant result. Less powerful norm entrepreneurs (with limited ability to make suggestions) are still effective in engendering norms in the system. This finding is suggestive theoretically in that while it confirms the importance of the organizational platform, it widens the understanding of that platform. Relatively obscure norm entrepreneurs can potentially influence the social context. For the analysis of dynamic global responses to ozone depletion and climate change this suggests that norms do not have to flow only from the most powerful entrepreneurs. If the evolutionary logic of the norm life cycle is valid, then norms can emerge over time, catalyzed by entrepreneurs that cannot reach the whole population of agents. The entrepreneur need not convince all states of the efficacy of universal participation—if she can influence a small, though significant, part of the population, norms can still emerge through the NLC process.

CONCLUSION—THEORY, MODELS, AND EMPIRICS In this second stage of assessing the norms-based approach to GG, I have formalized the norm life cycle and demonstrated how the logic inherent in that framework plays out; focusing specifically on the role of norm entrepreneurs in catalyzing norm emergence and change. The modeling exercises accomplished two crucial goals. First, formally testing the verbal model proved (in the sense of an existence proof) that the enhanced NLC provides a plausible explanation

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of norm emergence and evolution. Thus, the expectations derived from the framework are valid (i.e., a norm entrepreneur can catalyze intersubjective agreement). The norms-based argument is thus at the very least reasonable given the assumptions inherent within it. The logic that built the verbal framework entails norm emergence and evolution . . . under certain conditions. Second, the modeling exercises provide further insight on the dynamics of social norms important for structuring the empirical analysis of stage three. The model results describe the boundary conditions for norm emergence and evolution through entrepreneurship. Important factors in explaining the emergence and evolution of a universal participation norm that would have gone unnoticed without formal analysis—social complexity and the reach of the norm entrepreneur—can now be explicitly incorporated into the empirical analysis. Thus, the modeling work not only provides confidence in the verbal model, it also extends the insights of the verbal model and serves as a foundation for the empirical testing of the enhanced NLC. The hypotheses that flow from the model mirror those that flow from the verbal framework, but the expectations have now been enhanced by the modeling exercises. In addition three further hypotheses are evident: 1. The norm entrepreneur can increase the social complexity by making suggestions, knocking a population out of a stable norm. 2. The norm entrepreneur suggestions can in turn decrease the social complexity, catalyzing intersubjective agreement. 3. The norm entrepreneur does not have to convince all actors in a population of the efficacy of its suggestion in order to catalyze norm emergence. This stage of analysis proved fruitful. The modeling exercises demonstrated the efficacy of the verbal model, and provided additional empirical markers for testing the NLC empirically. However, one crucial step remains before turning to the case analysis—empirical operationalization. Operationalizing the NLC on the computer is very different than operationalizing it for case analysis. Observing the expectations discerned in the previous and current chapters in the empirical record is wholly dependent upon how the concepts that are the building blocks for the framework are operationalized—the empirical record is in no way a neutral database of facts. Especially crucial in this project is the way in which the normative political context and internal rule models are conceived of and identified.

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To reiterate, internal rule models are conceptualized to be the “tools” that agents in complex systems use to perceive and define their situations and formulate goals and actions. These rules are developed through the experience of the agent in the system. Specifically in this study, I have posited the importance of internalized (into the U.S. rule model) norms for participation. These norms are part of the social structure or what I have called the international normative political context.50 This project hinges on identifying the interaction and interplay of these evolving norms and the evolving internal rule models of the United States. The success of this endeavor requires careful criteria for identifying internal rule models and the political context, as neither is directly observable. Internal rule models are relatively easy to create in ABM exercises, but they are difficult to operationalize empirically precisely because they are in some ways inherently unobservable. They are models of the world that agents have in their “heads.” However, one advantage to studying a large, corporate agent such as a state is that such agents usually write down the understandings that comprise their rule models. Thus, as a proxy for the actual (unobserved) rule models of the United States, I treat the negotiating positions that the executive branch of the government used in the various negotiations as the rule models. These negotiating positions reveal how the United States defined the problems over time as well as what it desired out of agreements and what it was willing to commit to. In order to get a full sense of the negotiating position for any particular set of negotiations, I utilized several sources in an attempt to triangulate and get a true picture. The first source is the congressional testimony of the negotiators and other executive branch officials that played a part in constructing the positions. One advantageous characteristic of the U.S. government is that before negotiations commence, the negotiators troop over to Congress to explain what the U.S. position and goals are for the upcoming negotiation. Then when the negotiations are complete, the negotiators troop back over to Congress, to explain how the negotiations went and whether the United States met its goals. Congressional testimony gives a first hand account of U.S. positions in historical context. The second source is a series of U.S. and UN documents that specifically outline U.S. commitments and goals for negotiations. The president authorizes the State Department to negotiate with a document called a circular 175, which lays out the U.S. position. I have obtained the circular 175 for the crucial negotiations that led to the Montreal Protocol. In addition, the United States usually prepares draft protocols and/or negotiating texts in which they propose a form and content for an agreement. These documents also lay out the U.S. positions. The third source is

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public statements made to the press as well as observations of U.S. actions at the negotiations. These negotiations enjoyed heavy press coverage and the U.S. position was heavily reported for both the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations. I have accumulated a large set of articles from the top fifty U.S. newspapers as well as the International Environment Reporter (a bimonthly chronicle of environmental politics and science published by the Bureau of National Affairs) and the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (a reporting service provided by the International Institute for Sustainable Development).51 Finally, I draw on one source that is not in historical context— interviews with participants in the negotiating process. I conducted a series of interviews with officials from the State Department, EPA, and NGOs who had intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of the negotiations themselves. This last set of information fills in the holes of public statements and provides an oral history to round out the picture of the negotiating positions in the public record. The normative political context is equally difficult to directly observe. It is essentially the norms/structures or, in the broadest sense, rules that are “out there” external to the United States. The normative political context is the norms and structures of the international community. However, this definition does not go very far toward operationalization. As noted in chapter 3 norms are “shared expectations about appropriate behavior held by a community of actors.”52 The normative context is then composed of these shared expectations. Observing the normative context is another question altogether and operationalizing it requires finding a way to observe the shared expectations that are “in force” at particular times. Similarly to the method of seeing rule models, I triangulate around the normative context from several sources. First, I use the texts of the agreements for ozone depletion and climate change as signposts of a normative context. These agreements actually define what the states themselves thought appropriate and constitute shared expectations. The agreements tie down the ephemeral normative context at specific points in time and shape it for the interactions that follow them. Dessler provides support for this means of getting at the normative context. He claims that agreements “are real structures, sedimented deposits that become conditions of subsequent interaction.”53 Second, UN agendas for negotiations as well as the reports from the negotiations also reveal the normative context. They outline baseline understandings of the issues under discussion. Finally (and least rigorously), the normative context is evident in certain statements from the interviews mentioned above. Statements about things that were obvious, or political realities, reveal what U.S. participants took for granted as shared expectations. In addi-

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tion, statements by NGOs other states (especially when they all say the same or similar things) show the substance of the United States’ normative context. With the verbal framework constructed, formally assessed, and now operationalized, the final stage in the analysis remains. The true test of the NLC/CAS framework is empirical. In the chapters that follow, the NLC/CAS explanation for the transitions in participation and the governance of ozone depletion and climate change will be put to the test.

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Chapter Five Ozone Depletion The Emergence of Universal Participation

With the verbal model constructed (stage 1), formally assessed (stage 2), and operationalized, the analysis can move to stage 3—empirical case studies. Indeed, the empirical target of this book and its explanation remain relatively simple: • A norm calling for universal participation arose in the midst of the ozone depletion negotiations, altering U.S. behavior and the foundations of governance for ozone depletion. • Once internalized, this norm subsequently shaped the foundations of the governance of climate change—influencing the U.S. actions and the negotiations of the FCCC in 1992. • The universal participation norm evolved post-FCCC and continued to affect the governance activities that produced the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. In this chapter I use the enhanced norm life cycle and the insights of the computational model to explain in detail the first transition—from North-only participation to universal participation. Simply put, the understanding of an appropriate global response changed in the ozone depletion negotiations. The transition itself is abundantly clear. In 1986 fewer than thirty states met to begin negotiating an ozone protocol—the Montreal Protocol (MP) agreed to in 1987. In 1989 more than one hundred states attended the 83

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first negotiating session for amending the MP. The understanding of required participation for this “global” environmental problem underwent a radical transformation in the course of the negotiations. In both 1986 and 1989, the parties understood that they were negotiating responses for a global environmental problem, yet in a matter of four years, the intersubjectively understood necessary level of participation dramatically rose. The label, “global,” did not change. The understanding of what global entailed did change. The end result of this alteration was a new understanding of appropriate participation for the next global environmental problem to appear on the international agenda—climate change came to require universal participation in negotiations and responses. Ozone depletion did not have to become a problem requiring universal participation. This vision of ozone depletion, advocated by Mostafa Tolba, came to fruition through the processes of social construction and complex adaptation captured in the NLC/CAS framework and the modeling exercises. This chapter contains an in-depth look at the ozone depletion negotiations and the U.S. role in them, and it demonstrates that the expectations of the constructivist/complex adaptive framework are met: • A norm entrepreneur advocating universal participation and development concerns emerges and makes suggestions that alter the social context—at first destabilizing an extant norm (Northonly) and then lowering the social complexity and making a new understanding possible. • The United States adopts this new idea as its operating rule only after existing rules have been weakened through negative evaluation. • The universal participation/development assistance rule becomes ingrained after positive evaluation. The norm life cycle/CAS framework captures the flow of events and provides a plausible explanation of the transition to universal participation exhibited in the ozone depletion negotiations. However, frameworks (and models for that matter) discuss events in discrete, concrete terms that do not fit perfectly with the actual events that transpire. Frameworks are clean; politics is messy. That being said, the case study of the ozone depletion negotiation provides significant evidence that the norm life cycle/CAS framework is an appropriate way to approach the politics of ozone depletion and other global environmental problems. In this chapter, I first present an overview of the ozone depletion negotiations and detail the initial normative context within which they took place. I then explore U.S. behavior in the negotiations that culminated in

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the Montreal Protocol (MP) as well as the evolving normative context in this period. I next examine the U.S. evaluation of the MP and trace the U.S. transition to an understanding that addressing global environmental problems requires universal participation. I conclude with a look at the protocol amendment negotiations and the post-MP evolution of the normative context.

OVERVIEW: THE OZONE DEPLETION NEGOTIATIONS OF 1986–1990 Most analyses of the ozone negotiations have been critically concerned with cooperation and effectiveness.1 These studies examine the interests, power, and behavior of the major actors (both sovereignty free and sovereignty bound),2 assess the impact of scientific knowledge, and investigate the structure of the negotiations themselves; searching for the factor(s) that led to successful cooperation and/or effectiveness. In contrast, the main thrust of this book explains the conditions for cooperation—the foundations for the governance of both ozone depletion and climate change. I am thus more concerned with exploring how certain fundamental ideas about participation arose and were internalized in the United States than I am with the substantive issues of addressing ozone depletion or cooperation. I explore how the underlying intersubjective understanding of the problems evolved. Therefore, I focus on two connected stories about participation in the ozone depletion negotiations— the evolving normative context and the evolving U.S. rule models. Between 1985 and 1990, both the normative context and the U.S. rule models for participation underwent significant, linked alterations. The rhetoric of the times obscured the changes that occurred, but they remain noteworthy. Scientists discussed ozone depletion as a global problem from its very introduction on the environmental agenda.3 As a 1985/86 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report put it, “Ozone layer modification is a global phenomena which affects the wellbeing of every country in the world.”4 However, the requirements associated with the label “global” were very different in 1985 than they were a mere four years later. In 1985, there were a number of ways to conceive of global environmental problems, and states had yet to begin conceiving of ozone depletion through a truly global (as universal) prism. This changed radically as the ozone negotiations progressed, and by 1989 ozone depletion had come to require universal participation with significant consequences for how states would engage ozone depletion and subsequently, climate change. From 1986 through the summer of 1987, the normative political context characterized global as North-only. Both Northern and Southern states understood (either implicitly or explicitly) that Northern states, as

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the major contributors to ozone depletion, would be charged with negotiating the solution(s) to it. In the summer of 1987 through all of 1988 the normative context underwent a transition period as increased Southern participation eroded the stability of the expectation of North-only participation and fostered the new notion of universal participation. By 1989, universal participation defined the normative political context, with the caveat that universal participation was predicated upon differentiated responsibility between the North and the South. All states should participate in the governance process, but states would participate differently in the concrete actions to solve the problem. The U.S. rule models went through a similar transformation over this period, though the changes did not correspond temporally. The United States began the ozone protocol negotiations with a participation rule model that matched the normative context, namely, that ozone depletion would be best and most appropriately addressed through Northern negotiations. This rule drove U.S. behavior from 1986 through all of 1987 (through the Montreal negotiations). In 1988, as a consequence of its evaluation of the MP, the U.S. participation rule model went through a transformation, and by 1989 the US rule model called for universal participation. By the summer of 1990, the United States solidly accepted universal participation.

INITIAL CONDITIONS: A NORTH-ONLY “GLOBAL” RESPONSE The stories of the normative context and U.S. rule models are the empirical target for the NLC framework. This discussion cuts in to the dynamic process of coevolution (between U.S. rule models and the normative context) in 1986.5 By 1986 ozone depletion had been on the international political agenda for five years and the international scientific agenda for ten. In March 1985, twenty-one states originally signed the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. The Vienna Convention is a framework convention that outlined the international community’s understanding that ozone depletion was a problem and erected the infrastructure for dealing with the problem in the years to come. Embedded in the convention is a call to negotiate specific protocols for reducing ozone-depleting chemicals.6 These protocol negotiations took place in four official rounds between 1986 and 1987 (Geneva [12/86], Vienna [2/87], Geneva [4/87], and Montreal [9/87]) and culminated in the adoption of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer in September 1987. The initial normative political context deemed North-only negotiated solutions to be appropriate. Though the institutional context of the negotiations (UNEP) was open to the participation of all states, actual state actions produced and reified the intersubjective understanding that

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this “global” environmental problem required only Northern states to participate. In the ozone depletion negotiations, a global response was restricted to Northern states. Given the open UNEP forum, the absence of Southern states and their issues during the negotiations is extremely telling in terms of what states initially understood to be the appropriate way to address ozone depletion. Only four of the original twenty-one signers of the Vienna Convention were Southern states,7 and by 1987 only two developing nations had ratified the convention.8 In 1985–86, it was obvious that ozone depletion was a Northern problem—just as it would be obvious five years later that it and climate change were universal problems. Similarly to actions taken prior to the signing of the Vienna Convention, UNEP set up a two-track process to move the international community toward an ozone protocol. The first track was scientific and consisted of the Co-ordinating Committee on the Ozone Layer (CCOL) and a number of workshops on the science of ozone depletion.9 These scientific meetings were designed to provide the second, diplomatic track with the best information possible on the science of ozone depletion. At these diplomatic Ad Hoc Committee meetings negotiators hammered out the details of what became the Montreal Protocol.10 In neither track did Southern states participate in large numbers. They were virtually absent from the CCOL process and made up less than one-third of the participants two crucial scientific workshops.11 At the diplomatic meetings, Southern states again made up less than one-third of the participants until the meetings at Montreal. The lack of concern over the deficiency of Southern participation in the North, and a lack of interest from the South demonstrate the power of this understanding—the absence of the South was not an important matter for either the North or the South. The North-only norm structured understanding of and expectations about ozone depletion and was thus at the foundation of the governance process. Northern states dominated attendance at the international meetings, and the exclusion of Southern states was not malicious or secret or even objected to by the Southern states. They were not kept out of the negotiations; rather, they declined to attend. The North-only norm defined the ozone depletion issue for both Northern and Southern states, as both groups understood that these negotiations were mainly a Northern concern.12 Stephen Seidel observed that “the developing countries didn’t want a big role. There was the Toronto group [United States, Canada, and the Nordic countries] and there was the EU, the key negotiations took place between them.”13 Paul Horwitz additionally noted that “decisions were being made by countries that were the problem—they believed they could get a hold of the problem. [The] group thought they owned the issue.” He also noted that in the beginning there was “less of a stress on global participation,” and that it

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“didn’t make sense to negotiate a global agreement.”14 As just one example of Southern disinterest consider: In the post-Vienna period, Indian policy makers continued to believe that ozone depletion was mainly the concern of the developed countries. They saw little change in the situation—the scientific uncertainties about ozone depletion continued, there was no proof of any threat to India, and India’s CFC production remained marginal to world production. India, therefore, did not participate in the preparatory meetings for the Montreal Conference.15 A universal “global” response did not seem to make sense in either the North or the South for ostensibly sensible reasons. The South, in 1986, produced significantly less than 10 percent of the world’s ozone-depleting chemicals and was thus not a source of the problem.16 In addition, there was a perception that ozone depletion would not have a significant impact on Southern states—especially when compared with larger, more pressing problems of economic development.17 Yet Southern potential to contribute to the problem (which would soon be referenced in the climate negotiations as the reason universal participation was necessary) was considerable.18 China, Brazil, and India each could have easily become major producers/consumers of CFCs. Rather than any characteristics of the ozone depletion problem, the lack of Southern participation is related to a lack of global thinking. One commentator noted that at the time of the early negotiations, “[t]ruly ‘global’ environmental issues were not readily imaginable.”19 Allan Miller (a lawyer with the NRDC and an early ozone depletion activist) concurred and claimed that because ozone depletion arose as an issue so early (in the context of environmental consciousness), “there was no context or tradition of thinking globally.”20 The absence of Southern states meant little emphasis on development concerns manifested in the early negotiations. The issues that traditionally engage the South—economic development, financial resources, and technology transfer—were not of primary concern. The Vienna Convention only discussed the need to take into account the “circumstances and particular requirements of developing countries” and only vaguely discussed technological cooperation.21 Even academic analyses uncritically accept the Southern absence. Analyses of the pre-Montreal years are almost wholly dedicated to the study of EU/U.S. bargaining. The South is then suddenly a matter of concern at Montreal and beyond. Edward Parson in his discussion of the ozone negotiations does not mention the South or development concerns even once in his section titled “1977–1985: Washington to Vienna.”22

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Hampson also neglects to discuss Southern states in his analysis of the ozone negotiations pre-Montreal.23 Even in a tome dedicated to the study of the South and environmental politics, the author concedes that in the ozone issue, the South did not emerge as a distinct interest group; in fact most showed no significant interest in the issue until 1987. In the beginning, ozone depletion was primarily the concern of the nations that were the major users and producers of CFCs and other major ozone-depleting chemicals.24 The one exception to this general disinterest in Southern participation was the work of UNEP and its executive director, Mostafa Tolba. UNEP was created at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm.25 Since its inception UNEP has been cognizant of and sensitive to development concerns as they pertain to the environment— “Environment and Development” was one of the six original divisions created in 1972.26 In addition, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, UNEP was the first global UN agency headquartered in the South.27 Tolba took over as executive director in 1975.28 An Egyptian citizen and biologist by training, Tolba was the vice-president of the Stockholm Conference and has consistently advocated for development concerns and global thinking. Tolba “saw himself as a representative not only of UNEP but also of the interests of developing countries,”29 and from the very beginning he “saw global participation as an absolute must.”30 Mostafa Tolba was the norm entrepreneur who suggested and advocated for universal participation. This suggestion was a new idea in an issue-area dominated by the understanding that ozone depletion required Northern participation. However, it was not a radically new idea. It fit well with Tolba’s experiences working within a universal, multilateral framework in the early UN environment conferences, especially the 1972 Stockholm conference. Universal participation was not unheard of in the context of ozone depletion before 1987. The idea was at least present in the rhetoric of early working group meetings that prepped the Vienna Convention, though the rhetoric had little practical effect until Montreal in 1987. As a norm entrepreneur, Tolba had the advantage of working from a formidable organizational platform. He directed UNEP, the main agency responsible for coordinating the ozone negotiations. It spearheaded the conference that adopted the World Plan of Action on the Ozone Layer and established the Ad Hoc working group that began work on the Vienna Convention.31 Throughout the early ozone years and leading up to the Montreal negotiations, UNEP and Tolba were committed to inclusivity—“UNEP quickly recognized that broad cooperation was necessary to protect stratospheric ozone.”32

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Though UNEP, as a UN agency with broad membership, was a universal forum and Tolba was an advocate for Southern concerns, the early protocol negotiations remained a predominantly Northern affair. Most Southern states were either disinterested in or mistrustful of the ozone negotiations, as they saw ozone depletion as a Northern problem.33 Northern states concentrated on negotiating among themselves. Tolba and UNEP stressed the need for universal participation—in modeling terms, they continually suggested that a universal participation rule should be added to states’ rule models—providing a steady stream of input to the system. However, most states either did not take this suggestion at this point or if they did take the suggestion, it remained a potential rule. The North-only norm was firmly embedded in United States and other states’ rule models and it had not been weakened by negative evaluation. Thus, though Tolba’s platform was significant his practical reach was initially limited—most states did not alter their operating rule right away. The unquestioned acceptance of the South’s absence by most of the major players in the negotiations reified the intersubjective, normative understanding that ozone depletion required North-only participation. Curiously, Northern states tolerated the Southern absence, even in the face of an enormous Southern potential to produce CFCs, chemicals that are easy to manufacture and necessary for the production of highly coveted consumer goods (refrigerators, air conditioners, industrial solvents). Similarly, Southern states appeared unconcerned about participating in the efforts to regulate these crucial chemicals. Ozone depletion was understood by all to be a Northern problem.

THE GOVERNANCE OF OZONE DEPLETION I: THE ROAD TO MONTREAL

The Evolution of U.S. Rule Models and the Negotiation of the Montreal Protocol In 1986, the U.S. rule models, as they pertained to participation, matched the normative political context. The United States was not concerned with universal participation and was content with North-only negotiations. Specifically, the United States defined the ozone depletion problem as a global problem requiring a Northern solution. The pertinent participation rule was: If faced with a global environmental problem (in this case ozone depletion), then seek a negotiated solution with the major sources of the problem (Northern states). This position was made manifest in the resounding lack of significant mention of Southern states or their needs heading into the Montreal negotiations. The U.S. substantive positions on ozone depletion had been evolving since the mid 1970s. The United States was one of the first nations to recognize the potential importance of the ozone depletion issue and took early unilateral action, banning CFCs in aerosols in 1977.34 The early 1980s saw

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a decline in concern about ozone depletion, as scientific evidence pointed to the possibility that ozone depletion was much less of a problem than at first thought. By 1984, however, the United States joined Canada and the Nordic countries (Toronto Group) in pushing (unsuccessfully) for international regulation of CFCs at the 1985 Vienna Convention negotiations.35 The U.S. drive for international regulation had origins in domestic politics—as the United States had begun regulating these chemicals, the companies that produced them would naturally look for a level international playing field. This initial domestic move, therefore, made the later transition to universal participation all the more possible. Domestic politics certainly plays a role in the evolution of states’ rule models—a crucial role. At one level, discussed in greater detail below, domestic politics is the key aspect of the evaluation of rule models and therefore influences their evolution. At another level, domestic politics can lay the foundation for rule model evolution, as it is an important determinant for how international norms fit. The early U.S. regulation of CFCs made international negotiations more likely and they improved the potential fit for the universal participation norm that would emerge in the next decade.36 The sense of urgency in the United States changed radically in 1986: The ozone hole was discovered;37 Congress and environmental NGOs began pushing the United States to take significant international action through legislation and court action;38 and the U.S. chemical industry, long an opponent of CFC regulation, began to advocate international regulations, while also announcing that they could produce substitutes in the near term.39 Given these developments—especially industry’s significant announcement about potential substitutes40—in November the United States authorized the State Department to negotiate an ozone protocol.41 In preparation for this first set of negotiations to move beyond the Vienna Convention, the United States also announced its substantive position: It would seek an immediate freeze on the consumption of CFCs to be followed by a gradual phaseout of the chemicals.42 Even at this early stage of forming a negotiating position, the United States characterized the ozone depletion problem as one requiring global rather than unilateral action. Closely mimicking the earlier WMO report, Benedick, the chief U.S. negotiator for the MP, claimed, “Unlike acid rain or hazardous waste, this issue needs global action.”43 However, at this point, global action meant bargaining with other Northern states. U.S. officials continually talked about the need for global action in opposition to the possibility of unilateral U.S. action—a constant theme throughout all of the ozone depletion negotiations. Competitiveness was the concern. Benedick continued, “It doesn’t do any good if the US cripples its own industry and the rest of the world continues unabated. Unilateral action might provide a short term-blip, but it won’t solve the problem.”44 U.S. government sympathy to the concerns of the chemical industry was a

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major factor in U.S. policy. In fact, the South was discussed at an early workshop in September 1986, and it was suggested that the South be allowed to increase CFC capacity, but a concern with this plan was the possibility that the South would start to produce CFCs for export.45 The main U.S. concern was international regulatory cooperation; a position that focused the United States squarely on bargaining with the other major producers/consumers: the EU, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The EU’s position on ozone depletion represented the largest obstacle in the way of meeting U.S. goals.46 This group of states favored a much more cautious (even delayed or nonexistent) response to ozone depletion.47 While in 1974 the United States controlled the CFC market (46 percent vs. 39 percent for the EU), after the United States banned CFCs in aerosols, the EU became the largest player. By 1986, the EU outdistanced the United States in CFC production 45 percent to 30 percent.48 In addition, the desires of industry strongly influenced EU positions (to a greater extent than the United States),49 and according to Parson industry did not lose control of the European delegations until April 1987.50 The end result was that the EU quashed any mention of binding reductions in the Vienna Convention and entered the MP negotiations advocating a CFC production cap that would actually allow the EU to increase production.51 In forging its position and goals for an eventual protocol, the United States displayed little, if any, concern for achieving the cooperation of the South. The internalized norm—the North-only operating rule—was still performing well and there was a distinct lack of alternative rules to follow. David Doniger (at the time counsel for the National Resources Defense Council [NRDC]) concluded that ozone depletion was “thought of as a North-only issue.”52 Stephen Andersen recalled, “[I]n 1987, there was an expectation of the possibility of protecting the ozone without developing nations.”53 According to John Negroponte’s congressional testimony, the United States had three objectives for the protocol negotiations: (1) reduce risk of ozone depletion; (2) come up with a long term strategy; (3) periodic reassessment.54 What does not necessarily come through in those objectives, but is clear in the congressional record and in other places, is that the participation of the South was not even an implicit objective or desire. In Richard Benedick’s memoir/analysis of the ozone depletion negotiations the chapter titled “Forging the US Position” outlines the development and content of U.S. negotiating positions pre-Montreal and in it there is no mention of the South or of development.55 The United States was instead focused achieving the following in a protocol: 1. Certainty for industry 2. Sufficient time for switching chemicals 3. Measures to address all sources of depletion

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4. Measures to allow flexible national implementation 5. Measures to regulate trade between signers and nonsigners56 The South simply was not a concern in late 1986 as the United States prepared for the first of four negotiating sessions for the ozone protocol. The United States was convinced of the need for international regulation, but the cooperation it desired was that of the other Northern states. U.S. industry and the environmental NGO community echoed the conviction on the necessity for international action, and were equally silent on the concerns of the South. The United States did not yet define ozone depletion as requiring universal participation. The protocol negotiations took place under UNEP auspices. And in this issue, UNEP meant Tolba.57 In his capacity as executive director Tolba had a large influence over the negotiations and is often credited with catalyzing the cooperation that was eventually achieved. One commentator described him as the “most visible and dominant individual” involved in the MP negotiations.58 Though the United States and the EU dominated the discussions, Tolba shaped the substance of what they were discussing through agenda setting and informal “Friends of Tolba” meetings. According to one observer, while Tolba was the director of UNEP, participants used his executive director’s statements as the agendas for the negotiations; statements that flowed from Tolba himself and the informal meetings that he convened.59 The very structure and negotiating procedures decided upon at the Vienna Convention gave Tolba significant agenda-setting power, as he had responsibility to start the process of negotiating protocols—“The Vienna Conference . . . requested that the Executive Director of UNEP create a working group to work on a protocol based on the achievements of the Ad Hoc Working Group.”60 Throughout the protocol negotiations, Tolba was instrumental in two ways. In the majority of studies and commentaries on the ozone depletion negotiations Tolba is credited for his tireless work to forge cooperation between the United States and EU on binding CFC emission cuts. Tolba was an entrepreneur in more than one way, as he deserves a good deal of credit for catalyzing the cooperation that produced the groundbreaking MP.61 More importantly for the story of universal participation, however, Tolba also represented the concerns of the South—in their absence. Paul Horwitz recalls that Tolba understood that South-North issues (financial aid, technology transfer, access to CFCs) were important from the very beginning and that they would have to be addressed.62 Tolba saw the ozone issue both as global in scope and as requiring universal participation. He (and UNEP) viewed the problem differently than did the participants and worked to increase the interest and participation of Southern

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states while simultaneously keeping developmental issues on the agenda in their absence.63 Tolba had a different understanding of what a global response should entail. According to Richard Benedick, the chief U.S. negotiator, at the session just prior to Montreal, “Tolba himself served, in effect, as representative of the developing world.”64 Again, Tolba was the norm entrepreneur expected in the framework—he put forward a new way to conceive of the ozone depletion problem, claiming that it should be addressed through universal participation. He was a clear, vocal spokesperson for Southern concerns and participation,65 and Tolba and UNEP created a forum embedded with universal thinking, conducive to Southern participation. Tolba’s efforts and conceptualization of the problem as one requiring universal participation did not demonstrably alter the negotiations at this early stage. In 1985–86, most nations understood that ozone depletion appropriately required Northern participation. The main issue in contention was the need for, extent of, and manner of potential emission reductions—a Northern dispute.66 The United States was pushing for wide-ranging reductions on an accelerated timescale, while the EU and other major CFC producers/consumers (Japan and the Soviet Union)67 were reluctant to curb production or consumption of CFCs. Tolba’s suggestion for a new understanding of appropriate participation did, however, increase the social complexity associated with ozone depletion by increasing the number of potential rules in the system. Eventually this new vision of a global response would destabilize the normative context and (through continuous suggestion and a growing critical mass of adherents) the North-only norm would disappear from both U.S. rule models and the international community as a whole.

Geneva 1986 Only twenty-five nations attended the December 1986 opening negotiating session in Geneva, six of which were Southern nations (Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Philippines, and Uruguay).68 The United States pressed the proposal it had announced in November: an immediate CFC freeze, followed by a gradual, 95 percent CFC phaseout.69 This proposal was countered by the EU declaration that it “had no mandate to negotiate anything other than a cap on production capacity,” and an attempt to postpone the already scheduled second meeting.70 Conspicuously absent from any media reports of the first meeting was any mention of the South or of development concerns.71 John Negroponte reported to Congress that “[d]eveloping country representation at Geneva was sparse.”72 Tolba attributed this low Southern attendance to the “lack of interest they had showed until then.”73 Egypt

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and Argentina did make statements during the discussion of a draft protocol that signaled that some states were starting to use universal participation as their operating rule. They not only informed the parties of their activities, but they also advocated a protocol that “would be acceptable to the main producers and consumers, which was a condition for it to be effective,” and that would “encourage [Southern states] to participate . . .”74 However, these statements notwithstanding, the overwhelming bulk of the discussions surrounded CFC-control issues and definitions of the ozone depletion problem.75 The recalcitrance of the EU, rather than any Southern concerns, was the major story at Geneva.76 The chairman of the Geneva meeting claimed that though Geneva had been a good beginning, “[t]he real negotiations have to start, and this really depends on the evolution of the EEC’s position.”77 Benedick mirrored this concern and complained that the EU was not prepared to negotiate as a single body—they lacked internal consistency.78 The negotiators left Geneva with no breakthroughs and little hope of achieving a protocol by the spring of 1987 (the original goal).

Vienna 1987 The United States entered the second negotiating session, held in Vienna the following February, with much the same negotiating position. This position was strengthened by congressional threats of trade sanctions against Northern producers of CFCs, and further pressured by legislation calling for unilateral actions should international negotiations fail to reach an agreement.79 The Vienna meeting saw attendance increased to thirty-one (ten Southern as Columbia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Thailand joined the proceedings and Uruguay declined to attend) but little progress on substantive issues.80 The Toronto group solidified its goals around the U.S. position of an immediate CFC production freeze followed by scheduled reductions.81 While the two sides, United States and EU, remained a distance apart, the two breakthroughs at Vienna were the first signs of an EU willingness to discuss reductions they had previously refused and the setting of a firm date to finish the protocol negotiations.82 The deficiency of progress, however, was disconcerting to some delegates and who worried that the process would have to go on without the Europeans.83 The United States, through two rounds of negotiations and in preparation for a third, stayed the course with a negotiating position that called for global cooperation among Northern powers—the EU, Japan, and Russia. Though Tolba mentions that financial aid was discussed for the first time at Vienna, U.S. behavior demonstrated that it was clearly not a major concern of the United States at the time.84 The United States was concerned with the lack of a coherent EU policy and the influence of industry on the other Northern delegations.85 U.S. diplomatic efforts in the spring of 1987

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centered on the goal of convincing Northern states of the need to take action.86 The United States, in that it thought about Southern states at all, actually considered them to be strong supporters of CFC regulations. Lee Thomas, the administrator of the EPA, listed Japan and the EU as the least aggressive states regarding CFC regulation, while he listed the Nordic countries and some Southern states as the most aggressive.87

Geneva 1987 The U.S. stance remained unchanged through the final, pre-Montreal negotiating session that took place in April 1987 at Geneva again. The United States entered this negotiation under further pressure from environmental NGOs and Congress to take unilateral action. Both the EPA and the State Department stressed the need for global action in response to these calls. Lee Thomas claimed that “[s]tratospheric ozone is very important to the United States and the only way to deal with this issue is globally.”88 At the same time, U.S. actions demonstrated the continuing North-only definition of a global response. The focus remained on bargaining with the EU. During the actual negotiations at Geneva, Tolba started playing a more central and visible role. It was at this meeting that Tolba initiated the first of many informal meetings that came to known as “Friends of Tolba” or “Friends of the Executive Director” meetings.89 These meetings were designed specifically to get away from the pressures and politics of formal negotiating sessions, in order to discuss the contentious issues face-to-face in discussions directed by Tolba himself.90 Of note was the total absence of Southern presence at these informal sessions.91 Two key participants explain this absence in slightly different ways. Benedick, the chief U.S. negotiator, attributed the lack of Southern presence to a lack of interest in the emission control/reduction measures. He credited Tolba with representing Southern interests in these meetings.92 Tolba, on the other hand, claims that rather than lack of interest, Southern absence is better explained by Southern contentment with the language in the negotiating text that provided a ten-year grace period and acknowledged the need for technological and financial transfers.93 The Southern states that did participate were content with the negotiations to this point, and the vast majority of Southern states not participating had yet to show interest in the problem. Southern states were still using a North-only operating rule. The United States entered the summer of 1987 confident that an agreement was within reach.94 At Geneva, negotiators had agreed on the necessity of a freeze on CFC emissions and a gradual phaseout, though important details remained.95 The South was discussed at Geneva, as was technology transfer. Ironically, however, the technology transfer proposal discussed was put forward by Japan. And rather than a development concession for Southern states, technology transfer was discussed as a way to

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avoid “a monopoly by any specific country” on CFC substitute technology.96 Northern competitiveness issues remained on center stage.

Montreal 1987 The U.S drive for agreement in Montreal was briefly sidetracked in late May by intra-Administration debate that led to a stunning domestic debacle. The secretary of the interior, Donald Hodel, seriously undermined U.S. negotiators by calling for a personal protection campaign (hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen) in lieu of international regulations.97 The controversy, though embarrassing, was short-lived and Tolba was able to stop the EU from taking advantage of the gaffe to dilute the negotiating text.98 Otherwise, the summer was a period of moving forward on ozone depletion: The EU reached internal consensus around the need for a freeze and reduction of CFC emissions; the Japanese got on board as well; the discord in the United States passed without further damage to the U.S. negotiating position; and Congress and the NGO community kept the pressure on the United States to take strong international action.99 The South was ignored.100 The Friends of Tolba continued to meet and hammer out compromises. At Montreal in September 1987, fifty-seven states convened, with thirty-seven from the South, to realize the fruits of the summer labor and finalize the details of the protocol.101 Even given the work of the three previous official negotiating sessions and the work of the informal Friends of Tolba meetings, there remained a great deal of bargaining left to do. The final list of chemicals to be controlled, as well as the schedule for reduction had yet to be fully decided. In addition, the details of how voting would take place and how the protocol would come into force were still up in the air. The Montreal negotiations remained a mostly North-only affair, though Southern states began to participate in significant numbers for the first time—signaling the initial instability in the North-only rule. While both Tolba and Benedick mention the hard work and contribution of Southern negotiators at Montreal (and their role should, of course, not be downplayed), it is clear that the South was being presented with a mostly fait accompli. The North-only negotiations had too much momentum. The new Southern participants (including a crucial participant—China) were mainly interested in securing continued access to CFCs, and development concerns remained a secondary concern at Montreal. The United States remained focused on North-only negotiations and set its sights on Japan and the Soviet Union in addition to the EU.102 The United States still considered the ozone depletion problem to be a Northern issue and signaled this understanding through a twelfth-hour proposal of a 90 percent ratification rule. This would require states representing 90 percent of the production of CFCs to ratify the protocol before it would enter

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into force. A spokesman for the EPA explained the rationale for the position, stating, “[W]e’re looking for an effective agreement involving as many nations as possible.”103 However, it is clear that the nations that the United States wanted to involve were Northern states, for, “with a 90 percent threshold, [all four large producers] would have to approve the treaty.”104 The United States “wanted the high percentage for entry into force to encourage the major CFC producers to comply with the protocol.”105 With the South producing less than 10 percent of the CFCs as a group, the United States was clearly not directing this measure at Southern participation. Montreal was the first negotiating session at which the international community took specific notice of Southern concerns. However, while the United States still focused squarely on disputes with the EU, the possible demands of the South were an afterthought. For as Benedick tellingly observed, the demands of the South heading into the final MP negotiating session (Montreal itself) “were a totally unknown quantity.”106 While he acknowledged that South-North issues were a subject of debate throughout the negotiations, it was not until Montreal that specific details were discussed.107 The United States and EU pushed on at Montreal, and after much “horse trading,” as Benedick has called it, and Herculean efforts by the negotiators and Tolba himself, the issues still in contention were resolved and the Montreal Protocol was signed. The two sides reached compromise on the identity and quantity of the chemicals to be controlled, the timing of controls, and bureaucratic matters of voting and trade restrictions. The agreement that came to define one of the most successful international environmental regimes was signed on September 16, 1987. The protocol itself contained measures regulating emissions reductions and mandating periodic reassessment. The process of eliminating CFCs had begun in earnest. In terms of reductions, the MP called for an immediate freeze on specific CFCs with scheduled reductions culminating in a cutback of 50 percent. The bargain enshrined the “precautionary principle”—taking action before scientific certainty. However, as Parsons illuminates, the 50 percent solution was politics, not science. If the scientists were right about CFCs and ozone depletion, then 50 percent was too little, if they were wrong, then 50 percent was a serious overreaction.108 Following in the footsteps of the precedent set in the Vienna Convention, there are provisions in the MP for periodic reassessment and amendment of the protocol should it become necessary. The MP would enter into force when states representing two-thirds of the world’s production (a compromise down from U.S.-proposed 90 pecent) ratified the agreement. The U.S. story to this point is a fairly monotonous one. Excepting the period of disarray in May–June 1987, the United States stuck with the negotiating position formulated in November 1986. Constantly pushed by the threat of unilateral congressional action, NGO pressure, scientific

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knowledge, and industry fears of unilateral action, the United States consistently pushed for a freeze on CFCs to be followed by a gradual phaseout. Throughout this time, the United States remained concerned with the EU and other Northern actors and gave little thought/attention to the South. Throughout this period, the United States talked globally and acted North-only because the United States understood that the global response to ozone depletion only required Northern participation.

The Evolution of the Normative Context: The Breakdown of North-Only Participation on the Road to Montreal The normative context that the United States acted within was relatively stable in 1986–87, though the seeds for the major transition to universal participation were sown. The negotiations that would yield the Montreal Protocol in 1987 transpired with a clear, intersubjective understanding that ozone depletion was a problem that required Northern participation in negotiations and solutions. Southern nations made up less than onethird of the participants at all three of the pre-Montreal meetings of the Ad Hoc Working Group that constructed the Montreal Protocol. The United States, EU, and the rest of the Northern states were mainly concerned about negotiating and reaching a bargain among themselves. Through the summer of 1987, both the North and the South considered the manner of negotiation to be appropriate. Consequently, the actions of both Southern and Northern states in 1986–87 served to reify and reinforce the normative context, rather than change it. However, the North-only context was not destined to endure. Tolba’s suggestions began to take hold in the South. In the summer and fall of 1987, a critical mass of participating Southern states began to emerge. A significant number of Southern states begin participating at Montreal and for the first time, Southern states made up a majority of the participants at an ozone depletion negotiation session. In fact Southern states made up 65 percent of the participants (37/57).109 The significant participation of Southern states at Montreal signaled the beginning of a change in the intersubjective understanding of ozone depletion. Southern participation began to erode the normative context that supported the negotiation of the protocol even as the Montreal negotiations themselves got underway, and this erosion accelerated immediately upon the achievement of the MP. As Southern states began to take an interest, it became patently obvious that Southern concerns had been neglected in the largely Northonly protocol negotiations, despite the efforts of Tolba. The North-only rule that they had followed until 1987 was negatively evaluated. Southern states (especially crucial states such as India, China, and Brazil) were thus dissatisfied with the MP and refused to accede to its provisions. A protocol negotiated with a North-only understanding of ozone depletion

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was not acceptable to Southern states that now believed that universal participation was the appropriate way to approach the problem. The NLC/CAS framework, as well as the Pick a Number Model, explains this transition in a very straightforward manner. The norm entrepreneur makes a suggestion. Agents accept it and add it to their rule models. The agents begin to exhibit new behavior (assuming that their current rule has recently performed poorly). If enough agents change their behavior a new norm emerges, altering the normative context. In the actual ozone depletion negotiations, the identity of the norm entrepreneur (Tolba/UNEP) and the suggestion (universal participation) are both clear. However, moving from the suggestion to acceptance to new behavior is less straightforward in the empirical case.110 In essence, the participation of the global South at Montreal increased the social complexity of the ozone depletion issue, significantly eroding the appropriateness of the North-only norm. Tolba, driven by his belief in universal participation, convinced the Southern states to participate in the ozone depletion negotiations. Crucially, this did not necessarily mean that Southern states believed in a grand vision of universal participation. Instead, they came to see their own participation as appropriate and necessary. The altered Southern behavior (participation at Montreal), however, caused a nascent universal participation norm to emerge, consequently changing the normative context. Their behavior instantiated a different understanding of an appropriate global response. For the analysis of the emergence of universal participation, why the Southern states changed their behavior in some ways matters less than the fact of their changed behavior. However, for the NLC and its focus on an entrepreneur, it is crucial to observe how Tolba facilitated and catalyzed the change of behavior. Tolba may not have imbued each Southern state with an appreciation of universal participation, but he (and UNEP) certainly catalyzed the changed behavior that instantiated universal participation. The empirical record clearly demonstrates that Southern states changed their understanding of the ozone depletion problem. They no longer accepted the intersubjective understanding that ozone depletion was a Northern problem, and they began following a rule that held that they should be participating. How did this happen? While multiple factors played a part in each Southern state’s decision to participate in the governance of ozone depletion, we cannot ignore the catalyzing role of Tolba and UNEP. At first glance, a number of potential, instrumental reasons are evident for the change in Southern states’ avowed disinterest. The impending regulation of an important class of chemicals and concerns about continued access to the chemicals was an important motivation.111 Some observers also point to Southern desires to be associated with environmental protection.112 There were real, economic, and environmental rea-

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sons for Southern states to be interested in the ozone depletion negotiations and these should not be downplayed.113 However, these instrumental incentives existed throughout the 1980s, and a solely instrumental perspective that ignores the NLC and the effects of a norm entrepreneur cannot explain why Southern states recognized the instrumental factors when they did. Entrepreneurial activity provides an explanation. Tolba and UNEP, through structural, rhetorical, informational, and financial means, convinced Southern states that they should participate and facilitated this participation. First, and potentially most importantly, UNEP provided a forum friendly to universal participation. UNEP was, by design, a universal forum. Most analyses of the Montreal, and post-Montreal negotiations take Southern participation as unproblematic. They display an implicit understanding that the transition from North-only to universal participation went smoothly. In fact, it was a smooth transition, but the very lack of friction deserves treatment. The understanding of ozone deletion as a problem requiring broad participation embedded in UNEP and advocated by Tolba, enabled the frictionless entrance of Southern states into the ozone negotiations. The UNEP forum made the transition smooth, precisely because UNEP had been advocating inclusive negotiations from the very beginning and Southern states had the right to participate from the very beginning. It is not obvious that the transition would have occurred or that it would have gone as effortlessly if the negotiations were taking place in another forum, less amenable to universal participation (the OECD for instance). Southern states were able to participate because the negotiations were taking place in a forum where universal participation was the accepted norm. Second, and more actively, Tolba and UNEP argued for defining ozone depletion as a problem that requires universal participation. As noted above, Tolba understood from the very beginning that ozone depletion required universal participation and he worked to promote this understanding. In addition, Tolba represented the interests of the South in the negotiations and kept their issues on the agenda. UNEP and Tolba worked to incorporate Southern issues and to facilitate/encourage Southern participation. Their success in this endeavor was at least partly attributable to personal and institutional characteristics—the legitimacy of the entrepreneur and his organizational platform. Peter Morrisette et al. argue that UNEP’s “appeal to developing countries rests on the location of its base of operations in a developing country and its Egyptian director, Mostafa Tolba. Its credibility was instrumental in establishing the legitimacy of stratospheric ozone among developing countries.”114 Third, UNEP acted to keep Southern states informed about the science of ozone depletion and they provided an atmosphere of objectivity. Downie claims that “UNEP quickly recognized that broad cooperation

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was necessary to protect stratospheric ozone, and it charted a gradual education and policy process to build a strong regime.”115 Building scientific consensus and publicizing scientific results helped UNEP and Tolba persuade states that ozone depletion was a problem that needed to be dealt with—universally. By keeping Southern states informed, Tolba changed the discourse surrounding ozone depletion. This was an especially important factor in UNEP’s efforts to persuade initially disinterested and suspicious Southern states to participate: Because some developing nations feared they would be unfairly and unnecessarily disadvantaged by the proposed regulations, UNEP’s efforts [as an information clearing house] increased the likelihood that suspicious nations would take the problem seriously.116 Finally, UNEP encouraged participation directly by funding Southern delegations to the negotiations. UNEP’s informational efforts combined with their financing of delegations “helped ensure broad knowledge of the problem and broad participation in addressing it.”117 UNEP funded all ten of the Southern delegations to the Vienna negotiations.118 UNEP also funded 60 percent of the thirty-seven Southern states that attended the Montreal negotiations.119 Through structural and active means, Tolba and UNEP had a significant influence on the inclusion of universal participation into Southern rule models. Further, even the motivations for participating that would normally be considered instrumental—loss of access to CFCs and development concerns—were influenced by Tolba and UNEP. The Southern states came to see an interest (political/economic) in ozone depletion precisely because UNEP kept them informed about the problem and provided a universal forum. Thus, incrementally, Southern states began to participate, altering their internal rule models and following a rule that made it appropriate for all states to participate. Just as the framework predicts and the model demonstrated, the activities of Tolba and UNEP altered the social context by convincing an emerging critical mass of Southern states to alter their behavior. Tolba and UNEP increased the social complexity associated with ozone depletion—providing an alternative to North-only participation and adding diverse new actors to the governance process. This increased social complexity made the appropriateness of North-only participation less clear. Further, Southern discontent with the governance outcomes weakened the North-only rule in Southern rule models. When Southern states began to accept Tolba’s suggestion this further eroded the appeal of the North-only norm and it began to dissolve. The Southern change of behavior was not classically “norm-driven.” To be very clear, before 1987

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there was no intersubjective understanding surrounding the notion of universal participation, so no universal participation norm yet existed. However, Southern states, catalyzed by the entrepreneurship of UNEP and Tolba, came to see their participation as appropriate and crucial. Tolba had presented a different way to understand the global response to ozone depletion and the Southern actions that followed Tolba’s suggestions socially constructed the universal participation norm, altering the normative context at the foundation of the governance of ozone depletion. It was the change in Southern actions that caused the universal participation norm to emerge The growth of a critical mass and the activities of the norm entrepreneur in the ozone depletion case demonstrate both how empirical analysis differs from the model, and why the modeling exercises were useful. One difference between the model and the empirical case is that in the ozone depletion negotiations, the entrepreneur was not a one-shot suggestion maker. UNEP and Tolba made multiple suggestions advocating universal participation. However, as predicted by the model, the suggestions served to knock the social context out of its stability around Northonly participation and catalyze a new stable period around universal participation. Tolba’s continual suggestions served to lower social complexity for the ozone depletion issue once the North-only norm slipped into instability. Tolba presented a clear idea of what the appropriate participation level should be—universal. UNEP and Tolba believed that universal participation was the most appropriate way to approach ozone depletion. It was a relatively drawnout period getting to acceptance of the new idea by a critical mass of states and they worked to persuade states with a variety of means. Some of their actions were structural (i.e., it did not take much active entrepreneurship)—UNEP was a universal forum, open to all. Some of their actions were direct—funding Southern participation, providing information, representing Southern interests at the meetings, and calling for further Southern participation. For the normative context, the bottom line was a growth in Southern participation leading up to the Montreal negotiations—Southern states started to actively participate in the governance of ozone depletion. UNEP and Tolba, overtime, were able to convince a critical mass (and in this case the critical mass was Southern states) that they should be participating. This course of events matches what the framework predicts and the model demonstrated. An entrepreneur, with limited reach, is able to catalyze change in the social context by convincing agents to change their behavior—follow different rules. Thus, in the summer of 1987, the stable normative context supporting the North-only negotiations began to erode—unbeknownst to or unrecognized by the Northern states who, if they accepted the universal

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participation rule into their rule models at all, only had universal participation as a potential rule. The political context—the nature of a global response—was changing around them as the South began participating. Southern participation challenged the intersubjective understanding that ozone depletion required only Northern participation. The Northern states went into the Montreal negotiations still focused on bargaining over emission reductions, less concerned with the interests and desires of the Southern states. The MP negotiations were thus dominated by the United States and EU. Southern concerns began to be voiced, and though the South had yet to seriously push for a set of concessions, their practices changed. The South came to the negotiating table at Montreal for the first time in significant numbers. Previously, the South was just not a part of U.S. strategizing as the North-only norm structured what the United States and other states saw as possible for the governance of ozone depletion. Southern states were an afterthought until Montreal. Because Tolba kept development issues on the agenda, the negotiators (again mostly from the North) had grappled with ways to diminish the incentives for Southern nations to become CFC producers in addition to allowing the Southern states to meet their legitimate, domestic needs while the major producers switched to substitutes—as secondary concerns. However, as Benedick recalled it was at Montreal, “when considerably more developing countries were in attendance, that specific details were considered.”120 The solution, devised in previous negotiations, was a combination of trade restrictions and time lags, along with vague promises of technology transfer. The MP enshrined the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” that would come to define universal participation in the subsequent decades.121 Universal participation would come to mean that all states should participate in governance processes, that the North should take the first concrete actions, and that the North should provide support for Southern states to meet their responsibilities. The South started “playing” too late to be a major factor at Montreal, as most of the provisions of the MP had already been worked out, 122 and they quickly signaled dissatisfaction with this state of affairs by not signing the MP. Thus, the normative context immediately following Montreal had begun to shift—the appropriateness of North-only negotiations was being challenged and Southern participation, fostered by UNEP and Tolba, was strengthening a new participation requirement for global environmental problems—universal participation. As Paul Horwitz claimed, after the MP negotiations, “You could not now have an environmental negotiation on any issue and only have 25–30 countries around the table.”123 The first mention of the South in the MP process in popular media, government reports, and academic analyses usually concerns the concessions in the MP. Analysts most often treat these concessions as the initial

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conditions for the South-North phase of the negotiating process. This is not inaccurate. The United States, in particular, either took Southern acceptance of the MP for granted in the early negotiations, or was not concerned with Southern states. This situation would soon change, however, as Southern practices began to alter the normative context, causing it to diverge from U.S. internal rule models by October 1987. The United States neglected Southern concerns, confident that the North had a hold on the problem, that the actions the North took would solve the problem, and that the South would go along. Increased Southern participation, however, had begun to alter the normative context that might have led such a prediction to be accurate. Southern states attended the Montreal negotiations and began to show a serious interest. In addition, the major actors in the South (Brazil, China, and India) refused to sign the MP. The South-North phase of the negotiations was about to begin in earnest within an entirely different normative environment—one where universal participation was the prominent rule.

THE GOVERNANCE OF OZONE DEPLETION II: AMENDING THE MONTREAL PROTOCOL

Evaluation and Assessment: The Evolution of U.S. Rule Models Through Montreal, the North-only negotiation rule model structured U.S. interactions in the negotiations. The United States formulated a negotiating position that ignored the South and focused on the EU. The result of this position (through intervening interactions) was the MP. When the United States began the MP negotiations, its rule model matched the normative context—there was a good fit between the two. In the months preceding Montreal, however, the normative political context had begun to change because of Southern practices. Southern states became interested in the issue and, because of UNEP and Tolba, were able to participate. Now interested in the process, however, major Southern states expressed dissatisfaction with the provisions of the MP and refused to sign. Thus, very quickly after the international community agreed to the MP, U.S. rule models diverged from the normative context. The emerging critical mass of Southern agents altered the intersubjective understanding of who should participate in ozone depletion negotiations. The United States had predicated its negotiating strategies/behaviors on an understanding that ozone depletion required North-only negotiations. The South was not crucial, not interested, and/or likely to accede to the protocol anyway. This U.S. model of the ozone depletion problem had matched the social context until mid-1987, but the social context had changed. In the U.S. evaluation of the MP, this disconnect became clear and the United States joined the cascade of states switching their operating rule from North-only participation to universal participation. Facing a new

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normative context, the United States altered its understanding of a global response to fit with universal participation. In 1988–89, the United States underwent a period of assessment and adjustment as a result of the growing gap between the normative context and the original U.S. internal rule model. Domestic political processes were at the forefront of the evaluation of the MP and the evolution of U.S. rule models. The critical players in this period were Congress, the environmental NGO community, and industry. Throughout this period, these groups worked to influence the executive branch, especially the State Department and the EPA. It is difficult (if not impossible) to pinpoint the moment of a discrete shift from North-only thinking to South-North and global participation thoughts, but the shift occurred nonetheless. The U.S. rule model transformed in this period from: seek Northern cooperation to regulate CFCs; to: seek universal cooperation to regulate CFCs. This shift took place because the understanding of the world inherent in the former rule model no longer fit with the growing, socially constructed, intersubjective understanding that universal participation would be required to address ozone depletion. Thus, the predictions that flowed from the North-only model were faulty. The United States was no longer acting appropriately. The MP did not achieve the goals the United States had set, and the North-only rule model the United States followed was subsequently weakened through negative evaluation. The United States could no longer accurately perceive the world and predict the consequences of actions/interactions with the North-only rule model. Once weakened, the United States discarded the North-only rule model and replaced it with a rule model that drove the United States to secure universal negotiations and cooperation in subsequent negotiations. Unlike the computer model, where evaluation is entirely straightforward, evaluation in empirical cases is more complicated. The United States underwent a political process to determine if the MP was “good” or not. Part of this assessment was concerned with participation levels, and U.S. concern about a lack of Southern participation highlighted the disconnect between the U.S. rule model and the social context. The imminence of a rule model change was not evident in the United States in the months immediately following the signing of the MP. In late 1987, the United States was very pleased with the substantive results of the MP; especially the 50 percent reduction in some CFCs. Stephen Seidel claimed that the “EPA thought that the MP was a huge success.”124 Congress, which had been keeping constant pressure on the United States, was pleased as well. John Dingell (D-MI) called the agreement “an important step that certainly appears to deserve solid congressional support.”125 Industry also welcomed the MP and Du Pont, in particular, praised the international solution in contrast to potential unilateral action, noting, “Global action is the only kind of effective action.”126

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The elation was not destined to last. Already in October scientists foreshadowed impending disappointment with the MP.127 Then, in March 1988, a mere five months after the MP was signed, the Ozone Trends Panel released definitive evidence of the link between CFCs and ozone depletion.128 This was followed by numerous reports detailing the insufficiency of the protocol’s regulations and numerous calls for strengthening the MP.129 As one example, a September 1988 EPA report warned that ozone depletion was more serious than at first assumed and called for an accelerated phaseout: “Nothing short of an immediate halt in the use of chlorofluorocarbons can save the stratospheric ozone layer from further, dangerous depletion.”130 The NGO community was also wary of the MP. Though encouraged by the protocol, they complained that the MP did not go far enough and that the loopholes dedicated to the South significantly weakened the agreement.131 According to a Friends of the Earth briefing sheet supplied to Congress, “By the time the Protocol came into force (1/1/89) it had become clear that its provisions were inadequate.”132 Almost overnight, the MP transformed from a groundbreaking environmental accord, to merely an adequate beginning. It was deemed insufficient in two areas: amount/speed of reductions and participation. The burgeoning scientific certainty quickly made it clear that the MP would be insufficient to protect the ozone layer with or without Southern participation (and at this point the United States still thought with was likely). Even as the United States prepared to ratify the protocol, the U.S. Senate prepared to consider further, unilateral action, and the EPA began calling for a reassessment and accelerated cutbacks.133 Environmental NGO representatives were even more blunt. David Doniger of the NRDC argued that “[t]here is virtually no chance that the current protocol will be sufficient to solve the problem”134 and the NRDC prepared to force the EPA to take action through the courts once again.135 Even industry joined the calls for further international action, hoping to delay or defeat unilateral measures.136 The insufficiency of the substantive measures was compounded by the lack of Southern signers, and especially troubling were the decisions of China and India to forego signing.137 This caught some observers and participants off guard. Most Northern negotiators thought “the terms were attractive enough to encourage other developing countries to sign onto the document.”138 This thinking was a vestige of the U.S. understanding of the ozone problem as one to be dealt with through Northonly measures—a rapidly deteriorating vision of a global response for ozone depletion. The United States, with expectations structured by the now inappropriate North-only operating rule, thought that South-North issues had been finalized with the provisions included in the MP. And in the case

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that development provisions were not attractive enough, the United States was convinced in late 1987 through early 1988 that the threats of trade restrictions and being left behind technologically would convince the Southern states of the desirability of the MP. John Hoffman (U.S. EPA) at a symposium on the impact of climate change on the third world urged Southern states to ratify the MP. “He said many developing countries are erroneously convinced that ratifying the MP could cost them money. To the contrary . . . ‘Not moving can cost you money . . . Hanging onto CFC production will lead to obsolete technology.’”139 At least in the EPA, there was a perception that a technology transition in the North would beget a Southern acquiescence to the MP.140 Yet in September 1988, the Washington Post reported, “The protocol is expected to go into effect . . . but without participation of some developing nations.”141 The United States negotiated the MP operating under a rule model (and normative context) that told it that Northern states had control of the problem. The South produced and consumed relatively miniscule amounts of CFCs and Southern production to this point was primarily in joint ventures with Northern companies.142 In 1988–89, however, the ignored or forgotten potential of the South to produce/consume CFCs and thus contribute to the problem became critical. CFC technology is relatively simple and was widely available. In addition, certain Southern states (Brazil, China, India, and perhaps Indonesia) had large enough domestic markets to create a viable CFC industry. Crucially, this potential to contribute to the problem was as evident in 1986 as it was in 1988. However, the importance attached to the Southern potential and the expectation that the South would comply with the MP changed significantly in 1988–89. By 1989, Southern states no longer assumed that ozone was a North-only problem, with the North responsible for devising solutions. The South claimed a voice and demanded to be a part of the decisionmaking process that promised to alter development paths. Ozone depletion had become global both in terms of scope and required participation. In essence, then, the United States met its goal of reaching an agreement to curb CFC production, but did not meet its overarching goal of addressing the ozone depletion problem with the MP. New scientific information about ozone depletion made it clear, or persuaded officials, that the MP would not be satisfactory in meeting the larger goal. However, the negative evaluation of the sufficiency of the reductions strengthened U.S. resolve because the United States had been calling for more stringent reductions pre-Montreal. The lack of Southern participation in the MP was a different story. This directly challenged the U.S. rule model calling for North-only negotiations. Ignoring the South was no longer an option, and the evaluation of the MP in the 1988–1990 period significantly weakened the North-only rule. The new intersubjective understanding emerging at the time (global as universal) meant that U.S. behavior, driven by the old

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rule model, helped produce a governance outcome that did not fit with how states now viewed a global response to ozone depletion. Thus, the MP and the North-only participation rule were both evaluated negatively (punished), and the rule was weakened. Again, Congress, the NGO community, and industry were the important evaluators that served to weaken the rule model and push the United States toward universal participation. Congress was especially concerned about the lack of Southern participation in the MP process and lack of Southern acceptance of the protocol itself. Congress had been moved to a state of urgency in the ozone depletion issue and was preparing to force the United States to take unilateral action in the late 1980s—action designed to go beyond the MP and reduce CFCs faster than scheduled. They were, however, concerned that production and use of CFCs in the South could negate such efforts.143 John Dingell expressed concern: [L]ess than 40 countries and the European Economic Community have ratified the Protocol. While they represent 84% of the present global consumption, there are over 80 developing and other countries. Many of them have not ratified, including high-populations and important trading countries like Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, and Korea. Without their support as parties, the Protocol may not be as effective as all of us hope.144 These fears were substantiated by an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) report that showed that “non-participation by a few key developing countries can change the effectiveness of the treaty substantially.”145 Industry was concerned with the lack of Southern participation as well. Throughout the 1980s the primary concern of industry was the possibility of U.S. unilateral action. At every step, U.S. industry pushed the United States toward a global response. Before Montreal, this meant a North-only response. After Montreal, industry pushed for a universal global response. Competitive pressures were the crucial drivers of the industry position. In addition, industry advocated universal participation out of a desire to open large markets for CFC substitutes.146 As the Los Angeles Times reported: Du Pont hopes to beat its competition to the huge markets being created by the worldwide effort to eliminate the use of CFCs and other chlorine-containing chemicals believed to be depleting the Earth’s protective ozone layer.147 The chemical companies wanted a globally level playing field, and as global was coming to mean worldwide in the ozone case, industry began

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pushing for universal participation as well. The U.S. chemical industry, throughout 1988 and 1989, consistently advocated global solutions. For instance, Dow Chemical urged worldwide participation before a Congressional hearing,148 and all three of the top U.S. CFC producers (Du Pont, Allied Signal, and Pennewalt Corp.) pushed for accelerated international action after the MP was signed and as the science became more certain.149 As global came to mean universal, industry began advocating universal participation. The environmental NGO community, with a different motivation, desired the same end as industry—a worldwide phaseout of CFCs. NGOs had been concerned with loopholes for Southern nations in the MP, but their real concern was the insufficiency of the reductions. Rafe Pomerance of the World Resources Institute was already convinced in March 1988, that “the Montreal Protocol will have to be strengthened and will have to be strengthened soon.”150 Additionally, on the eve of the treaty’s entry into force, Liz Cook of the Friends of the Earth, noted that “the challenge remains to toughen up the controls and increase participation in the treaty.”151 U.S. executive branch agencies were not immune to these evaluations in addition to their own internal evaluations. They quickly came to the conclusion that universal participation was necessary as well. By early 1990, the EPA was convinced that “[s]tratospheric ozone protection is a global issue that demands a global response and global cooperation.”152 The State Department concurred and urged Congress to delay unilateral action. The State Department assured Congress that global participation, and especially the cooperation of the South, was a major foreign policy goal in the wake of the MP.153 Of course, as noted above, ozone depletion had always required a “global response.” In 1990, however, the nature of the global response was much different. Each group’s evaluation of the MP was based on different priorities. The environmental NGO community was concerned with environmental protection. For them, any ozone depletion was too much and thus the South was a concern even though they produced/consumed relatively small amounts of CFCs. Industry was obviously concerned about competitiveness. Congress was concerned about both issues. The evaluations from all corners saw Southern participation as crucial for meeting their groups’ goals. The United States learned about appropriate participation throughout the evaluation process. The North-only participation rule, which shaped all that the United States had done with ozone depletion through the MP, was significantly weakened by these evaluations. Actors with different goals and motivations all pushed change in the U.S. rule model—they all advocated universal participation. The North-only rule had driven U.S. behavior in the negotiations of a landmark agreement, but the MP was a landmark only as a bare beginning in the fight against ozone depletion—it was not sufficient to win the

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fight. With the participation rule weakened by negative evaluation, the United States shifted to a universal participation rule. In the negotiations of 1989–90 designed to amend the MP, the United States focused on SouthNorth issues and explored answers to Dingell’s challenge: Unfortunately, the concessions to the developing countries which are included in the Protocol have not yet enticed them to ratify. . . . I want to learn today what more, if anything can be done to encourage broader global participation.154 By 1989, the United States defined the ozone problem as one requiring universal participation. However, the above sounds like a very rational story. The evaluations of the MP all called for more Southern involvement for goal-oriented reasons. The United States updated its beliefs/strategies to try and achieve its goals. It is clear that the United States was goal-seeking when it altered its position to focus on Southern participation in the 1988–1990 period. It appears at first glance that the transition in U.S. thinking would be best characterized as a rational updating of strategies/ beliefs in light of new scientific information or new understanding of economic interests. The United States wanted to solve the ozone depletion problem, and a commitment to North-only participation did not facilitate the accomplishment of this goal.155 Universal participation was therefore the obvious choice—involve the South in negotiations and actions toward a solution. Science and the global scope of the problem would seem to be the best determinants of the transition in U.S. thinking. However, close scrutiny reveals that the rational updating explanation falls short. First, instrumental acceptance of universal participation does not diminish the influence of the nascent norm for universal participation. As Risse et al. have argued, instrumental acceptance of a norm is often the first step in socialization to a normative context.156 In addition, the “instrumental” acceptance can also be seen as adapting to a new context. The U.S. understanding no longer fit with the prevailing notions of appropriateness and so U.S. understandings had to change.157 Without the appropriate understanding of the foundations of the governance of ozone depletion, the United States could not hope to actively or effectively participate in the governance of ozone depletion. Second, the change in U.S. definitions of ozone depletion still relied on the existence of a nascent norm requiring universal participation. The United States did not calculate from a number of potential options that committing to universal participation was the way to maximize its utility. Instead, the United States committed to universal participation because that requirement had come to pervade the normative political context. Multiple actors with widely varying motivations all arrived at the same conclusion—a global response to ozone depletion required universal participation.

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When the United States deemed North-only negotiations to be insufficient, it immediately drew upon the understanding already embedded in the normative context. The United States (as well as those actors evaluating U.S. actions—Congress, industry, NGOs) learned that universal participation was the appropriate level of participation from its normative context. This was a coevolutionary process whereby the social context, altered by the critical mass of participating Southern states, contained new understandings—a new niche for the United States to fill. No options beyond universal participation were considered, though plausible alternatives are imaginable with hindsight. When the science of ozone depletion became more certain and the consequences better understood, it was taken as natural for the United States and other Northern states to pursue universal participation and extend the ozone agreement to the Southern states to eliminate future damage to the ozone layer. Crucially, however, rather than pursuing universal participation, the United States could have stayed the course of the MP provisions or it could have advocated limited Southern participation; either choice may have been a more effective way to meet its goals. CFC production was restricted to seventeen companies in 1989.158 The possibility of being left behind technologically should have been (and might have eventually been) a powerful incentive for Southern states to join the MP process—regardless of whether the United States and other Northern states really dealt with development concerns. It is not clear that the Southern states had as much bargaining leverage as they are usually credited with and it is certainly not clear that the trade restrictions in the MP would not have eventually brought the South on board anyway. In fact, as noted above, this was the thinking at the EPA in the immediate aftermath of the MP negotiations. The North controlled virtually all of the production of CFCs, and only a select few Southern states had sufficient domestic markets to initiate a viable CFC industry. The only states that had real leverage over the United States and the North were China, India, Brazil, and perhaps Indonesia and Malaysia. But these states were loath to fall behind technologically.159 Even Mostafa Tolba downplayed the threat of a Southern CFC industry. He responded to concerns with Southern loopholes in the MP by arguing, “None of them is going to establish new facilities that are doomed.”160 It might have been a rational choice to retain a North-only vision of the ozone depletion problem and let the trade sanctions and fear of technological obsolescence “force” the South to comply with the MP. A second option would have been to just work to involve the large Southern states that did have some bargaining leverage. It could have been perfectly plausible to entice China, India, and Brazil to agree to the MP and join the process. The large Southern states were the main concern—as noted in the OTA report referenced above. In addition, accord-

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ing to Irving Mintzer of the World Resources Institute, “if just four developing countries—China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil—increase their domestic consumption of CFCs to the levels allowed by the protocol, CFC production on a worldwide basis would double from the 1986 base level.”161 Dealing with just these states, the ones with real leverage, likely would have been less expensive for the United States in terms of necessary development concessions and perhaps would have been more efficient, avoiding the noted problems with large negotiations.162 Neither of those potential alternatives to universal participation was considered by the United States or other states. In the first case, the negative evaluations of the MP, driven by an increased sense of urgency, made staying the course very unlikely. In the second case, a small extension of the negotiations to include just China, India, and Brazil obviously did not occur. Neither the United States nor China and India entertained the idea of separate provisions for specific Southern states.163 Perhaps more importantly, it would not have mattered if the United States had considered these additional options—the normative context was such that universal participation was the only viable option. These alternatives were not considered because once its original definition of the ozone depletion problem was weakened, the United States came to understand the problem as universal—it came to accept the current intersubjective understanding of the problem. The international community had already instantiated the appropriateness of a requirement for universal participation, thus constraining possible choices for U.S. definitions/strategies. In addition to the growing interest of Southern states, the norm was also already enshrined at UNEP and Tolba still controlled the agenda—the new definition of global was ensconced in the structure of the negotiations: [I]t is clear that the protection of the ozone layer will require a full partnership between developed countries that have caused the problem and those in developing countries who would now like to improve their standard of living by using these chemicals for uses such as refrigeration.164 Further, the universal participation norm was already embedded within the working group charged with developing the financial mechanisms for the protocol amendment. Their report claimed that “for the Protocol to be fully effective . . . all countries must become parties or comply with the control measures specified by the Montreal Protocol.”165 Because the U.S. transition to the new definition for the ozone depletion problem was constrained, it appeared to be seamless and thus gave the impression of a rational updating. The U.S. participants in the ozone negotiations interviewed recall the drive for Southern participation

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as an extension of existing policy, rather than a radical change in policy.166 This is not that surprising precisely because the rule model change was not discontinuous (though the simplified model discusses it as if it were). Dual goals drove U.S. policy in the ozone negotiations: (1) industrial competitiveness, and (2) reductions of CFCs. When the South refused to sign the MP, the United States changed its focus given those overriding goals. Crucially, U.S. options for a change in focus were heavily constrained—the options were structured by the transition in what a global response entailed. The ozone negotiations were on a path circumscribed by the emerging intersubjective consensus that ozone depletion required universal participation. The new norm, initiated by Tolba/UNEP and strengthened by Southern actions, taught the United States what was appropriate and thus structured the South-North bargaining that would subsequently take place. The effortlessness of the change to the new South-North bargaining focus was predicated on a new understanding of appropriate levels of participation.167 By mid-1989, it was no longer possible for any state to define the ozone problem as anything but a problem requiring universal participation. The array of choices open to the United States was constrained by the transformed intersubjective understanding of the problem as universal—an understanding that was reinforced by its (or agents within it) own evaluation of the protocol. The United States made a normative choice determined/constrained by the emergent norm for universal participation, and actively worked for universal participation in the negotiations designed to amend the MP.168 When the United States evaluated the MP (via numerous actors), the conclusion that it reached was that the MP was insufficient to protect the ozone layer. This was an implicit indictment of the North-only participation rule that defined the ozone depletion problem for the United States throughout the MP negotiations. Following an operating rule that defined ozone depletion as a Northern problem led to an outcome that did not meet the U.S. goal of protecting the ozone layer. This weakened that rule. The question then became, what should the United States do? What should its operating rule be? How should it define the ozone depletion problem? There was no social complexity associated with these questions. Tolba and UNEP, by convincing a number of Southern states to participate, had lowered the social complexity surrounding participation issues in ozone depletion to such a degree that there was only one way to define the ozone depletion problem—as a problem requiring universal participation. In addition, the crisis that emerged when the ozone depletion-CFC link was proved and Southern states refused to accede to the MP, further clarified the appropriateness of the nascent universal participation norm. Universal participation became the only choice possible for addressing ozone depletion, and the United States joined the cascade of nations accepting the new norm.

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The specific transition that occurred in U.S. understandings of ozone depletion was norm driven—a normative choice shaped and constrained by the emerging intersubjective understanding of the ozone problem as requiring universal participation. Though other alternatives might have made the United States “better off,” the United States made the choice that it had to make. Thus, the United States had a different view of the ozone depletion problem as it engaged in the negotiations to amend the MP.

The Influence of Universal Participation: Amending the Protocol As the MP came into force on January 1, 1989, the United States was completing its shift to the universal participation rule. This new rule changed U.S. perceptions of the problem and it took on a more SouthNorth feel. The significant bargaining shifted from EU/United States to South-North. The EU became an issue leader on the ozone depletion issue after signing the MP. With increased scientific certainty, industry lost a great deal of influence over the European delegations, and the EU took a much greener stance, calling for accelerated cutbacks along with the United States. The EU was also concerned with universal participation, and it was initially more willing than the United States to entertain funding solutions. In addition, UNEP continued to structure the negotiations in a South-North manner. At the first meeting of the parties to the MP, Tolba laid out the work ahead and recommended that the parties undertake the total elimination of ozone depleting substances by the end of the century; the clarification of provisions to address the special needs of developing countries, including financial and technical assistance; and the articulation of a clear signal to industry concerning amended regulations.169 The international process of adjusting the MP began when Britain hosted a Saving the Ozone conference in March 1989 that was attended by 123 states.170 The United States, with its changed definition of appropriate participation levels, did not have to convince the South to participate—the South was already at the table. Substantively, at London the United States, in a continuation of the position that it had held throughout the MP negotiations, announced its goal of phasing out CFCs by 2000.171 In a major position shift, the European states also advocated a phaseout of CFCs.172 The United States and the EU were further united in their desire to persuade the South to join the protocol process.173 A Swiss delegate to the London conference proclaimed, “The time has come for a universal response to a universal challenge.”174 Participating in earnest in the negotiating process for the first time in large numbers, the South began pushing for developmental assistance

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at the London conference. As Litfin observed, “[T]he treatment of developing countries, which hitherto had been considered a minor issue, became a central concern.”175 It was at this conference that the South became vocal. Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya voiced the generic Southern concern when he stated, “Some nations will not find it easy to forego the use of CFCs in their quest for industrialization.”176 Representatives from India and China were more direct. India’s spokesperson praised the “polluter pays principle”177 and “made known the Third World’s doubts about the industrialized countries’ political will to come up with the required financial aid and technology transfers for CFC technology.”178 A Chinese official protested that Southern nations “resented the rich ‘telling them what to do and not to do . . .’”179 At London, therefore, while it was relatively easy for the delegates to agree that an accelerated phaseout was necessary, South-North issues loomed large. For the first time, the North specifically wanted to find out what it would take to get the South on board, and they found out—development assistance. At London, the United States began to discover the ramifications of universal participation. As reported in the Boston Globe, The problem of financing worldwide conversion away from chlorofluorocarbons and halons dominated the final hours of the meeting. China, with support from India and Mexico [the first nation to ratify the MP and an early supporter of CFC regulations], led a group of industrializing nations in proposing a separate international fund. The fund would be largely or totally financed by industrial nations . . .180 Thus confronted, the United States did not have a ready response (not entirely surprising given that the United States had ignored Southern concerns to this point). Eileen Claussen of the EPA noted that a fund would be “extremely difficult.”181 The new administrator of the EPA, William Reilly, conceded that the United States had not “gotten that far” to consider “extraordinary financial aid” and argued that a fund “needed study.”182 The terms of the negotiations were thus set in London for the negotiations slated to take place in May 1989. The international community reached general agreement on the need to eliminate CFCs, the need for global action, and the need to find ways to assist Southern nations.183 The drive to amend the MP had begun in earnest. Following on the heels of the London conference, the first meeting of the parties to the MP took place in May 1989 in Helsinki. The meeting began with ambitious goals. Tolba’s opening address “called for elimination of all ozone depleting substances by the end of the century and establishment of an international fund to generate, subsidize and transfer new technologies and products to the developing countries.”184 At Helsinki, delegates reiter-

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ated the weaknesses of the MP, all the delegations called for an accelerated phaseout, and there were renewed calls for nonparties to join and for developmental assistance.185 The South continued their push for development assistance, and a U.S. State Department official noted that while not ready to set up a fund, the United States would do “what is necessary.”186 Though no amendments to the MP were agreed upon at this first meeting of the parties, eighty states signed a nonbinding resolution that called for a phaseout of CFCs, solidifying the understanding that CFCs needed to be eliminated.187 The work ahead was clear-cut. As Richard Smith of the U.S. State Department reported, “At Helsinki, it was clear that many developing countries want to participate but are understandably concerned about the potential costs to their economies.”188 The parties organized a working group to negotiate the details of potential amendments, with the goal of presenting the amendments for signature at the second meeting of the parties in June 1990 at London. In the interim period between Helsinki and London, the United States acknowledged the need for developmental assistance, but James Baker cautioned that the United States was only ready to commit resources through existing institutions.189 Meanwhile, Congress and the environmental NGO community kept the pressure squarely on the United States. In July 1989, the House of Representatives again proposed unilateral U.S. action to accelerate the phaseout of CFCs.190 This action garnered a typical reaction from industry, administration officials, and environmental NGOs—industry and the administration protested and the NGO community applauded.191 The other constant in the interim period between Helsinki and London was the call for development assistance for the South. The lines of the debate were clearly set heading into late spring of 1990. The United States desired a full phaseout and global participation. As Michael Shapiro of the EPA stated: The EPA analysis [on chlorine loading projections] assumes that there will be 100% world wide participation in this effort [toward a phaseout]. It will prove optimistic unless we are able to increase participation by developing countries.192 To achieve this, a fund would have to be forthcoming and in March 1990, the Northern states tentatively agreed to subsidize Southern ozone protection efforts.193 In May 1990, as the international community was gearing up for the final push at London, the United States balked at the implications of the actions driven by its universal participation rule model. If the United States were to achieve Southern cooperation, it would have to accede to an international fund and technology transfer mechanisms—it would have to make side payments to the South. This was the bargain that the

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South, now fully engaged in the negotiating process, was driving. This bargain appeared too costly to some powerful officials in the Bush administration, especially given the concurrent climate change negotiations that had recently begun (See chapter 6). Chief of Staff John Sununu and OMB Director Richard Darman orchestrated a policy that opposed the development of an international fund to aid the South in addressing ozone depletion. As reported in the Washington Post, Sources said Sununu and Darman were adamantly opposed to the plan out of concern that it might become a precedent for demands on the US to provide far more aid to the Third World to compensate for curbs on global warming gases.194 The United States took this position in opposition to almost all states participating in the negotiations and against the will of the Senate that “voted overwhelmingly for a proposal by Senator John H. Chafee (R-RI) that called for financial assistance to the Third World to expedite worldwide phase out of CFCs.”195 Ironically, this action shows just how ingrained the idea of universal participation had become in the United States. In 1990, the transition to universal participation in the global responses to environmental problems was complete. The United States viewed global environmental problems as requiring universal participation and was growing concerned with the consequences of such a definition. In the ozone depletion issue, the universal participation requirement was quickly leading to a consequence of demands for a large international fund. The United States feared that such demands would be even greater in climate change. The United States feared the impact of a generally understood requirement for universal participation for all global environmental problems—the Bush administration did not consider that climate change or ozone at this point in time could be dealt with in any other manner than through universal negotiations, and they clearly dreaded the consequences. This fear threatened to scuttle the ozone negotiations. The South made it clear that they would not participate without a fund and the United States held on to its opposition to a new fund, advocating instead the use of the World Bank and other existing institutions.196 The controversy diffused as the United States relented after weathering a storm of criticism from Congress, Europe, the NGO community, and the Southern states. Just prior to the London meeting of the parties the United States agreed to an independent fund with the caveat that any ozone fund set up would set no precedent for other environmental issues.197 At London itself, Tolba set the tone by stating, “It is a must that north and south, east and west should cooperate together. It is not an option.”198 Clearly, the participation of the South and especially India and China were foremost concerns.199 Still, though the United States had

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relented on approving the fund, it continued to put roadblocks in the path of an agreement by insisting that it be granted a permanent seat on the committee managing the fund.200 The South had a strong, negative reaction to this proposal and invoked accusations of environmental colonialism. Fortunately, compromise ruled the day, and by June 29, 1990, a deal or as Tolba called it, a “Grand Bargain,” had been struck. The London Amendment to the MP contained the ultimate phaseout by 2000 desired by all parties (and most nonparties), but the bigger accomplishment of the London negotiations was the establishment of the Multilateral Fund and technology transfer mechanisms. The United States and other Northern states agreed to pay the full incremental costs of the transition away from CFCs incurred by the South, and more importantly, they agreed to do this with new and additional funds administered by a new institution. This was a huge victory for the South, because the new institution was to be jointly controlled, rather than solely administered by donor states. With the funding provision in place, the South (crucially India and China) agreed to the MP and the fight against ozone depletion became a truly global affair. In contrast to the MP, the London Amendment was enthusiastically evaluated, and in the years that followed only minor adjustments were made to the MP, and these were made with relative ease. Congress hailed the London Amendment as precedent setting even though the language in the actual text specifically rules out precedent—a line insisted upon by the United States. Congress, industry, and the NGO community were unanimous in their positive judgment of the London Amendment. Representative James Scheuer, ignoring the specific language proscribing a precedent in the London Amendment, described the London result as an “important—and if I may say it, precedent setting—agreement.”201 Industry received the level playing field that it was hoping for (an early and consistent concern) as well as the potential to open up the enormous markets of India and China to CFC substitutes. Environmental groups got the accelerated phaseout they were pushing for, as well as the cooperation of the South, which they had deemed necessary. Liz Cook of the Friends of the Earth looked optimistically on the London Amendment noting that FOE looks forward to evaluating whether the ozone fund meets the challenge of providing developing countries with environmentally sound technologies as well as serves to build cooperation between the North and the South on environmental protection.202

A New Normative Context for Global Responses The story of the normative context in this period is less convoluted than the story of the actual negotiations, though the two are inextricably

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linked. In 1988, multiple states quickly acceded to the new norm, a cascade expected by the constructivist/complex adaptive framework. The South emerged as a critical mass altering the normative context for the rest of the states negotiating the ozone agreements. Their altered practices—taking an active interest in the negotiations and not signing the MP—had a profound effect on what manner of negotiation would be considered appropriate in the 1988–1990 period. The North could no longer expect to achieve Southern cooperation without addressing Southern concerns—without Southern participation in the process. In 1988, Northern states came to recognize the appropriateness of universal negotiations as well. The United States (and other Northern states) replaced its North-only rule model with one that called for universal negotiations. In 1989, the norm mandating universal participation was solidified through the practices of the agents in the system. The South played a very large role in the negotiations, and was vocal about its concerns for the first time. The U.S. practices reinforced the new norm as well. The U.S. negotiating positions and behaviors shifted focus from disputes with the EU to South-North issues almost exclusively. The United States was seeking to secure Southern participation and addressing the South in the negotiations. In 1990, the United States internalized the new norm and it began to be taken for granted both within the United States and in the international community at large. The discussions and negotiations shifted from the need to secure Southern participation to the consequences of Southern participation. This was a subtle shift, but by May 1990, all the parties accepted the appropriateness of the Southern presence at the negotiations and the discussions focused on what the South wanted—the consequence of universal participation—rather than the need for Southern participation. The shift in the norm context was the source of the leverage that is usually attributed to Southern states in the London negotiations.203 The “Grand Bargain” that was struck at London—participation in exchange for development assistance—enshrined the common but differentiated responsibility principle and solidified an altered set of expectations about the appropriate way to address global environmental problems. The nature of the global response developed in the process of governing ozone depletion was relatively specific. The London Amendment to the MP froze the normative context around certain principles.204 First and foremost, the normative context stabilized around the overarching notion of universal participation—all states should participate in governance processes for global environmental problems. The manifestation of the universal participation norm that emerged further enshrined the common but differentiated responsibilities principle and it specified that Northern states should (1) take the lead on concrete actions and (2) support (financially and technologically) any Southern actions. This view of

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a global response provided a firm foundation for the global governance of climate change to come.

CONCLUSION: EMPIRICS, THEORIES, AND MODELS Necessary participation was and remains a constructed political choice rather than a natural or rational one. Ozone depletion began as a global problem requiring negotiations among a small subset of states. By 1990, this view of the problem was obsolete. The transition that occurred was table enlargement from twenty-five seats at Geneva in 1986 to ninety-six in London in 1990. The key to understanding the historically dependent normative nature of participation is realizing that neither the thirty in 1986, nor the one hundred in 1990 were objectively determined by the nature of the ozone depletion problem or through rational choice. In 1986, the South produced 5.5 percent of the world’s ozone-depleting substances and in 1990 this had only risen to 7.5 percent.205 It was not the South’s production or consumption that concerned the North in 1989–90. It was the potential of the South to do future damage—a potential that remained unchanged in the 1986–1990 period. However, in 1986 the South did not see itself as having a stake and the North “knew” it controlled the problem—understandings that lasted until 1987. If ozone depletion speaks for itself, why did it not say “universal participation” in 1986 and why did it not say just add China, India, and Brazil in 1990? The answer is that the universal participation norm came to define the ozone depletion problem in the course of the negotiations as the norm life cycle/CAS framework predicted and the Pick a Number model demonstrated. Tolba and UNEP suggested a new way to define the ozone depletion problem. This suggestion initially only reached a small number of states, but as per the model dynamics, the altered behavior of these few states began to alter the social context for all states—destabilizing an extant norm of North-only participation. As a critical mass of states that used Tolba’s suggestion as their operating rule emerged, the U.S. rule model diverged from the social context. This led the United States to negatively evaluate its rule model, opening the way for a shift in its operating rule. The social complexity associated with participation requirements in the ozone depletion negotiations was low due to the work of Tolba and the actions of Southern states, and thus the United States seamlessly made the transition to universal participation. The flow of events in the ozone depletion negotiations matches the predictions of the framework and model. The norm life cycle/CAS framework is able to explain the emergence of the universal participation norm. Thus, what we see in the ozone depletion case is more than a story about cooperation and negotiation, more than a story about the effect of

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science and the roles of international organizations and NGOs and industry. Rather, the ozone depletion case is a crucial stage in the development of an understanding that some environmental problems require the active participation of all (or most) the nations of the world. During the course of these negotiations, the international community constructed a new global response to ozone depletion, defining the problem in a new way such that the North became concerned about the potential Southern contributions to ozone depletion and Southern states became full participants in governance processes. The global response had come to be associated with a requirement for universal participation and the ramifications of such a change would soon be felt in the climate change negotiations.

Chapter Six The Governance of Climate Change I Universal Participation and the Framework Convention on Climate Change

Climate change rose quickly on the international agenda in the late 1980s on the heels of the ozone depletion negotiations. Though both problems stem from atmospheric pollution, the complexity of the climate change problem eclipses that of ozone depletion by orders of magnitude. The causes of climate change (or global warming) are ubiquitous in all societies (industrial or otherwise), and virtually all biological, agricultural, and industrial activities contribute to the problem. Similarly, the potential effects of climate change promise to have an impact on most of humanity, altering sea levels and weather patterns. Climate change officially became an international policy issue in December 1988 when the UN General Assembly, at the behest of Malta, passed a resolution calling for cooperative action.1 By this time the international community, through UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), had already created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and charged it with building consensus on the science of, potential impacts from, and possible responses to climate change. In addition, a conference at Noordwijk, Netherlands, in November 1989 and the Second World Climate Conference (SWCC) in October 1990 set the stage for the official negotiations of a framework convention. These negotiations took place through all of 1991 and into 1992, culminating in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), which was signed at the Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro) in June 1992 by 154 states.

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Chapter 5 explained the emergence of the universal participation norm using the NLC and the insights from the computer modeling exercises. In this chapter I explore the influence of this norm—how the universal participation norm influenced the very manner in which the United States and the international community defined and approached climate change. Universal participation was the point of departure for all actors involved in the climate change issue because the ozone depletion negotiations altered perceptions of an appropriate global response to environmental problems such that they required universal participation. This understanding was at the foundation of the early governance activities for climate change and it influenced: • The Agenda—Southern issues (right to development, financial assistance, and technological transfer) were crucial issues even though the Southern states did not (objectively speaking) have the bargaining leverage to force their inclusion on the agenda. • The Debates—crucial issues discussed during the FCCC negotiations concerned emissions reductions, Southern commitments, and funding for the South. While the emissions reductions debates were arguably a North-North concern (United States and EU), debates over Southern commitments and funding were a direct result of the universal participation norm structuring the appropriate notion of a global response. • U.S. Strategy—The United States, recalcitrant from the beginning to the end of the FCCC negotiations, built its stalling strategy upon a prior understanding that the governance of climate change required universal participation. It is impossible to fully grasp U.S. behavior in these negotiations without understanding how the universal participation norm structured what the United States saw as possible. Again, as discussed in chapter 2, the factors typically relied upon to explain the universal scope of the climate change negotiations—characteristics of the problem and strategic choice—fail to account for universal participation. Objectively and rationally, a universal global response does not necessarily make sense. There were (and remain) good reasons to limit participation in the negotiations—an option that was never considered. Instead, as predicted by the NLC and demonstrated in the model, the United States and the rest of the international community committed to universal participation as part of the definition of the climate change problem without serious consideration. The international community was locked in to universal participation, affecting the foundations of the global governance of climate change. However, this chapter is not only a story of the influence of a particular notion of a global response to climate change. The NLC does not

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cease to have influence and social norms do not remain static. The early climate change negotiations (1990–1992) also saw states grappling seriously with universal participation—what it entailed and the proper interpretation of universal participation. These initial governance activities foreshadowed the second major transition in participation requirements that would fully emerge in the mid 1990s. Internalized norms are not static, but rather they continually evolve as states behave, strategize, and strive for goals. While all states began and left the FCCC negotiations understanding that a global response required universal participation, the FCCC negotiations themselves engendered the seeds of the dispute over the interpretation of universal participation that would dominate the governance of climate change in the post-FCCC period. Thus, this chapter continues the investigation of the coevolution of U.S. rule models and the normative context. I present evidence that the United States took the universal nature of climate change for granted from the beginning as a direct consequence of the previous ozone experience and I demonstrate how this perception was at the foundation of the global governance of climate change during the crucial initial phase from 1990 to 1992. I begin by unpacking what is usually considered obvious—the universal nature of climate change. I return to the alternative arguments presented in chapter 2 and demonstrate in greater detail that the scientific/objective characteristics of the problem did not automatically warrant universal negotiations and that the preference for universal participation in the U.S. was not a result of strategic choice. I further present evidence of the role of the ozone negotiations in shaping the intersubjective understanding of the required level of participation for climate change. I then turn to a discussion of the initial political context for climate change, and articulate the early U.S. rule models/positions on the climate change issue. The understanding of climate change as a universal issue is clear in both. As in the model, the agents in the international community continued to use a successful rule—universal participation—in subsequent “rounds.” The United States and the international community locked in to universal participation when the climate change negotiations began as the universal participation norm provided a stable set of expectations for the climate change problem. The United States was in a situation of low social complexity, and the appropriateness of universal participation was clear. I follow the exposition of the U.S. rule models with a discussion of the pre-negotiation period of 1987–1990, exploring the consequences of the universal participation norm in shaping U.S. strategy and the emerging structure of the negotiations. Finally, I examine the climate change negotiations themselves, tracing the U.S. actions in the negotiations and illustrating the debates that crystallized, the compromises reached, and the dynamism associated with the universal participation norm. I conclude with thoughts on the influence of universal participation on the

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governance activities as well as some observations on the transition in universal participation that these activities foreshadowed.

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE? Most academics, policymakers, and scientists uncritically acknowledge that the climate change problem requires a universal solution. I am not convinced that such an underlying understanding had to arise in the late 1980s and early 1990s given only the characteristics of the problem or the strategic interests of the parties involved. I seek to explain the assumed need for universal participation, and I reiterate the argument that referring to the scientifically defined characteristics of the issue or relying on rational choice are both insufficient. Evolving political and normative conceptions generated in the ozone depletion negotiations determined what the global response to climate change would be, not the unadorned characteristics of the problem.

Science and Universal Participation In that the sources of climate change are certainly worldwide, as are the potential effects, I am not arguing that climate change is not a global problem environmentally.2 However, I question the presumed connection between these scientific characteristics and political definitions. To be sure, relying on scientific characteristics is attractive in this case precisely because climate change is a hugely complex, global phenomenon. Two officials from Canada eloquently articulated conventional wisdom for climate change: Because of this global interdependence, both environmental and economic, it was and remains, crucial that as many countries as possible be involved in the solution to the climate problem. This applies to large and small emitters as well as to current and future emitters.3 Conventional wisdom denotes the crucial characteristics of climate change to be that every person and state on the planet contributes to the problem, and that the problem potentially affects every person and state on the planet.4 These characteristics and the conventional wisdom that accompanied them are seductive for analysts of climate change politics. Because environmental politics is so wrapped up in the interplay between science and policy, when scientists declare that climate change is “ ‘truly global’ and cannot be solved by the actions of one nation alone,”5 it is difficult to conceive that the issue could be addressed in any way other than with

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global, universal negotiations (or that the United States would consider any other options). When scientists proclaim the global nature of climate change, it seems natural to hear a U.S. policymaker claim that “climate change is, by definition, an international problem which must be addressed among nations,”6 or that a criterion for a successful climate negotiation is an integrated treaty, “designed to involve all nations and dynamically reflect and incorporate each nation’s unique circumstances into the development of a truly global response strategy.”7 Why then the talk about a participation norm? As seductive as it may be to translate scientific definitions of the climate change problem directly into political characteristics and solutions, the two are not always (if ever) precisely related. In other words, scientific characteristics do not objectively determine political characteristics. Science may inform politics, but it does not determine it—even in as scientifically dominated a problem as climate change. This is not in direct contrast to the claims of the epistemic community literature, which holds that scientific groups frame issues and provide policymakers with coherent, consistent policy options, thus facilitating cooperation.8 Certainly the work and rhetoric of scientists focusing on the global aspects of climate change had an effect on the early definitions of climate change. However, the actual characteristics of the problem are politically ambiguous, and more than one scientific discourse surrounds climate change. In addition, the more important factor was a prior understanding of climate change as a universal problem, fostered in the ozone depletion negotiations. Such an understanding did not exist in the early ozone negotiations even though scientists stressed the global nature of ozone depletion. As noted in chapter 2, “science” rarely, if ever, consists of a single discourse (or alternatively, multiple discourses can be constructed from the findings of science).9 For instance, the United States and the Europeans looked at the same climate change data and scientific conclusions and adhered to two different interpretations. U.S. officials, choosing to focus on uncertainty and the potential costs of ameliorating actions, constructed a discourse of skepticism. The Europeans, on the other hand, focused on the consensus available and the potential impacts of climate change, forging a discourse of urgency. Science did not provide objective information with which to decide policy. In addition, EU and U.S. policies diverged as they regarded emission reductions, but converged over participation.10 The Europeans and the Americans agreed on the need for a universal response but vehemently differed on the need for reductions. The scientifically discerned characteristics of the climate change problem did not govern the responses to climate change in and of themselves. In fact, it is reasonable to ask if the scientific consensus built and conclusions reached in the mid to late 1980s actually warranted universal

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negotiations. Most U.S. officials, and most of the international community, assumed that if any negotiations were obligatory, they would have to be universal, but was that really what climate science should have led them to believe? The historical record and the scientific descriptions of climate change point to a negative answer. The scientifically discerned characteristics of climate change do not make global negotiations the only, or even the most obvious, manner for addressing climate change. When scientists first started to think about policy options in the mid to late 1980s they discussed how the global climate change problem required action by a subset of states—the major sources of the problem (United States, EU, USSR, Japan, China, and India). In early 1988 when UNEP began organizing the SWCC, they conceived it as a scientifically focused meeting with between twenty and thirty countries participating— “mainly the industrialized states which have expertise in the field of climate studies.”11 While climate scientists have correctly stressed the global sources and global impacts of climate change, what gets lost in this talk of global, is that only a few states (treating the EU as a single entity) are the overwhelming cause of the problem. What is clear is that the normative context influences how scientists as well as policymakers conceive of a problem.12 According to the 1990 State of the World Report published by the Worldwatch Institute, roughly 70 percent of the world’s 1987 carbon dioxide emissions generated by burning fossil fuels were accounted for by the United States, Canada, Australia, the Soviet Union, Japan, selected EU countries, Brazil, India, and China.13 Further, when climate change first became an important issue (1986–1988), environmental groups and scientists focused on the potentially significant benefits achievable through the actions of a limited number of states. The Worldwatch Institute claimed that [a]ir pollutant emissions could drop substantially with concerted action by China, the Soviet Union, and the United States alone, which are the world’s three largest consumers of coal . . .14 Just one year later in the spring of 1987, the Worldwatch Institute reiterated this claim, noting: [T]he United States, the Soviet Union, and China together account for half of the global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel. These three countries also possess roughly two-thirds of the world’s remaining reserves of coal. . . . A vigorous effort to curb fossil fuel use by these three countries could go a long way toward slowing the global CO2 buildup and the projected change in climate . . .15

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In hindsight, even U.S. policymakers will admit that seven or eight countries (counting the EU as a single entity) could deal with the climate change problem and that perhaps universal negotiations were not the best way to proceed.16 Nitze recalled, “Frankly if you had the US . . . the annex I countries plus China and India, then you have enough critical mass, but you have to get India and China.”17 This is not to downplay the impact that Southern states can/will potentially have on the problem. As Scott Barrett makes clear, “Any unilateral action by the OECD countries as a whole would not have a profound effect on global concentrations [of carbon dioxide], at least not in the long run.”18 The fact that carbon emissions from the South are growing and will surpass those in the North is an important factor to consider. However, this does not change the fact that a small subset of states (including major Southern states) controls a vast proportion of the problem. In addition, as Richard Sandbrook argues, data on Southern contributions to the problem should not detract “from the fact that 75 percent of the emissions responsible for the current greenhouse effect come from within the United States and Western Europe.”19 Early climate change negotiations could have proceeded in an OECD meeting or with a summit of fewer than ten states (including the EU) and been entirely scientifically justified, at least in the short term. Such a plan was called for by negotiation expert James Sebenius and this was the very manner in which the MP was negotiated from 1985 to 1987.20 Yet, curiously, this option was never even considered. The notion of universal participation dominated the climate change proceedings from the very beginning. Scientific observations do not equal policy characteristics. In the climate change case, the universal participation norm shaped the views that policymakers had of scientific conclusions—it was the lens through which they beheld the climate change issue. This understanding of the problem filtered scientific information. As constructivists argue, the norm provided intersubjective understandings of the material world, producing political characteristics for the climate change issue. The universal participation norm put boundaries on possible definitions of climate change.

Strategy and Universal Participation In chapter 2, I argued that universal negotiations are not rational from the standpoint of effectiveness or efficiency, and it appeared doubtful that they were a strategic choice of the United States, designed to slow or stall the negotiations by adding extra negotiators and issues. The latter of these two possibilities is the stickiest issue. As the climate change issue rose in prominence in the late 1980s, it became clear that the United States did not favor aggressive action to address climate change (a reluctance discussed below). If we take the findings from positive political

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economy (or practical negotiation experience) to heart—namely, that large negotiations are inefficient and ineffective—then it does seem plausible that the United States would press for universal negotiations in order to slow/cripple a treaty that it did not desire in the first place. Further, as hegemon, the United States would have the power to sway the foundations of the global governance of climate change. However, such is not the case. There are three major flaws in this logic. First, it is not clear that universal participation was a choice at all. The United States accepted the notion that climate change required universal participation from the very inception of the problem as a policy issue. Universal participation was not a choice in climate change as it was in the earlier ozone depletion negotiations; rather, it was an accepted point of departure for the overall U.S. position on climate change. Rather than being a choice of the hegemon, the universal participation norm structured the hegemon’s choices. Unlike the U.S. stances on emission reductions, there was no intraadministration deliberation on the notion of universal participation. Frederick Bernthal claims that even in 1988, “global” defined the climate change issue. When asked about the appropriateness of universal participation he noted that no other options were discussed and added, “I mean, what else would you do?”21 A notion of climate change as a global problem requiring a universal response preceded strategic thinking about how the United States should pursue its objectives in the climate change issue and what positions it should take in prenegotiation meetings and the negotiations themselves. Universal participation was part of the U.S. definition of climate change. It was not a negotiating position up for debate. Second, and related, the role of UNEP and the UN in general as well as the actions of other states in the international community cast doubt on hegemonic/strategic explanation for the U.S. commitment to universal participation. Even if the United States desired to be proactive on climate change it likely would not and could not have effectively advocated limited negotiations. The notion of universal participation defined climate change for more than the United States; it pervaded the entire political context. The United States did not have to convince any other states or organizations about the importance of universal participation.22 The South was poised to negotiate and had begun participating in earnest in 1989. The EU was committed to global action as well— a serious blow to the strategic choice argument. Applying the strategic argument to the EU, because the EU desired aggressive climate change abatement actions, it should have advocated keeping the negotiations small to promote efficiency and effectiveness. Instead, the EU had the same initial understanding as the United States and the rest of the world. Both those that favored strong action and those that opposed it defined climate change as a universal problem.

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Further, the entities organizing the conferences and negotiations (UNEP, WMO, UN General Assembly) were also committed to universal participation. The forums they provided reified the appropriateness of universal participation, making other potential definitions untenable. The appropriateness and need for universal participation in the negotiations and actions was already accepted universally. Universal participation was not decided upon through deliberation in the United States or internationally. Instead, universal participation was a fundamental part of the initial definition of the global response to climate change, understood from the outset. Finally, the actions of the United States in the ozone negotiations further belie a strategic call for universal participation in climate change. In the latter ozone depletion negotiations, the United States signaled that it understood the requirement for universal participation in global environmental problems. As noted in chapter 5, the Multilateral Fund was one of the largest obstacles to reaching agreement on the London Amendment to the MP. The United States was reluctant to agree to the Fund because of fears of the precedent that such a fund would create. The United States compelled the international community to include specific language proscribing any precedent from the London amendment because it saw the consequences of universal participation in ozone depletion and was worried about similar consequences in climate change—another global environmental problem. By 1990, the United States had already come to assume that universal participation was the appropriate way to address these global environmental problems. The social context had “taught” the United States what was necessary and the United States was concerned about the implications of this new understanding. The United States was afraid that the South, now involved and participating, would push for a separate fund for each environmental problem. It desperately hoped to avoid establishing separate funds as the consequence of universal participation, a concern precisely because the United States and the rest of the international community already accepted universal participation as the appropriate global response. The United States certainly desired to slow or stall the early climate change negotiations or at least stonewall the notion of binding emission reductions. The strategy, detailed in the following sections, was to dispute the European calls for binding emission commitments and accept the principle of development assistance, while arguing with the South about the practical implementation and conditions of development assistance. Crucially, these strategic actions were predicated on the understanding that climate change would be addressed through universal negotiations and responses. Again, the universal participation norm structured what the United States saw as possible and appropriate.

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The United States defined climate change as requiring universal participation because it had internalized this new understanding and could not conceive of the problem in any other way. As with the rest of the world, the United States understood what a global response to climate change would entail. As Dowdeswell and Kinely noted: In the early 1960s, we considered environmental problems to be purely local in nature. . . . In the 1970s, we came to understand that some environmental problems can be continental in scale. . . . In the late 1980s, we have entered the age of global environmental consciousness . . .23

The Ozone Depletion Negotiations and Universal Participation Universal participation was a normative position internalized before the climate change negotiations began. Positive reinforcement of the universal participation rule after the London Amendment negotiations led to its use in the next global environmental problem to arise—there was a stable, low complexity social context as all states understood that the appropriate rule to follow was the universal participation norm. The experience of the ozone depletion negotiations and the rule model alterations that the United States underwent because of them shaped U.S. climate change activities. This is in line with the expectations of the NLC/CAS framework and the model. This final link warrants further attention. It is likely impossible to show a definitive link between ozone depletion and climate change (ruling out all other possibilities for the source of the U.S. commitment to universal participation), and the context of climate change did not solely consist of the ozone depletion negotiations.24 However, two major factors make the link plausible. First, the MP negotiations were, to a large degree, used as a model for the climate change negotiations. Second, the MP negotiations represented a breakpoint change in how environmental issues were viewed in both the North and the South. The prelude to the climate change negotiations (1988–1990) was also the period of adjustment for the MP. It is clear that the actors involved with adjusting the protocol (by 1989 well over one hundred states and multiple NGOs and IGOs) had climate change in the back of their minds as well. Within UNEP, Tolba was actively linking the two issues. Already in February 1988, he began to articulate MP lessons for use in addressing climate change.25 This notion of building on the MP process carried through to the IPCC process and the SWCC. At an October 1989 meeting of the IPCC, most of the forty-three states in attendance “supported the early development of a new framework convention fashioned after the existing Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer.”26 At the SWCC, the Swiss president in an address to the ministerial conference stressed:

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It is undoubtedly true that we are not tackling a global environmental problem for the first time. The Conference on the Protection of the Ozone Layer . . . serves to illustrate our firm commitment to taking concrete measures in response to a global threat.27 In addition, there was a core group of officials, both in the United States and internationally, that worked on both issues.28 One U.S. official opined that this group wanted to remake the climate process in ozone’s image.29 The notion that the ozone negotiations paved the way for climate change was prevalent in the United States as well.30 In 1988 when Richard Smith of the State Department was asked at a congressional hearing about using the ozone experience as a model for climate change, he noted that while climate change was not in the same place as ozone (in terms of being ready for negotiations), the responses should follow the same kind of path.31 In addition, in early 1990, when the United States announced its intention to host the first true negotiating session, the Los Angeles Times reported that “[t]he United States would prefer that efforts to negotiate an international agreement controlling emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases . . . follow the pattern of the negotiations leading to international controls on chlorofluorocarbons.”32 The U.S. experience in addressing ozone depletion pervaded its strategizing for addressing climate change at both a broad philosophical level as well as in practicalities. William Nitze told Congress in 1989 that “[o]ur experimentation in the specific area of CFCs I think will give us valuable experience in how we should tackle the broader question of technology transfer to address global warming.”33 Again, the U.S. actions just prior to the London negotiations in 1990 speak loudly about the impact of ozone on climate change. The Bush administration was specifically worried about the precedent the Multilateral Fund would create for climate change. The United States already had felt the influence of the ozone negotiations on its and the international community’s view of climate change and was desperately trying to alter the consequences of what was already understood—universal participation.34 The ozone depletion negotiations were crucial because they represented a change in the perception of global environmental problems and a precedent for all of the environmental problems that followed. The Worldwatch Institute proclaimed, “It is clear that the Montreal Protocol ushered in a new era of environmental diplomacy.”35 There was a sea change in what was deemed appropriate and/or necessary after the MP negotiations. This influence was felt in everything from the structure of the agreements negotiated (convention-protocol-amendment) to the substance of the discussions (technology transfer and financial aid).36

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Notions of appropriate participation were perhaps the largest influence of the ozone negotiations. Bodansky noted that the MP negotiations were a part of a transformation in environmental politics that put SouthNorth issues on center stage.37 Horwitz recalled, “[Y]ou went from a period in 1987 when there were those twenty-five or thirty countries around the table, to a situation in 1989–90 when the London amendments came around to where there was one hundred ten countries around the table.”38 He further argued: There is an extreme change in global view of environmental issues. I think some of which was spurred on by the negotiations on the MP and in many ways the protocol set positive precedents and in some ways it may have set some negative precedents too. You could not now have an environmental negotiation on any issue and only have twenty-five or thirty countries around the table. The UNEP process is now geared to a much more inclusive process. I don’t think they would ever consider holding an environmental negotiation on a global issue without inviting and having much, much wider participation. It wouldn’t be seen as credible. But back then, it was seen as credible. Hell, you could have had that group [ozone negotiations] mostly in an OECD meeting. . . . So, it’s just a different world we live in only a decade later in terms of environmental negotiations . . . it’s just night and day.39 Very simply, as Stephen Andersen recalled, developing countries have been absolutely involved in ozone and as a consequence they understand that they will be absolutely involved in climate.40 The early development of the climate change policy problem took place just as the ozone depletion negotiations were climaxing in the 1987 Montreal Protocol and the 1990 London Amendment. The normative understandings generated in these negotiations locked in throughout the international community and critically structured how the characteristics of climate change would be defined in a political sense. As discussed in chapter 3, agents’ rule models are generalized rules that allow agents to take action in a multitude of similar situations. States preparing to address climate change already had a rule ready to apply to this next global environmental problem—universal participation. Further, this rule specified that global environmental problems entailed common but differentiated responsibilities and that a global response consisted of universal participation in negotiations with Northern leadership on specific actions and Northern support (financial and technological) for Southern actions. From the outset, the global response to climate change was characterized by these exact same characteristics. Ozone depletion politics were the cru-

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cible for the initial definition of climate change—a definition that came to determine the shape of the successive negotiations.41

Global Climate Change? This analysis has come full circle. I began by asking whether climate change had to be defined as a universal problem. It turns out that climate change did in fact have to be defined as requiring universal participation—not because of scientific understanding or strategic calculation, but because of the specific historical, normative context in which the issue developed. Climate change had to be defined as requiring universal participation because by 1989 it had been socially constructed as requiring universal participation. The global response became associated with a requirement for universal participation, and this understanding, developed in the ozone negotiations, determined how climate change would be defined. The normative context provided the lenses with which climate change was viewed. In the next section I demonstrate that notions of universal participation pervaded the initial normative context and the initial U.S. rule models and then I illustrate how this understanding influenced U.S. strategy and the governance activities that culminated in the FCCC.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The Initial Normative Context—Universal Participation Before 1988 it would be curious to discuss climate change as existing within a normative political context. To this point, climate change was primarily a scientific issue and scientists were the main protagonists in climate change conferences. As the issue began to attract political attention the normative context stressing universal participation became clear. The seeds of this understanding were evident at conferences in 1988 and in the IPCC process. By 1989, universal participation was well entrenched. In 1988, the Toronto Conference, “The Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security,” blurred the line between scientific conference and policy discussion. Though it was not a formal political session (most attendants were scientists), the forty-eight nations represented (including two heads of state) did call for the development of a climate change convention.42 In line with the participation requirement being developed at the time in the ozone depletion proceedings, the conferees called for Northern states to take the lead and agree to cut carbon dioxide emissions, while also insisting that the North should aid the South in fighting climate change.43 While the conference recommendations had no legal status, it is noteworthy that the participating nations felt that “[f]urther conferences or meetings on an international agreement on atmospheric changes should include greater participation from both

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developing countries and the members of the Eastern Bloc.”44 The statements made at the Toronto conference reiterated the concurrent concerns with Southern participation in the MP process, where the universal participation norm was gaining momentum in the midst of the cascade stage of the norm life cycle. Nineteen-eighty-eight also saw the inauguration of the IPCC in November. UNEP and the WMO created the panel to research and report the current state of climate change knowledge. Thirty states undertook this largely scientific enterprise (eleven developing, including the crucial Southern states: India, China, and Brazil) in three working groups: the science of climate change, the impacts of climate change, and potential policy responses to climate change.45 The express purpose of the IPCC was to provide a firm foundation for future negotiations. The Northheavy makeup of the panel reflected the current state of climate science expertise, rather than an understanding of appropriate participation. However, the IPCC was not immune to the alterations of the normative context ongoing in the ozone negotiations. At the second meeting of the IPCC in 1989, Tolba stressed that Southern states “want to participate in the scientific and decision-making aspects of climate change, but do not have the funds for the facilities, scientists’ training, and sophisticated equipment.”46 At the same meeting, funds were proposed to assist Southern states in getting up to speed on the climate change issue. Ahmed Djoghlaf, vice chairman of the eventual negotiating committee, noted, “[T]he work of the IPCC was accorded much greater legitimacy following the decision at its second session to set up a Special Committee on the Problems of Developing Countries.”47 After this session, Southern participation on the panel rose to fifty-four.48 By December 1988, growing scientific activities and knowledge fostered a sense of urgency about the potentially devastating effects of global warming, and the nations of the world were beginning to contemplate the need to take political action to address this scientific problem. The UN General Assembly made these concerns tangible when it passed the “Protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind” resolution.49 This resolution, among other things: 1. Recognizes that climate change is a common concerns of mankind, since climate is an essential condition which sustains life on earth; 2. Determines that necessary and timely action should be taken to deal with climate change within a global framework.50 Thus, the international community embarked on a course of research and policymaking with the goal of conceiving ways to address the climate change problem within an entrenched political context stressing

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universal participation. This normative context was made manifest at two major conferences in 1989 and 1990, in the actions of UNEP, as well as in the transfer of negotiating authority from UNEP to the UN General Assembly. At a 1989 conference in Noordwijk, Netherlands, sixty-eight states (roughly half North and half South) convened the first ministerial-level meeting on climate change. This meeting was designed to lay a foundation for convention negotiations and to increase the participation in the convention process.51 The Ministerial Declaration reflected the participation concerns and recommended: that [a climate change] convention will be framed in such a way as to gain the adherence of the largest possible number and most suitably balanced spread of countries.52 In addition, by this time, development issues were already high on the agenda—a clear signal of the existence and importance of universal participation. The Noordwijk meeting specifically addressed the issues of financial assistance and technology transfer, further acknowledging in the final declaration that “developing countries will need to be assisted financially and technically.”53 This followed directly from the understanding of a global response developed in the ozone depletion negotiations. The South was at Noordwijk, and their issues were on the agenda from the political beginning. Critically, the United States and other Northern states agreed in principle with the need to provide development assistance even though the South did not (objectively) have the leverage to force the linkage of their issues with climate change. Universal participation and the consequent concern with development assistance continued to be a major concern at the 1990 SWCC. This conference, initially envisioned to include twenty to thirty industrialized nations, ballooned to a conference attended by 137 states.54 When the SWCC was originally conceived, universal participation had yet to solidify as a norm. By 1990, however, universal participation had become a fact of the climate change issue. Daniel Bodansky noted that at the SWCC, the Southern perspective was “forcefully expressed in its own voice” for the first time.55 At the conference itself, Margaret Thatcher remarked, “[O]ur immediate task this week is to carry as many countries as possible with us, so that we can negotiate a successful convention on climate change in 1992.”56 Development issues loomed large at the SWCC—a consequence of Southern participation. In his opening remarks, Tolba stressed that a main criterion for the negotiating process would be the needs of the South,57 and the ministerial declaration produced by the conference called for a global response. The conferees urged “all countries and regional economic integration organizations to join in [climate convention] negotiations,”58 while

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also recognizing that the North should take the lead, and that the South needs “adequate and additional financial resources.”59 Both Northern and Southern states understood the requirement of universal participation, and the institutional context (IPCC, UNEP, WMO) in which climate change was addressed further reinforced the requirement’s appropriateness. UNEP and Tolba clearly viewed universal participation as crucial, and focused on development issues as they did in the earlier ozone negotiations.60 Even as early as 1988, Richard Smith (U.S. State Department) testified to Congress that UNEP activities “focused largely on developing countries, promoting the consideration of climate factors in national policy decisions on alternatives for development.”61 Further, Tolba himself testified before Congress in 1989 and argued that Southern states “have a right to development” as well as noting that “developing countries have a role to play in coming up with solutions to international environmental concerns.”62 Nothing made the acceptance of universal participation more unmistakable, however, than the decision in the UN to move the climate change negotiations from the auspices of UNEP (already a universal participation advocate) to the General Assembly itself. This move, pushed by the South, but acceded to by the North,63 was designed to “achieve an appropriate balance between environmental and developmental issues.”64 As attentive as Tolba and UNEP had been to Southern concerns and as diligently as Tolba had represented Southern perspectives in the ozone negotiations, the South was ready to fully participate on its own and push its own agenda, and they believed the General Assembly would be more equitable.65 Again we see the subtle workings of the participation norm. Southern states now viewed themselves as full participants in the climate change negotiations—where they did not view themselves this way in the ozone depletion negotiations only five years before. Universal participation thus structured the initial political context for the climate change negotiations that commenced in February 1991. Northern states, fresh from the transformation of their rule models in ozone depletion, called for and facilitated universal participation early in the climate change negotiations.66 Southern states, slow to get involved with climate change when it was solely a scientific issue, participated in large numbers once it became clear that international negotiations would be the manner in which the international community addressed climate change. The nature of the global response to climate change was becoming clear and it looked very familiar—there would be universal participation, and states understood this to mean: common but differentiated responsibilities, North-first action, and Northern support for Southern participation.

The Initial U.S. Rule Models—Uncertainty, Economics, and Universality The rule model shaping U.S. negotiating positions and behavior remained remarkably stable in the years that climate change emerged as a political

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issue.67 There were two components to the U.S. rules. First, and underlying all else, the United States was committed to universal participation in negotiations and efforts to address climate change. Universal participation was positively reinforced during the latter ozone depletion negotiations and this understanding matched the social context. Positive reinforcement combined with a low social complexity context led the United States to lock in around universal participation for climate change. Second, the United States maintained that binding emission targets were not warranted to address climate change. In this project, I merely report the recalcitrant U.S. emissions reduction position, with only cursory thoughts on its origin. Rather than systematically explaining why the United States was averse to emission reduction measures (a much explored topic), I instead demonstrate that its commitment to universal participation influenced how the United States strategized to reach its substantive goal of no binding measures. The United States began the political phase of the climate change issue having already defined climate change as a global environmental problem requiring universal participation.68 The United States never considered other potential definitions for climate change other than as a global issue requiring universal participation.69 The global nature of climate change was never questioned.70 Crucially, at the same time that the U.S. government was awakening to the climate change problem (19871989), it was in the midst of transforming its participation rule model in the ozone depletion issue. This transformation and internalization of the universal participation norm clearly affected the early U.S. definition of climate change. Eileen Claussen recalls that in defining climate change “people learned from ozone—definitely a global issue.”71 In late 1987, the State Department recognized that “not only the developed countries but also the key developing countries be represented in [an intergovernmental] mechanism” for addressing climate change.72 This understanding was refined and expanded to all Southern states in 1989 when William Nitze (U.S. State Department) testified: [I]f we are to have effective international agreements to address the climate change issue, and specifically to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the future, we must get the cooperation of the developing countries.73 The EPA also recognized the importance of the South. An EPA report from 1989 argued for universal participation, claiming that “[i]f developing nations do not adopt climate stabilizing policies, then the equilibrium warming commitment in 2050 could increase by about 40 percent compared to scenarios in which there is global cooperation.”74 I want to stress again that these commitments in late 1987 through 1989, did not

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arise from science or strategy. The EPA study referenced above highlights the importance of future Southern emissions for the climate change problem, but, crucially, shows the importance of China individually—nothing in the report warrants universal political action on its face.75 The EPA and the State Department, the most environmentally aggressive agencies in the United States, advocated universal participation.76 Defining the problem as requiring universal participation, however, did not lead the United States to undertake proactive policy responses in the late 1980s. Throughout the 1980s, the United States was heavily involved in climate science research. NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, and the EPA (among many others) were world leaders on the science of climate change. U.S. scientists were among the first to bring attention to the potential problems associated with global warming or the greenhouse effect. Already in June 1986, Robert Watson of NASA was calling global warming inevitable and noted that “it’s only a matter of magnitude and time.”77 However, even given the work of government scientists, officials in both the Reagan and Bush administrations forged and maintained a skeptical position. The United States used a skepticism founded upon scientific uncertainty and economic cost to justify its resolved hostility toward emission reduction measures. 78 Scientific consensus grew in the 1988–1990 period as did talk of international negotiations and conventions. At the same time, U.S. government scientists and agencies contributed to the accumulation of scientific knowledge as well as the sense of urgency. Stephen Schneider (National Center for Atmospheric Research) testified to Congress that “the only global warming issues left for resolution are how much warmer it will get and when.”79 In addition, the EPA claimed: There is a growing consensus in the scientific community that significant global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse emissions is probable over the next century, and rapid climatic change is possible.80 Yet, even given this scientific work, U.S. officials continued to adhere to a discourse of uncertainty to justify opposition to binding international action.81 Uncertainty became the U.S. mantra.82 The Bush administration, and especially John Sununu (chief of staff) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), exploited the inherent uncertainty in climate science to shift the focus to economic costs.83 The economic costs involved in addressing climate change were not calculated to be small, especially given the fossil-fuel dependence of U.S. industry and society in general. One estimate from the Council of Economic Advisors put the cost of a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions (the target being discussed at the time) between $800 billion and $3.6 trillion.84

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Some in Congress pressed for U.S. action anyway, and in 1988, Senators Stafford (R-VT) and Wirth (D-CO) sponsored bills to begin addressing global warming domestically. However, given the context of skepticism and the powerful industrial lobby, it was observed that “the bills trample on so many interest groups that neither of the chief co-sponsors . . . expect to achieve anything more than committee hearings in the remaining months of the current Congress.”85 Yet even given this skepticism, universal participation defined climate change for the United States As Fredrick Bernthal recalled, in the late 1980s climate change was considered global in every respect. He noted that administration officials accepted that “if this was an issue at all, it’s a global issue.”86 Substantively, the United States displayed a reluctance to commit to binding emission targets. Scientific uncertainty allowed economic cost to dominate the substantive thinking in the Reagan and Bush administrations, while universal participation remained the fundamental definition of the problem.87 Universal participation critically shaped U.S. strategic actions designed to meet its substantive goals in the negotiations to come.

THE INITIAL INFLUENCE OF UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION: DEVELOPMENT AND U.S. STRATEGY The negotiations toward a climate change convention began in February 1991, but as Matthew Paterson makes clear, “it seems inadequate to take the situation in early 1991 as a given, as if no politics had occurred before then.”88 The politics that occurred before then constructed and strengthened a social context whereby universal participation was deemed a requirement. This vision of a global response for climate change had enormous consequences. In this section I highlight two of them: • The inclusion of Southern concerns on the agenda; • The development of U.S. strategy for climate change (which also demonstrates the seeds of the second transition in the global response to global environmental problems).

Universal Participation and the Prevalence of Development Concerns From the outset, it was clear that the climate change negotiations would be universal and that South-North issues would be at the top of the agenda. Curiously, from a strategic bargaining (or rational coercive bargaining) standpoint, the North accepted the principles of North-first action and of development assistance (side payments of financial and technological transfers) without any bargaining even though the South lacked the bargaining leverage to force linkage of development concerns to the issue of climate change. Developmental assistance was a natural inclusion and as one observer notes:

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The environmental protection/development linkage that permeated the FCCC negotiations would have been impossible were it not for the underlying awareness of climate change as requiring a universal global response.90 Though the inclusion of Southern concerns on the climate change agenda is often taken for granted, it is puzzling from the dominant strategic bargaining perspective. According to this approach, achieving the linkage of development issues and environmental protection requires that Southern states have significant bargaining leverage.91 Such leverage is dependent on Southern states’ ability to make credible threats. They “must have the material capability to carry out a threat large enough to reverse the target’s cost-benefit calculations as well as material interest in doing so that is sufficient to convince the target that this threat is credible.”92 Credible threats are possible when Northern states have a significant interest in solving an environmental problem and Southern states can disrupt the achievement of that goal. This interest-based explanation examines the costs of degradation of the resource in question, the costs/benefits of solutions for the problem, and the demand for the resource.93 The evaluation of these factors allows states to make a determination about the behaviors they prefer to undertake—how eager they are for environmental protection measures. Thus, when Southern states prefer development more than environmental protection and when they have the power to disrupt attempts at achieving environmental protection through such development, they should be able to “link issues and extract side-payments that make cooperation more attractive.”94 The Southern states, as less eager parties, hope to induce the Northern states into following a policy of what Lebow has dubbed a strategy of rewards, most often used during Type I bargaining encounters where “no agreement seems possible at first because no outcome can be found that satisfies the minimum conditions of the sides.”95 In the ozone negotiations, especially post-Montreal, Southern countries had the prerequisite power (the potential future ability of the South to produce and consume CFCs was significant and socially constructed to be important), and asymmetrical interests (the South preferred development over ozone layer protection and the North displayed a strong interest in protecting the ozone layer) that led to predictions of development-environment linkage. The results of the London negotiations of 1990 bear out this prediction.

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However, bargaining analysis does not always tell the whole story. This is apparent when linkage is attained when the Southern states have ambiguous or even poor bargaining positions. In contrast to the ozone depletion case, in the climate change negotiations the Southern countries had the prerequisite power (their potential to emit greenhouse gases was staggering), but lacked the clear asymmetrical interests needed for a strong bargaining position.96 As Sell notes, both the United States—the most important Northern actor—and the large97 Southern countries had an identical highest preference—freeriding.98 In Lebow’s language, this leads to a Type II bargaining encounter where preferences overlap.99 This type of encounter is not conducive for inducing a strategy of rewards from the other party.100 Thus, with the United States having little interest in environmental protection (in this issue), and Southern countries opposing, “any restrictions on their future use of fossil fuels until they had reached a higher level of development,”101 the bargaining position of the Southern countries was weak, severely hampering their ability to induce developmental linkage to the climate change negotiations—linkage that pervaded the international community as well as U.S. negotiating positions. The failings of strategic bargaining arise from the acontextual, ahistorical nature of the explanations offered. The approach treats every negotiation as an independent event and bases predictions solely on extant interests and power. In the ozone case, taken alone, the predictions are fairly accurate and the approach is not without utility (though its success is still predicated on normative foundations and a particular understanding of a global response). Global governance rules can be constructed through issue-linkage facilitated by strategic bargaining.102 However, in the climate change case the approach is hampered by the very characteristic that makes it analytically attractive: comparative statics. The historical context in which climate change was negotiated was vastly different than it was for the ozone depletion negotiations. When the international community addressed climate change, the ozone depletion negotiations had already created a context of thinking universally. The inclusion of development provisions was considered natural or was taken for granted in the climate change case, rather than being the result of bargaining. Evidence of this is seen in the fact that development assistance policies were on international negotiating agendas and included in U.S. climate change strategies before any bargaining took place.103 The universal participation norm influenced the very manner in which climate change would be discussed—South/North issues would be at the fore.

Universal Participation and the Development of U.S. Stalling Strategies Before the formal negotiations convened in 1991, the consequences of the U.S. understanding of climate change as a requiring a universal response

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were clearly evident. However, the question remains: Did the United States internalize universal participation, especially given their recalcitrant stance and implicit threat to not participate in the climate change regimes? The short answer remains yes. The universal participation requirement was the understanding of climate change that served to shape/enable U.S. strategic behavior. In the late 1980s, the United States began molding a strategy designed to prevent binding emission targets, and the United States fomented debate with both other Northern states (especially the EU) and the South along three lines: • The United States stonewalled any calls for binding emission reductions. The United States stood virtually alone among Northern states through most of the FCCC negotiations in its stance against binding targets. • U.S. refusal to consider binding emissions raised suspicions in the South that the North-first principle enshrined in the governance of ozone depletion was at risk. This suspicion was enhanced by U.S. hinting that a global response entailed universal commitments (i.e., that the South should take on responsibilities as well), not just universal participation in the negotiations. The United States began to frame universal participation as meaning shared responsibility, in contrast to the North-first understanding inherited from ozone depletion. This hinting was a foreshadowing of the transition in universal participation to come in the postFCCC period, but it was not a full reinterpretation of universal participation. The United States actually did not want binding commitments for any states. However, this action did foster debate with Southern states fully participating and fully adhering to the North-first version of universal participation that emerged in the ozone depletion negotiations. • The United States acknowledged the need for and principle of development assistance and then proceeded to haggle over implementation of it, driving a further wedge between the United States and the South. Crucially, these lines of debate or stalling tactics were founded on the idea that a global response entailed universal participation. They developed over the course of three years from 1987 to 1990. Through most of 1986–87, the United States remained silent on potential actions to address climate change while Congress and the NGO community pushed for early action. In 1988, when the calls for international political action grew stronger, the United States downplayed the need

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for negotiations as “premature” and instead called for further research and greater understanding of the problem.104 According to Daniel Reifsnyder, the early strategy was to focus on the IPCC, waiting for it to provide a firm scientific foundation for further discussion.105 The United States was heavily involved in the IPCC process, heading up working group three—the response strategies group.106 In 1988–89, momentum for more substantive actions and discussions grew in the international community and Tolba was again playing a large role as UNEP was a major organizer of international efforts to address climate change. He argued that the MP was the first true global environmental agreement, and that a global warming agreement was the next logical step.107 The United States resisted the pressure to begin discussing negotiations and at the IPCC’s response strategies working group meeting in February 1989, Secretary of State James Baker stressed the noregrets policy (taking actions justified on other grounds such as energy efficiency measures), rather than international negotiations.108 In May 1989 Congress reproached President Bush for sending “the US delegation to the Geneva [IPCC meeting] without instructions with regard to the development of a convention on global warming.”109 Subsequently, Britain’s call for negotiation at this same meeting left the United States isolated in its opposition to negotiations.110 U.S. reluctance to accept negotiations became untenable when it was revealed that OMB officials had “doctored” a NASA official’s testimony to Congress to make his conclusions appear more uncertain than they in fact were.111 In the wake of this domestic debacle, the United States suffered withering criticism from all corners. Now isolated domestically and with growing international momentum for negotiations, the Bush administration acquiesced and dropped its opposition to negotiations.112 President Bush invited the response strategies working group of the IPCC to a Washington conference designed to “begin to define a flexible framework convention.”113 With the last obstacle removed, the United States and the international community began the long process of preparing for negotiations.114 The preparations began at the Noordwijk meeting in November 1989. The United States continued to demonstrate its commitment to universal participation and its refusal to accept binding targets. According to a Los Angeles Times story preceding the conference, “[T]he Administration has so far indicated that it intends to move at its measured pace and emphasize the importance of getting cooperation from developing countries . . .”115 The U.S. commitment to universal participation did not measurably influence the conference—sixty-eight states (roughly one-half North and one-half South) attended without any prodding. The U.S. commitment to universal participation never influenced Southern states—they had already internalized the universal participation rule. Conversely, the U.S. refusal to discuss binding policy actions left it isolated along with Japan and the

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Soviet Union.116 The U.S. strategy, designed to slow the process, was to stonewall on the emission reductions issue. The United States clung to the discourse of uncertainty at Noordwijk, refusing “to commit itself to specific target levels and dates for reduction until it has done more research on the extent of the problem and the economic consequences of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.”117 This strategy was especially effective, though not environmentally friendly, given the universal context. The South was hoping to hear a North-first commitment (as had been the path in the ozone depletion negotiations), and U.S. refusal to discuss emissions reductions thus expanded a U.S./EU conflict to a U.S./World conflict. After Noordwijk, Bush’s science advisor, Allen Bromley, defended the United States against the congressional criticism of foot dragging. He argued that climate change is a very complex problem and that other countries “were pressing for commitments” while lacking “an understanding of what they are committing themselves to.”118 He further noted that the Southern states sided with the Europeans because the Noordwijk proposals contained no requirements for the South (the emission reduction proposals were designed for the Northern states to take the first steps).119 Already at Noordwijk, the lines of debate were being drawn. Underlying all debate was the notion that all states (South and North) should have a stake in the negotiating process as well as the responses to the problem. However, divergence appeared in the interpretation of this understanding. The EU and most Southern states felt that Northern states should take the first actions. For the EU, actions meant binding emission targets. The United States, cloaking itself in uncertainty and faced with the perception of staggering economic consequences, stressed common responsibility and universal, though differentiated commitments. The U.S. strategy to slow the negotiations was to stress not just universal participation, but universal commitments—further expanding the U.S./South debate. This strategy, steeped in an internalized understanding of the requirement for universal participation, held throughout the early climate change negotiations, and continued into the twenty-first century. U.S. strategy would have been different had the climate change negotiations been North-only as they were in the ozone issue. Universal participation actually enabled U.S. recalcitrance in some ways as it allowed United States delaying strategies to focus on Southern commitments. Crucially, this strategy was only available because of the universal participation norm. In the early ozone depletion negotiations, the Europeans were similarly recalcitrant, but could not use Southern participation issues as a potential delaying strategy because the social context stressed the requirement of North-only participation. The trend of U.S. refusal to commit to reductions continued in 1990—the United States remained the crucial stumbling block to the negotiations for a convention. At the third plenary meeting of the IPCC in Feb-

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ruary 1990, while European states pushed for fast action, the United States resisted.120 At the White House Conference on Science and Economic Research Related to Global Change, President Bush emphasized uncertainties, and the European states were not even allowed to make statements during the plenary sessions.121 In fact a U.S. talking points paper advised [U.S. delegates] that it is “not beneficial to discuss whether there is or is not warming, or how much or how little warming. In the eyes of the public we will lose this debate. A better approach is to raise the many uncertainties that need to be better understood on this issue.”122 Further, at the G7 economic summit in July, the United States again blocked agreement on global warming targets, stressing, “[T]he scientific evidence is shaky on all aspects of global warming . . .”123 The summer of 1990 saw the pace of preparations accelerate and the United States consistently hold its two positions. In June, the IPCC issued its report and with it came an unprecedented level of scientific consensus. The report did not alter U.S. convictions about scientific uncertainty, however, and the Boston Globe reported that administration officials claimed that the IPCC report was “insufficient to persuade the United States . . . to take action . . .”124 The United States also came under criticism for its leadership role in policy responses working group. Then Senator Gore badgered Fredrick Bernthal (head of the U.S. delegation to the working group) and claimed that “the US sat on its hands saying very little while the Saudis and some others blasted any policy option that would have led to reductions.”125 He continued, The working group chaired by the United States is called the Response Strategies Working Group. I kind of expected that you would come up with some response strategies, but apparently you did not.126 Bernthal replied to the attack “[W]e essentially proceeded with the policy as the President outlined . . .”127 Thus the United States prepared for the SWCC by focusing on uncertainty, while still hoping to “gain the adherence of the largest number of countries possible.”128 Bush’s science advisor, Allen Bromley, argued that avoiding targets was the best way to assure universal participation—especially since the United States eschewed the notion of North-first action and was pushing the South to accept concurrent commitments in any convention.129 The appropriateness of universal participation enabled the United States to devise a strategy to further its goal of no binding reductions. Critically, the United States was not using universal participation to achieve its

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goals, rather, the universal participation requirement was fundamental to the United States’ very understanding of the problem. The United States did not convince other states to participate in order to slow the negotiations—the other states were already participating. U.S. strategies were preceded by the assumption of universal participation. At the SWCC, a policy transition in Japan left the United States and the USSR alone in resisting emission reduction targets and commitments. Clinging to its reluctant stance, the United States was able to avert calls for specific targets in the ministerial declaration produced by the conference. The United States withstood enormous pressure from the EU, Congress, and NGOs and even claimed that the Europeans were secretly relieved that the United States held out against targets.130 In the end, the United States position was very simple: “We just don’t believe in targets.”131 The other major issue was development assistance. The Ministerial Declaration was again long on principles, recommending “that adequate and additional financial resources should be mobilized and best available environmentally sound technologies transferred expeditiously on a fair and most favourable basis.”132 Implementation of developmental aid, however, was a more contentious subject, with the North backing the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the South pushing for new institutional mechanisms. This debate remained viable for the duration of the climate negotiations. Southern states, fresh from their success at the June 1990 London ozone depletion negotiations, hoped to achieve separate funds for each environmental problem all with the same equitable governance as the ozone fund. The North, in contrast, hoped to keep environmental assistance centralized and within the purview of institutions where they had more control. Here was yet another strategy/debate predicated upon a prior understanding of climate change as a universal problem—without this understanding it is not clear that specific funding mechanisms would have been discussed at this stage. Thus at the close of 1990, the international community was poised to begin the actual negotiation of a climate convention with the first convening of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) set to take place in February 1991. The U.S. position heading into these negotiations, built in the 1988–1990 period, was clear. Driven by a universal participation rule model, scientific skepticism, and fears of economic costs, the United States pressed for universal negotiations toward a universal climate convention that would not contain binding emission reduction targets or timetables. The U.S. strategy to achieve this goal was clear as well—argue for concurrent commitments from the South, fight the North-first targets supported by the EU, and agree with the principle of development assistance while debating implementation issues. All of these strategies presupposed

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a prior understanding of climate change as requiring universal participation, and the universal participation norm shaped the range of strategies open to the United States. As Reinstein, the head U.S. negotiator, testified, “We must recognize the special situation of developing countries and take a number of steps to encourage their participation, not only in the negotiating process, but also in the science, the research . . .”133 He further noted that “[t]hese negotiations, and any long term response to climate change will be effective only if the largest number of nations participates.”134 The debates were thus clear as the international community prepared to undertake negotiations including most of the UN membership. The South, stressing Northern responsibility for the problem, looked for the North to take the first steps and to compensate the South with new funds/technology for any action they undertook. The EU, prepared to take on binding emission targets, looked to convince the United States of the need for significant action. And the United States, following a strategy founded on economics, uncertainty, and universality, prepared to thwart both of their efforts.

THE GOVERNANCE PROCESS UNFOLDS: NEGOTIATING THE FCCC The international community began negotiations toward a framework convention in early 1991, with a goal of producing an agreement in time for the Earth Summit to be held in June 1992. The normative context for these negotiations mirrored the results of the ozone depletion negotiations—the universal participation norm dominated and states understood (for the most part) that a global response entailed North-first action, and Northern support for Southern participation. The U.S. rule model for climate change called for universal participation while the United States simultaneously emphasized the uncertainty in climate science and the economic costs of action to justify a lack of commitment to binding emission reductions. It was with this rule model, and in this context that the United States hosted INC I in February 1991. It was at INC I when the international community and the United States began to reap the benefits and disadvantages of universal participation. These negotiations moved at both breakneck speed (they were completed in a mere eighteen months) and at a snail’s pace (the negotiations were deadlocked for the majority of this time). The major issues involved conflict on two fronts: North-North and South-North. The North-North conflict was over the issue of emission reductions. Simply put, the EU and other Northern states were ready and willing to accept binding emission targets and the United States was not. South-North issues and debates were also at the top of the agenda from the beginning (as was foreshadowed in the 1988–1990 period). The South successfully linked the INC

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negotiations to the issue of development and pushed for specific commitments for new and additional funds as well as new institutions for financial and technological transfers (modeled after the Multilateral Fund).

INCI—Chantilly, Virginia, February 1991 The United States entered INC I after receiving further conflicting evidence about the seriousness of climate change. In January a scientific report revealed concrete evidence for global warming as well as significant costs to the United States if some of the dire effects of climate change came to pass, while another demonstrated further uncertainty.135 In this context of scientific uncertainty and in preparation for the actual negotiations, the United States unveiled “America’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Agenda,” finally articulating what the United States was prepared to do to address climate change. The agenda focused on the noregrets policy, and lacked emission reduction targets for carbon dioxide. The plan actually would allow U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to increase through the year 2000—eerily reminiscent of early EU ozone stances.136 The plan met with skepticism at home and abroad, given that many other Northern states had already committed to carbon dioxide emission caps or reductions.137 One congressperson was especially outraged at the lack of U.S. initiative and harangued Robert Reinstein, chief U.S. negotiator: This plan is a joke. It is a national embarrassment. I would think you would be embarrassed. I am sure you are. Once you are out of the administration you will write a book and confess it.138 Even given the criticism and skepticism, the action agenda did frame U.S. negotiating behavior at INC I and from the agenda the United States derived five principles for the negotiations: 1. Comprehensive approach addressing all sources of the problem and sinks that ameliorate the problem (i.e., forests absorb carbon dioxide).139 2. Move forward with economically justified actions (no-regrets policy). 3. Pursue further research to increase scientific certainty. 4. “We must recognize the special situation of developing countries and take a number of steps to encourage their participation . . .” 5. Whatever response is chosen, it must be a global response.140 However, though the United States was in line with the international community on the need for universal participation—102 nations attended and

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the provisional agenda states that “the INC should be open to all States Members of the UN”141—the gap between the U.S. position and the rest of the North and South meant little substantive progress at INC I. The meeting did produce a tentative agreement to “focus future negotiations on ‘appropriate commitments’ to reduce carbon dioxide and to provide financial aid to developing nations that forgo use of the most polluting fuels.”142 However, Reinstein reported to Congress that most of the progress was procedural—the setting up of working groups and other organizational matters.143 The debate at INC I, in that substantive matters were discussed at all, surrounded the related issues of emissions reductions and SouthNorth concerns. As noted, the United States was adamantly opposed to binding emission reductions, disappointing both Northern and Southern states. The Northern states, especially those within the EU, focused on the urgency of the issue and hoped to begin taking actions immediately. They and the South also foresaw actions taking place on two tracks, as had occurred in the ozone agreements. The North would go first, and the South would follow. The U.S. refusal to accept binding measures upset the Europeans and, combined with U.S. calls for a global response, raised suspicions in the South. Southern states worried that the United States was planning to force the South to take actions concurrently to the North, hindering their development to solve what they saw as a North-caused problem. One Indian official argued that “the developing world should not bear this responsibility [curbing carbon dioxide emissions],” and that developing states should bear “no legal obligation.”144 Again, the two-track approach (North takes the first steps, and is followed by the South) emerged as a consequence of universal participation in the ozone depletion negotiations. It was an early “carrot” the North provided to entice the South to join the efforts aimed at addressing ozone depletion. In climate change, the United States hinted that it wished to alter this consequence of universal participation. The United States began to frame universal participation as requiring universal commitment, a strategy enabled by its understanding of climate change as a universal problem. Development assistance was the second contentious item on the agenda. Daniel Reifsnyder recalled that this issue came to the fore because India and the other Southern nations viewed the climate change problem in development terms, while the United States wanted to discuss it as an environmental problem.145 India proposed that “industrialized countries agree upfront to provide funding commitments . . .”146 The United States, hoping to keep the focus on environmental issues, opposed the proposal. The compromise reached at INC I was that both environment and development would be discussed.147 The rise of South-North issues, and especially funding, was not unanticipated in the United States. As Sue Biniaz (Legal Advisor, OES

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Bureau, U.S. State Department) recalled, “[The United States] would have preferred to avoid the whole funding issue, but it wasn’t possible to get the developing countries in.”148 The United States saw assistance to developing countries to help implement their obligations as the cost of doing business149—the natural consequence of universal participation. The notion of universal participation is directly responsible for the linkage of development and environment in these negotiations. Without the prior understanding of climate change as requiring universal participation, the South did not have the leverage to force the linkage—the South may not have even been at the negotiations at all. Despite the lack of substantive progress and the contentious debates at INC I, Jean Ripert, the chair of the meeting, was optimistic noting that all delegates agreed that the stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions should be the first step toward reductions; that measures were required to enable developing countries to become full partners in the negotiating process; and that those countries would need additional money and technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as they develop their economies.150 Though no negotiating text was formulated, and little substantive progress was made, INC I set the terms of debate and the stage for the following INC sessions.

INC II—Geneva, June 1991 As in the prenegotiation period, the U.S. negotiating positions remained stable in the first half of 1991. The United States continued to emphasize its five principles as it prepared for INC II. Though a National Academy of Sciences report in March 1991 claimed that the United States could substantially reduce emissions through conservation and energy efficiency measures, the Bush administration adhered to “the gloomiest economic forecasts of a 3 percent decline in national income to achieve the European goals of a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide . . .”151 The United States continued to focus on uncertainty and to oppose emission reductions in the proposed climate convention. The positions of the participants changed little if at all in the intervening months between INC I and II. Both French and German position papers provided in advance of INC II stressed the importance of Northfirst action, global responses, and the need for binding carbon dioxide emission targets.152 The U.S. position paper, on the other hand, stressed global participation, emphasized the need for development assistance, and omitted any mention of carbon dioxide targets.153 With little altered in the positions, INC II saw little progress. The 127 states that attended

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the Geneva meeting continued to debate South-North issues and hard targets.154 Working group one (focused on commitments and developmental assistance) predictably had “a divergence of views,” as “several delegations considered that specific commitment should be included; others felt that commitments of this nature should not be sought at the present stage.”155 In terms of development assistance, the principle of assistance (both financial and technological) was not contentious, but the necessity of a new fund and a new institution was debated.156 Working group two (focused on legal mechanisms and implementation) discussed the practicalities of financial and technological aid. One common theme was that “lessons learned from the Vienna Convention and its Montreal Protocol were relevant to the establishment of mechanisms under a climate change convention.”157 However, as in working group one, debate ensued on the need for new funds and institutions but was not resolved.158

INC III—Nairobi, September 1991 The summer of 1991 saw pressure grow on the United States to alter its climate change position from Congress, the NGO community, and from Europe. However, the United States, buoyed by industry lobbying, held firm as it prepared for the INC III meetings in September. The United States resisted criticism at the July G7 economic summit, holding out as the “sole opponent” to binding carbon dioxide emission reductions. An EU official remarked that “the United States doubted the scientific data on carbon dioxide emissions and was unsure whether it was ‘such a serious problem.’”159 Many Europeans feared that the climate change convention would fail because of U.S. “recalcitrance,”160 and Japan, deeming U.S. leadership crucial, urged the United States to take action.161 The pressure came from the South as well, with India and China backing the “Beijing Declaration” that called for a green fund as well as technology transfer.162 The United States continued to withstand the pressure to change position, and thus as 116 states convened in Nairobi, there appeared little chance for a breakthrough. The international community was committed to notion that the United States was crucial in a climate convention, and the United States was adamant about the lack of urgency to address greenhouse gas emissions. The United States, under criticism from the South and NGO community for lack of action, replied that “these groups failed to understand the political, economic, and energy challenges associated with stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.”163 As Jean Ripert observed, “the United States had shown little flexibility during the talks.”164 Again, the two themes that emerged in the talks were targets for emissions and financial and technical assistance.165 And just as at INC II, the principle of assistance was not debated, though the mechanisms for it were contentious.166 Though

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development assistance was a high priority on the agenda, and though all delegates agreed about its necessity, “the scale of commitments on finance and transfer of technology, which would bring the developing countries on board, is not yet in evidence.”167

INC IV—Geneva, December 1991 Little, if any, movement occurred between INC III and INC IV. The United States continued to hold fast to its position through the fall of 1991 as it prepared for the INC IV meetings. The pressure continued to build on the United States to change, and the United States continued to withstand it.168 Bodansky observed that not much occurred at INC IV itself either. “Rather than negotiate, states tended to reiterate their previously enunciated positions.”169 INC IV meeting was noteworthy, however, as at this meeting the 132 state participants finally produced a “coordinated working document.”170 Again, in working group one (commitments) there was “general agreement” on the need to address the needs of Southern states, but the “debate on financial resources and technology failed to narrow down the major differences among the various delegations on the creation of an international climate fund . . .”171 In addition, there was little movement on emissions commitments.172 The working document itself contained an enormous amount of bracketed text representing the language yet to be agreed upon.173

INC V, Part 1—New York, February 1992 The monotonous story of the U.S. negotiating behavior and the climate change convention negotiations themselves finally took a different turn at the INC V sessions. Though the United States entered the negotiations with the exact same position—advocating flexible mechanisms with no binding targets—the United States did pledge $75 million in development assistance during the February INC V session.174 Though this gesture was not “grand” it signaled some flexibility in the U.S. positions, while it also leveraged the U.S. commitment to the GEF as the funding agency—the funds were earmarked for the GEF. Some flexibility, however, should not be confused with major flexibility. As Daniel Lashof of the NRDC noted: When I testified on the global warming issue almost exactly a year ago before your sister Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, I said, “the Bush administration’s continuing refusal to accept targets and timetables for reducing carbon dioxide . . . remains the largest obstacle to progress,” and unfortunately that statement is just as true today as it was then.175

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The United States remained the only Northern holdout. According the Reinstein, at this stage the “United States continues to oppose rigid, quantitative targets and timetables, whether for carbon dioxide or all greenhouse gases.”176 In addition, in its “Statement on Commitments” at INC V, the United States recognized the need for development assistance (pledging $50 million to the Global Environmental Facility [GEF]), committed $25 million to help Southern states take climate change inventories, while it also failed to accept targets.177 Still focusing on costs and uncertainty, this was as far as the United States would budge.178 Even given continued U.S. reluctance, the 151 states that convened in February were able to agree on a negotiating text. This text enshrined the notion of global participation and affirmed the commitment to development assistance.179 However, the South was still not content with either U.S. actions or the current state of the negotiating text. The head of the Brazilian delegation made it clear that “[i]f the ones that are the main cause of the problem do nothing, other countries will not give up their development chances to solve a global problem that was not created by them.”180 Thus, much work remained for the final negotiating session prior to the Earth Summit in June.

INC V, Part 2—New York, April-May 1992 One hundred fifty-seven states attended the second session of INC V, with the pressure mounting to achieve consensus in time for the Rio Earth Summit. Prospects looked bleak in April as the United States prepared to attend a meeting of key delegations in Paris designed to try and save the INC process. The United States was firm on its position. The Washington Post reported that [t]he US has been the chief stumbling block to an agreement and it is not expected to budge in Paris. . . . After two Cabinetlevel meetings in the past two weeks, including one attended by President Bush, the administration will continue to oppose specific limits on the pollutant said to be most responsible for heating up Earth’s atmosphere.181 The deadlock lasted until the eve of INC V, when the United States and the UK came up with a compromise about the language on commitments to stabilize greenhouse gases.182 Essentially, the United States won the day, and the language presented at the second session of INC V reflected the U.S. desire to exclude specific targets. “The preliminary terms of the pact . . . include an agreement by the world’s industrialized nations to contain emissions of ‘greenhouse’ gases at 1990 levels. . . . The provisions . . . would not be

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binding.”183 In addition, the principle of common but differentiated responsibility—highlighting the need for all states to participate, but recognizing different levels of blame and ability to address climate change—was also cemented. The last hurdle to overcome was the specifics of the financial assistance. This last debate centered on the Southern desire to initiate a new institution to disburse new and additional funds, and the Northern commitment to use the GEF. The compromise reached at INC V was the naming of the GEF as the interim financial mechanism.184 With the last wrangling complete, the nations of the world prepared to sign the FCCC at the Earth Summit.

Earth Summit—Rio, June 1992 The United States along with most of the UN states came together in Rio in 1992 for the historic United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED). A centerpiece of this conference was to be the signing of the FCCC. The United States “managed to dictate the terms of the agreement as a condition for observing it,” and thus “the document sets no specific goals or timetables for reducing carbon dioxide.”185 However, neither the binding targets nor the South-North debate ended when the compromise was reached on the FCCC. At Rio, Germany pressed for a European declaration to go beyond the weak FCCC, and the United States, in an attempt to avoid this embarrassment, pressured Holland, Austria, and Switzerland to avoid joining Germany in rebuking the U.S. climate change stance. Of course, “Asked at a press conference if reports of heavy-handed tactics were true, Deputy Undersecretary of State Michael Young replied, tongue in cheek, ‘The US never puts pressure on anybody.’”186 On the South-North front, UNCED represented a chance for the South to air its complaints with the FCCC as well as development concerns in general. One of the major concerns was the control of development assistance funds for the FCCC and other environmental agreements. Kamal Nath, India’s environment minister, disputed the North’s right to dictate the use of funds designated for environmental projects. He argued, “I don’t think you can shove the environment down anybody’s throat.”187 In the FCCC, the contentious issue of control over funds ended up being put off for future meetings of the parties. The FCCC itself states only that: 1. A mechanism for the provision of financial resources on a grant or concessional basis, including the transfer of technology, is hereby defined. It shall function under the guidance of and be accountable to the Conference of the Parties, which shall decide

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on its policies, programme priorities and eligibility criteria related to the Convention. Its operation shall be entrusted to one or more existing international entities. 2. The financial mechanism shall have an equitable and balanced representation of all Parties within a transparent system of governance.188 While not all that the South had hoped for (or even close to what it hoped for), given the recalcitrant stance of the United States in these negotiations the commitment to development assistance is noteworthy. The North did, in the end, agree to “provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by developing country Parties in complying with their obligations . . . ,”189 and the FCCC was clear that Southern action was contingent upon funding.190 In the end, the United States prevailed by steadfastly sticking to its positions of no binding targets and utilizing strategies that presupposed universal participation. The FCCC reflects these U.S. positions in a mirror-like fashion. The FCCC, stressing common but differentiated responsibilities, did commit all parties (both North and South) to take actions, though the actions revolved around reporting national inventories of greenhouse gases, constructing national climate change plans, and taking actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, the last of these commitments is nonbinding without a hard target, and it only applies to Northern parties.191 The FCCC matched U.S. objectives in the negotiations: 1. Achieve a convention “including participation by as many countries as possible.” 2. Take a comprehensive approach (address all sources and sinks). 3. Create a proactive treaty, but “one without targets or timetables for emission reductions.” 4. Ensure increased scientific understanding. 5. Create a treaty that calls for national plans, but also national decisions.192 Driven by adherence to the notion of universal participation, as well as scientific skepticism/economic concerns, the United States and the international community shaped a treaty that put South-North concerns at the top of the agenda, pledged to pay the South for their participation, and agreed to a convention that had no legally binding commitments to substantively address the problem of climate change.

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CONCLUSION: THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE FCCC Climate change had to be addressed through universal negotiations. This notion was universally accepted (by scientists, NGOs, industry, Northern states, Southern states, and IGOs) and it formed the boundaries for the climate change arena by constituting and defining appropriate levels of participation in this global environmental problem. No potential alternatives were even seriously considered. This chapter demonstrated that neither scientific information nor strategic behavior accounts for the acceptance and prevalence of universal participation. Instead, universal participation came to influence the climate change issue because it structured the political context in which climate change was addressed. Everyone knew what a global response to climate change should look like. Climate change had to be addressed through universal participation because the specific historical conditions, shaped by the ozone depletion negotiations, narrowed the possible definitions of the climate problem to the one actual definition—universal. Recognizing that universal participation was accepted as a fundamental characteristic of climate change is crucial because this prior understanding had a significant influence on both U.S. negotiating strategies/behaviors as well as the structure of the negotiations themselves. It is impossible to understand U.S. behavior or the flow of the negotiations without first understanding that climate change was ubiquitously defined as a universal problem. Universal participation enabled and shaped U.S. strategic behavior (to the dismay of all parties except industry), but it also allowed the South to link development concerns to climate change when it did not otherwise have the leverage to do so. These implications of universal participation are still being felt long after the FCCC was signed. Universal participation does not necessarily imply environmentally good or bad outcomes. In fact, while universal participation requirements made the climate change negotiations more equitable, they facilitated a very effective U.S. delaying strategy that continues to hamper efforts toward solving the climate change problem. However, understanding the global governance of climate change must begin with an examination of this underlying commitment to universal participation. As per the expectations of the NLC/CAS framework and the modeling exercises, this underlying commitment can be attributed to an internalized norm for universal participation. A specific universal participation norm (one that highlighted North-first action and common but differentiated responsibility) structured the global response to climate change, influencing actor strategies and the negotiations themselves. Rather than being the end of the story, however, the FCCC is merely the beginning. The Pick a Number model exercises and the earlier experience of the North-only participation norm remind us that even internal-

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ized and stable norms evolve and sometimes break down. While the governance of climate change began with a stable notion of a global response inherited from ozone depletion, U.S. actions began to call into question the specific nature of a global response. U.S. actions did not alter the normative context, and the FCCC reified crucial participation principles, further locking the international community into universal participation. In the FCCC, universal participation entails common but differentiated responsibilities and the understanding that the Northern states are responsible for taking the first concrete steps to address climate change. However, the seeds of the subsequent debate over universal participation were sown. Like the Vienna Convention, the FCCC calls for review and reappraisal and for further negotiations to implement its principles. This next set of negotiations would prove to be more contentious, but still shaped by universal participation. The governance of climate change would continue down the path defined by the universal participation norm—a path that would lead to normative contestation and significant debate.

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Chapter Seven A New Global Response? The Evolution of Universal Participation and the Governance of Climate Change The FCCC was only the first step in governing climate change, and it was recognized by most as an inadequate first step. The governance of climate change would begin in earnest in the mid-1990s as the international community would grapple with more concrete and binding ways to address the problem. Rafe Pomerance (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Development) observed that “[a]s part of the ‘bargain’ struck in Rio between those who advocated more stringent commitments and those wary of moving too quickly, the parties agreed that the adequacy of [commitments] would be reviewed at the first meeting of the Conference of the Parties . . .”1 The negotiations that followed the FCCC would prove to be more contentious than those that led to its creation. Agreeing to the rather vague goals of stabilizing the climate and voluntarily freezing emissions would prove a relatively easy task compared with agreeing to a set of binding regulations designed to make those goals a reality. This second stage of the global governance of climate change involved both philosophical and technical debates. On the philosophical side, the negotiations dealt with issues similar to those addressed in the FCCC negotiations: • Does addressing climate change require more restrictive measures? • And if so, what states should undertake restrictive measures? • How should the responsibility for climate change be delineated and how should responsibility match with actions? 161

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The negotiations that answered these questions coincided with more technical negotiations than were seen in the FCCC proceedings. Once the first question was answered in the affirmative, numerous technical details had to be decided upon—how much to reduce, how to accomplish reductions, how to measure reductions. Thus, larger stakes, and more contentious and difficult negotiating, accompanied this next step in the governance of climate change. When the international community decided to move beyond principles to actions, economic interests came to the fore and vied with environmental interests much more acutely. Even so, the universal participation norm was still at the foundation of these more recent global governance activities and still influenced them in crucial ways by structuring the debates that arose over the second two questions. This chapter focuses explicitly on how these questions were answered in the postFCCC negotiations and how the process of answering them shaped the governance outcomes in the 1990s and 2000s. Of course, at some level it is entirely artificial to separate out the technical from the philosophical in the governance of climate change. Debates over carbon sinks (the use of biomass to sequester carbon) as a means for reducing emissions, for instance, was a technical debate but it cannot be divorced from the philosophical debate over which states should take on restrictive measures. Should the U.S. companies get credit for planting trees in Brazil? Is this a Southern commitment or a Northern one? However, for the sake of analytical clarity, this chapter will concentrate on the debates that surrounded participation in order to demonstrate how the universal participation norm continues to shape the governance of climate change.2 At one level, universal participation shaped the post-FCCC negotiations by again determining what states were at the table and what issues were on the table—Southern states were powerful negotiating voices, development remained a key aspect of the debates, and equity concerns were of primary importance.3 The universal participation norm shaped the post-FCCC debates, as well as U.S. strategy and behavior, and in this sense the influence of the universal participation norm was similar in the postFCCC governance process to what it was for the FCCC itself. In the leadup to Rio, the universal participation norm framed what a global response to climate change should look like and gave Southern issues a legitimacy and primacy unwarranted by the “objective” bargaining leverage of the South. Because all states internalized universal participation, it shaped important aspects of the governance process—state strategies and behaviors, as well as governance outcomes. Universal participation was at the foundation of the FCCC process because this intersubjectively held idea structured what states considered appropriate and even possible. The FCCC itself reified an understanding of a global response defined by universal participation that entailed North-first actions, and Northern support for Southern participation.

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In the post-FCCC process, the universal participation norm would play the same role, structuring states’ expectations and actions. There were also, however, subtle differences, as its influence stemmed not only from intersubjective agreement about that norm but also from the contestation over different interpretations of universal participation. In the first stage of the climate governance process, universal participation provided a foundation for global governance, though the seeds of contestation emerged with U.S. positions on universal commitments. In the second stage, contestation between two variants of a universal global response would provide a foundation for a key debate that would significantly complicate the governance of climate change. In this chapter, I explore the continuing influence of the universal participation norm and I trace the second (and ongoing) transition in the meaning of a global response. I continue the story of the coevolution of the normative political context and U.S. rule models. Whereas chapter 6 demonstrated how universal participation structured the initial global response to climate change, this chapter explores how the universal participation norm both continued to have influence on the global governance of climate change and evolved over time through the governance activities. Universal participation served to structure both important aspects of what was taken for granted during the governance process in the 1990s (all states participating, common but differentiated responsibilities, Northern support for Southern actions) and important aspects of what was debated in the 1990s (universal commitment versus a North-first approach). The norm structured expectations because universal participation was an ingrained facet of climate change inherited from past governance outcomes. Normative contestation arose in the different interpretations of universal participation from the FCCC negotiations. Thus, this chapter also explores the notion of norm competition and evolution, even as it continues to detail how social norms form the foundation for the global governance of global environmental problems. The United States emerged as a hegemonic norm entrepreneur, suggesting and advocating a global response that entailed universal commitments.4 In many ways the governance of climate change in the last decade has been shaped by this entrepreneurship and the international community’s response to it. However, in contrast to success enjoyed by Tolba and UNEP, U.S. entrepreneurial activity has thus far failed to catalyze a critical mass of adherents; instead, it has caused instability at the foundation of the global governance of climate change. I first briefly discuss norm contestation, elaborating how an internalized norm can change. I then detail the initial conditions of the second stage of the governance of climate change—what states understood a global response to mean in 1992. The next section details the coevolution of the normative context and U.S. rule models, highlighting

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contestation over universal participation that emerged and examining the governance processes that produced the Kyoto Protocol (KP). The following sections then examine the aftermath of the KP—the U.S. withdrawal and the potential failure of the KP process. The chapter concludes with conjectures about the future of universal participation and the governance of climate change.

NORM CONTESTATION AND SLIPPAGE Norms, even internalized ones, are not permanent, static structures. Certainly they do exhibit a certain degree of stability as they are recognizable by the common expectations that they structure. Perhaps paradoxically, norms are also in a constant state of dynamism and flux. This is most obvious when norms dissolve altogether—as norms that upheld the practices of slavery or apartheid5 or North-only participation in ozone depletion have dissolved. Even norms that have remained stable for hundreds of years can disappear. What is less obvious is the constant dynamism that supports the illusion of equilibrium. All social norms—both established norms that have structured expectations and behavior for hundreds of years, and nascent norms such as universal participation in the post-Montreal ozone depletion negotiations—require action to be instantiated. Political actors must undertake the behavior that makes social norms intersubjectively real. In one sense, norms are born anew every day through the actions of political actors. Of course, there is more to the stability of norms than the random chance that political actors will undertake the appropriate actions. Social norms intimately shape the very actions that produce them in the first place. This is the paradox of mutual constitution. As Adler argues, “[B]ecause people do ‘what is called for’ on the basis of ‘norms and rules emerging in historical and cultural circumstances’; norms and rules structure and therefore socially constitute— ‘cause’ —the things people do; that is, they provide actors with direction and goals for action.”6 This is not the whole story, however. Norms and rules, as intersubjective objects, require human agreement for their existence. Therefore, before norms and rules can “cause” actions they must already have caused actions previously that led to their emergence (or they would not exist). Agents must internalize the norms and rules before they can cause behavior. Again, constructivist accounts of social norms are inherently dynamic. All the parts are in motion. Agents evolve, affected by their variable normative context and their interactions with other agents. Norms are also dynamic, as these rules of the game depend on the actions and interactions of evolving agents for their existence. Very simply, then, even internalized, stable norms require continual action in their reproduction.

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As noted in chapter 3, the paradox can be reconciled by considering that agents have internal, subjective understandings of their intersubjective reality. Political actors have rule models that allow them to interpret their (social) surroundings and decide upon (appropriate) actions. Chapters 5 and 6 traced the coevolution of U.S. subjective understandings of a global response with the universal participation norm. But recall that the story of the emergence of the universal participation norm was also the story of the change (dissolution) of the North-only participation norm. The same NLC process produces both norm emergence and change. The subjective understanding or internal rule model is the key mechanism for explaining this dynamism. Subjective understanding is the space for slippage in norms, as every agent will not have the same subjective understanding of intersubjective reality. In the computer model, this is captured quite simply. Even when each agent is following the same rule (Rule 1, for instance), they each have an individual understanding of the correct number to pick (a number between 0 and 10). Similarly, even when all states understand that a global response requires universal participation, there may exist different ideas about what universal participation itself entails. This is norm slippage. Because norms are generalized rules (i.e., they do not specify exact behavior for every situation) and agents have internal understandings of these rules, different understandings or variants of social norms are inevitable. Norms may emerge whole or as one idea, but quickly they can slip into multiple variants. Every state may “know” that democracy is appropriate, but the implementation of that knowledge can vary widely. Every state may “know” that chemical weapons are taboo, but different states have different ideas about how the taboo works.7 Over time, slippage can lead to change in the norms themselves (so that the original norm is no longer recognizable) either through incremental or breakpoint change.8 Norm slippage can also lead to norm contestation as proponents of different variants of a norm advocate the appropriateness of their variant to the exclusion of others. Norm slippage can occur for multiple reasons, but two are especially relevant in the case of climate change. The first is heterogeneity among actors. The universal participation norm is not the only influence on the interests and behavior of actors, nor is it the only rule in the states’ rule models. Obviously, state interests and behavior are determined by multiple sources, and their rule models are very complicated. Different states will have different interpretations of a prevailing norm because of variations in: • Domestic politics—the different interests that exist in the domestic sphere. • Evaluation of rule models—different states will take away different experiences from the outcomes of governance activities.

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The second reason for slippage is continuous entrepreneurship. Merely because a stable norm for universal participation exists does not mean that the dynamic NLC comes to a halt. Ideas that would be norms are constantly input into the system of interacting states, similarly to the periodic inputs in the modeling exercises. Chapter 5 highlighted the efforts of a specific and successful entrepreneur, but Mostafa Tolba did not have a monopoly on participation suggestions. Entrepreneurship can come from multiple sources: NGOs, MNCs, states themselves. The resulting increase in social complexity may not always knock the system out of a stable normative context, but it certainly can cause the emergence of differing interpretations of a dominant norm. This process is abundantly clear in the governance process for climate change. Although all states knew that a global response was defined by universal participation, in the FCCC negotiations, we saw the seeds of different interpretations of this understanding. The mantra of common but differentiated responsibilities that permeated the latter ozone depletion negotiations and the FCCC negotiations had always been understood to mean that the North would take the first steps to solving the problems. The United States began to obliquely challenge this in the FCCC negotiations, continually discussing vague global actions, but did not commit to a different interpretation of universal participation—the United States did not want any states to have binding commitments. However, in the post-FCCC period, we see the gradual emergence of a U.S. challenge to the North-first approach to universal participation. The United States begins to formulate a universal commitment (all states should take on binding commitments) variant of universal participation in the negotiations that resulted in the KP. Driven by domestic political pressures,

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the United States was and is acting as a norm entrepreneur, advocating a new interpretation of a global response.11 Crucially, the norm slippage that occurred had significant influence on the continuing global governance efforts for climate change. The resulting norm contestation would soon shape: • The crucial debate on Southern commitments that was as prominent as any debates on the technical aspects of addressing climate change. • U.S. behavior and the eventual U.S. pullout from the Kyoto Protocol process. The following discussion tells the story of norm slippage, norm contestation, and the continuing (though perhaps destined to be short-lived) influence of universal participation on the governance of climate change.

CONTESTATION AND THE ROAD FROM RIO TO KYOTO

Initial Conditions—The Meaning of Universal Participation in 1992 As with any governance activity, the drive to implement the FCCC did not begin from a clean slate. These activities took place within a normative context defined by the FCCC.12 The notion of a global response for climate change is directly observable in the FCCC itself and it calls for universal participation, defined by: • Common but Differentiated Responsibilities • North-first actions • Northern assistance for Southern actions13 The FCCC negotiations thus served to deepen the lock-in around the understanding of universal participation that emerged in the ozone depletion negotiations. However, this notion of a global response did not go unchallenged. Internalization of a norm does not make it immune from challenge or change. Though the North-first variant of universal participation dominated the normative context for the FCCC negotiations, a competing notion of a global response—universal commitment—emerged as well and was advocated by the United States. The United States based this competing vision in science, calling upon research noting the growing contributions of Southern states to the climate change problem. The idea of universal commitment did have some cachet in the North—even though most Northern states were angered by U.S. recalcitrance on emissions reductions. However,

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in the South, universal commitments were viewed with enormous skepticism and derision. Southern states stressed the historical responsibility for the climate change problem that clearly lay with the Northern states. The U.S. challenge to the North-first global response was not successful, and thus, in the period between 1992 and 1997 when the international community began implementing the principles of the FCCC with rules and regulations, the normative context was initially stable around the North-first variant of universal participation. In the course of these negotiations, however, we see the clear emergence of competing visions of a global response—North-first and universal commitment. We can also see, once again, how underlying norms of participation are at the foundation of the governance of climate change as norm contestation over universal participation fostered a key debate on the road to Kyoto.

The Evolution of the Normative Context and U.S. Rule Models 1992–1997: An Overview Between 1992 and 1997 the U.S. climate rule models exhibited both change and stability. The changes are usually the focus of analysis and commentary, but in this case the stability is as, if not more, important. First, there was a substantive change in the U.S. position on climate change. With the change in administration from the first Bush administration (Bush I) to Clinton, the United States became significantly more proactive on climate change, eventually calling for the binding emissions reductions that were anathema during the previous administration. Second, there was a solidifying of the U.S. position on universal commitments. The Clinton administration demonstrated significant stability in this position, calling for broad participation, meaningful participation, and a common menu of options for all states—Northern and Southern— throughout the period that culminated in the Kyoto Protocol. In this sense, the U.S. rule model was stable and continuous across administrations. However, the United States did soften its stance on universal commitments enough to accede to a series of governance outcomes (Berlin Mandate, Geneva Declaration, and the Kyoto Protocol) that continued to enshrine North-first principles. The acceptance of these outcomes was not a signal that the United States was abandoning its universal commitment stance. In this period we also see the beginning of concerted U.S. entrepreneurship for universal commitment. Rhetorically, universal commitments became the mantra of U.S. officials. More substantively, the United States pursued a number of mechanisms to induce Southern states to take on commitments.14 The United States advocated: • Joint Implementation (JI)—a flexible mechanism that allows states/companies to accrue emissions reduction credit for financing projects in another state where such projects may be cheaper.

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• Emissions Trading (ET)—a market-based mechanism that would quantify and cap greenhouse emissions. States with emissions below their cap could trade their credits to those states with emissions above their caps. • Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)—a program, similar to JI, designed to encourage and finance climate-friendly technological projects in the South.15 Rhetorically and substantively, then, the United States was suggesting a new global response to climate change—a response that entailed universal commitments.16 The normative context surrounding the climate change issue in the lead-up to Kyoto remained relatively stable as well. First, it was characterized by stable lock-in around universal participation and the accompanying principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and Northern support for Southern actions. Second, there was significant contestation over a third inherited aspect of universal participation—North-first action. This contestation was over defining not who should participate—a question answered in the ozone depletion and FCCC negotiations—but rather how should states participate? This growing debate would frame important divisions in the negotiations throughout the decade. The Southern states were especially concerned with the continuation of the principle of a North-first global response, while Northern states were initially more ambivalent. The United States began, once again, to speak of broad and concurrent commitments. States in the EU, hoping to move rapidly and progressively on the issue, tended to accede to North-first notions. However, though there was debate, the normative context remained, in this period, defined by North-first principles. Each governance outcome reified the understanding that Northern states should take the first steps. So while there was contestation, the North-only variant “won” each time. The North-first variant of universal participation characterized all of the governance outcomes in this period, including the Berlin Mandate of 1995 and the groundbreaking Kyoto Protocol of 1997. At each stage, Northfirst notions were reified and “frozen” in the agreements reached during negotiations. In that sense, the normative context remained locked in to the original meaning of universal participation that emerged during the ozone depletion negotiations, though the stability of the normative context was under considerable assault from a hegemonic challenge.

Governance Activities The drive to implement the FCCC began in earnest in 1995 with the first conference of the parties to FCCC (COP 1) and continued through two additional meetings (COP 2 and COP 3) culminating in

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the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997. Throughout this period we can observe how universal participation structured the governance activities by examining U.S. rule models, the normative context, and the negotiations themselves.

COP 1—Berlin 1995 A major change in the international negotiating environment was the transition from Bush I to the Clinton administration in 1993. In contrast to Bush I, the Clinton White House signaled that it would be more aggressive on climate change both domestically and internationally.17 The United States was a leader in formulating its national climate action plan and pushed other states to do so as well. In 1994, Secretary of Energy, Hazel O’Leary, claimed, “We expect our [climate] Action Plan will inspire similar efforts in other developed countries.”18 This significant change in U.S. substantive position on climate change—from laggard to leader (of sorts)—was tempered or accompanied by the continuing U.S. stance on universal commitments. From the outset of the FCCC negotiations, the United States was discontented with the North-first variant of universal participation—if climate change was going to be seriously dealt with (something the United States for the most part did not desire before the Clinton administration took office), the United States wanted all states to share in the costs and responsibilities.19 This universal commitment understanding of universal participation developed further through the 1992–1997 period, driven mainly by U.S. evaluations of the FCCC outcome through domestic politics. The United States certainly internalized the notion of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), but over time the United States came to view CBDR as requiring universal commitments.20 The development of this rule model can be attributed not as much to changing presidential administrations (a common source of explanation for most U.S. climate change positions), though that did play a role, but rather to the continual evaluation of the universal participation rule by both executive branch agencies and Congress as well as underlying industry skepticism about competition. Both the Department of Energy and the Department of State decried the lack of Southern commitments in their evaluation of the FCCC.21 The United States called upon scientific evidence of the growing impact of Southern emissions and called for much broader participation. Overall, the United States found the FCCC lacking both substantively and in terms of participation.22 The United States just did not see the FCCC as an adequate agreement, now that control of the White House had shifted parties. Thus, domestic politics plays a key role. Interestingly, and as noted previously, the shift in administration did not alter participation rule models— these were heavily internalized and part of the fundamental understanding

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of climate change. However, the shift certainly influenced the evaluation of the FCCC. The US saw three major problems with the FCCC: 1. Lack of Southern commitments 2. Lack of post-2000 aims for the parties 3. Limited scope of commitments.23 This evaluation led the United States to call for universal commitments in the governance of climate change. While the principle of CBDR remained rhetorically important, the United States began to reinterpret its content. As Rafe Pomerance told a House Subcommittee: [W]e have long stated that climate change is a global problem and that solving it will require broad international participation. While industrialized countries and developing countries both have commitments under the convention, we believe that more must be done on a global basis, recognizing the common but differentiated responsibilities of all Parties.24 The mantra coming from the U.S. government was one of universal commitments. The United States no longer believed (assuming they ever had) that an appropriate global response entailed the North taking on binding commitments before the South. Time and again, U.S. officials would make the following case: [T]here must be broader participation in making the convention a success. The international community must recognize— and act upon the realization that—the efforts of an increasing number of countries, beyond those of the OECD and those with economies in transition to market economies, will be required to solve this problem.25 Of course, this is not surprising. As the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and an economy dependent upon fossil fuel, the United States was looking for as many partners as possible to spread the costs of combating climate change—should more restrictive measures be forthcoming.26 Thus, in the lead up to the Berlin meetings, the United States called for a “common menu of actions” that would encourage broad commitments.27 The stance on universal participation was not new in terms of commitments or support for Southern actions. The argument for Southern commitments was similar to that made by the first Bush administration in the FCCC negotiations. In addition, one aspect of the universal participation norm, assistance to Southern states, remained unchallenged.

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According to Pomerance, “Our obligations—both as a global leader and under our commitments in the climate convention—require that we assist developing countries.”28 The rule model that structured U.S. actions heading into Berlin called for CBDR, universal commitments, and Northern support for Southern Action. The negotiations at Berlin, like those for the FCCC, tackled numerous issues, but were underlaid by the universal participation norm, and now contestation over its meaning. First, it is clear that universal participation was still the norm for climate change in 1995, and still influencing the governance process.29 As Pomerance noted, “There are now over 120 Parties to the convention, each of which approaches the Berlin Conference with its own set of concerns.”30 Universal participation and the principle of CBDR and Northern support for Southern actions were taken for granted.31 While universal participation was not controversial, contestation between a North-first vision of universal participation and one espousing universal commitments structured a major debate before and at COP 1.32 Southern states continually stated their opposition to any new commitments for non-Annex I states (Southern states), while the United States and some other Northern states continually advocated for a broader conception of a global response.33 The debate was not clear-cut at Berlin as the universal commitment position was still being framed. Those in favor of North-first action stated very clear positions in line with the precedence of the ozone agreements and the FCCC.34 On the other side, there was some ambiguous movement toward the universal commitment position before and at Berlin.35 The states that would form the Umbrella group (United States, Japan, Russia, Australia, Canada) of Northern states generally less proactive on climate change, were the most forceful in their calls for opening up debate on Southern commitments.36 Other Northern states (especially within the EU) were more willing to recognize the North-first principle.37 At Berlin itself, the major debates concerned issues of joint implementation (JI) procedural items, and the major issue of the adequacy of commitments (both Northern and Southern).38 It was at Berlin where the issue of more restrictive, binding measures again rose to the surface and three lines of debate on the adequacy of commitments emerged. Some states (both Northern and Southern) were proactive and called for Northern states to move past their FCCC commitments and begin implementing concrete emission reduction programs.39 Other states (mostly Southern states wary of any discussion of new commitments lest the debate turn to Southern commitments) argued for the status quo and the need to meet the goals of the FCCC before additional commitments are considered.40 A third group (mostly Northern states) called for both Northern and Southern states to move past FCCC commitments.41

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JI, raised first at the FCCC negotiations, was used by the United States and other states as a bridging device between Northern and Southern commitment positions. They argued that this mechanism promotes efficiency, as the reduction projects can take place where the reductions are cheapest. The United States and other Northern states have used JI as an incentive for bringing Southern states into broader commitments than held in the FCCC. In preparation for the Berlin meeting, Northern states pushed for a pilot JI program.42 COP 1 made some progress. In the outcome of the meeting, the Berlin Mandate, parties agreed to examine Annex I commitments, to define longer-term goals/actions (remember that the FCCC made no mention of commitments past 2000), and to launch a pilot program for JI.43 Though the United States and other Northern states were able to convince the international community about the possible benefits of JI, universal commitments were a dead end. The Berlin Mandate “specifies that there will be no new commitments for developing country Parties.”44 By acceding to the Berlin Mandate, the United States showed some flexibility on its universal commitment stance, though the debate was just beginning. The influence of the universal participation norm was felt palpably in the negotiations—who should participate was not an issue. This was predefined by the universal participation norm built in to both the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations. How states should participate became a crucial question, precisely because the prior question of who should participate was already answered in a very specific way. At Berlin, the international community drew upon an existing answer for how states should participate—the North-first variant of universal participation developed in the ozone depletion and FCCC negotiations continued to structure the normative context. While there was contestation, this variant remained the norm. Thus, the universal participation norm shaped both aspects of governance taken for granted (who should participate) as well as aspects of governance at the core of key debates (how should states participate). This trend would continue through to the Kyoto negotiations and beyond.

COP 2—Geneva 1996 The U.S. evolution toward climate leadership continued in the lead-up to COP 2 in Geneva during July 1996. The United States finally accepted the need for binding emission reductions to combat climate change.45 This was a historic transition in the U.S. substantive position on climate change, which reversed the resolute recalcitrance displayed by the United States during the FCCC negotiations. The substantive transition was, however, accompanied by a continued commitment to enhancing Southern participation. At this point, the United States still admitted that Northern states should take the lead,46 but continued to push for a universal global

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response and binding commitments from all states. Wirth concluded that “[t]he United States is immovable in its belief that international cooperation on this challenge remains critical to an effective response and that all nations—developed and developing—will have to become more ambitious in contributing to the solution to this challenge as we move forward.”47 The United States persisted in developing the universal commitment variation of universal participation. Multiple factors account for this, including the above mentioned concern with economic costs and industrial competitiveness. In addition, the development of the U.S. rule model was driven by congressional pressure. Frank Murkowski, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee at the time, articulated a relatively broadly accepted position: In Berlin, we agreed that there would be new greenhouse gas emission limits that would apply to the United States and other industrialized nations . . . but that the new limits would not apply to “developing nations” such as China, India, and South Korea. . . . This means that some of our toughest trade competitors will get to sit at the negotiating table and set the greenhouse gas emission limits that apply to us, but not to them. . . . Americans who will be affected by these negotiations-Americans whose jobs may be lost, whose wallets may be emptied and whose lifestyles may be changed don’t often get to travel to Geneva and Berlin to watch one of these UN negotiations and understand what is going on there.48 Though the Clinton administration had shown its willingness to accede to a North-first governance outcome in the Berlin Mandate (with some expression of disapproval of the lack of Southern commitments),49 Pomerance noted that the United States was still committed to seeking a universal global response: “We have heard loud and clear the view from Congress about the importance of developing countries undertaking steps to reduce their share of emissions.”50 Southern commitments aside, the United States was in step with the rest of the international community on universal participation and Northern support for Southern actions heading into COP 2. Again, these issues were taken for granted and firmly ensconced in the normative context. The United States considered it “imperative” to “meet the modest funding requirements for the . . . Global Environment Facility.”51 This call was mirrored in the Geneva Declaration and while the implementation of funding has always been a contentious issue, the principle of financial assistance and technological transfer was never up for debate.52 Again, some issues were simply taken for granted throughout the COP

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process, legacies of the universal participation norm and its instantiation in the ozone depletion negotiations and the FCCC. Though much was taken for granted, however, the contestation between North-first and universal commitment would continue. North-first still dominated the proceedings as evidenced by the executive director of UNEP, Elizabeth Dowdeswell’s, opening of COP 2 with a call for Northern states to take a “clear lead.”53 Southern countries continued to stress the need for Annex I countries to fulfill their obligations before any new Southern commitments were discussed.54 India, in a pre-COP 2 meeting, stated that “the crux of the issue was to set quantified reduction targets within a specified time frame for Annex I parties, without introducing new commitments for non-Annex I Parties.”55 Northern countries remained split on this issue with some reaffirming the North-first idea and others calling for new commitments.56 Germany, for instance, noted that it “was ‘high time’ to start negotiations” on emissions reductions for Northern states.57 The EU as a whole argued that Annex I parties should take the lead.58 On the other hand, the United States and Canada called upon the South to “eventually take on new commitments.”59 Some of the issues under debate at COP 2 had a familiar ring— reduction commitments, JI, financial mechanisms, procedural rules—while other issues were raised seriously for the first time—emissions trading.60 The United States linked support for a binding protocol to a “a preference for a tradable permit system, raising new complexities for delegations.”61 The United States continued to push for market mechanisms to structure a global response through universal commitments. The major accomplishment of COP 2, enshrined in the Geneva Declaration, was the adoption of a call for binding emission reductions (though it left the task of quantifying them for later meetings). The United States “enthusiastically endorsed the Geneva Declaration,” even though it still lacked commitments for Southern states.62 Thus, the North-first principle was victorious again, though by agreeing to binding emission reduction and proposing an emissions trading system, the United States continued to pursue a new notion of a global response—one that called for universal commitments. In some ways the debates at the COPs grew more technical over time as the philosophical positions stabilized. There was much more discussed at Geneva than this synopsis even hints at in terms of the details of emissions reductions and flexible implementation mechanisms. The switch to more technical discussions demonstrates the growing consensus that was emerging on the philosophical questions that opened this chapter. More restrictive, binding commitments were now seen as necessary. The consensus that emerged in Berlin and Geneva upheld the North-first version of universal participation—the Northern states would negotiate binding commitments and the Southern states would not be asked to undertake new commitments.

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The North would pay for Southern commitments. These aspects of the governance of climate change were already set and not negotiated over, though the United States continued to suggest universal commitments and pushed for JI and ET—mechanisms to induce Southern commitments. Though the United States was growing increasingly isolated on universal commitments, the debate over universal participation would not evaporate. COP 2 was crucial for the larger issues that were both taken for granted and debated. As the negotiations turned to more technical matters—how to reduce emissions, how to measure reductions, and how to transfer technology and money—the universal participation norm actually became both more important and less prominent. Important because it structured what all states took for granted—the participation of all states in the governance process—thus shaping how the details of issues were discussed. Less prominent because the notion of universal participation faded into the background. All states were participating—the governance of climate change had truly gone global at this point. This is not to say that the remaining debates were not complex or difficult or that the governance of climate change will be successful. Instead, the claim is that the contours of the governance of climate change are relatively stable and defined by the universal participation norm. The one area where this taken-for-granted quality is lacking is the contestation over Southern commitments. Driven by different visions of universal participation the South and the United States (for the most part) debated the need for additional commitments by the South. By the end of COP 2 the North-first variant had again shown its resilience in the face of hegemonic challenge and was reified in the Geneva Declaration.

COP 3 The next phase of the climate negotiations moved from the Berlin Mandate/Geneva Declaration toward the Kyoto Protocol, and the U.S. Congress began to play an important and visible role. Whereas the executive branch displayed a flexible attitude toward universal participation and the Clinton administration’s view of universal participation tended to at least accept the North-first variant, Congress staunchly interpreted universal participation to mean universal commitment. As the world prepared to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. Senate made this position enormously clear with the Byrd-Hegel resolution. This resolution, approved ninety-five to zero, was intended to be a warning to the president that the Senate would not ratify any agreement that committed the United States to binding emission reductions but failed to bind Southern states in a comparable fashion.63 In a classic two-level games fashion, the Senate effectively tied the administration’s hands.64 The Clinton administration tried to move forward with a softer understanding of universal commitment, focusing on “meaningful participation,” but the Congress was looking for more:

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Regrettably, the President has not heeded that overwhelming guidance in the Senate . . . . By meaningfully participate, he appeared to indicate that developing countries would merely measure their production of greenhouse gases and would accept our aid to use cleaner technologies, not the legally binding restrictions that we place upon our own Nation.65 Notwithstanding the Senate’s guidance, the United States went into the final phase of the Kyoto negotiations wanting three things: 1. Set realistic targets and timetables for Northern states (realistic in terms of time frames, the number of chemicals regulated, and the incorporation of sinks). 2. Focus on flexible market mechanisms to meet reduction targets. 3. Secure meaningful participation of Southern states.66 The last two of these objectives are linked and formed the most crucial aspect of the U.S. positions. The United States still felt that “any comprehensive plan to deal with this global problem must include a mechanism to bring developing countries into the process.”67 These mechanisms remained the flexible market-based mechanisms that the United States advocated at the first two COPs—JI and ET.68 Of its three goals, the third would generate the most opposition as it ran headlong into the North-first understanding of universal participation that pervaded the first two COPs. The contestation over universal participation would continue. The United States certainly realized the need for Northern states to set an example and take the first steps,69 but according to Tim Wirth, The issue is not whether developing countries, especially the big and rapidly developing ones, take on quantified commitments to limit or reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. . . . The issue is when such commitments should begin, and what criteria should be used to establish them, and to whom they would apply.70 Thus, in the run up to Kyoto, the United States calls for meaningful participation and Southern commitments again fostered debate between the North-first and universal commitment variants of universal participation. Observers noted that given the U.S. position, the debates that shaped the agreement back in 1995 [Berlin Mandate] resurfaced, with an insistence on G-77/China

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The KP negotiations were among the most complex and contentious yet seen in the governance of climate change.72 Significant debates raged on quantifying reductions, the means for achieving reductions (market mechanisms such as emissions trading, flexible mechanisms such as CDM and JI, the use of carbon sinks), Southern commitments, and Southern compensation.73 By their own admission, the United States achieved two out of their three goals—not a small achievement. Observers noted that the United States provided most of the ideas that eventually made it into the Kyoto Protocol.74 The KP reflected U.S. preferences on both targets/timetables (reductions of about 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012) as well as flexible implementation through sinks, JI, and ET. The EU, the chief Northern proponent of proactive action on climate change, acquiesced to most U.S. demands in order to move the process forward.75 However, the United States was not able to secure meaningful participation of Southern states because both the G-77 and Europe were committed to the North-first variant of universal participation.76 Southern states were staunchly against the new commitments desired by the United States, and they were unmoved by the flexible mechanisms of JI, ET, and CDM. In addition, the EU was content to move forward in a North-first fashion. The Kyoto Protocol was thus a document unlikely to be ratified by the U.S. Senate. An analysis of the KP process succinctly summarizes the argument of this volume: “The most immediate constraints on thought lingering in Kyoto were hangovers from the original FCCC process.”77 Again, the hangovers of interest concern the participation requirements that formed the foundation for these governance activities. Once the United States acquiesced to no new Southern commitments, participation would seem to drop out of the Kyoto activities. Such is not the case. Again, by structuring what all states took for granted—that all states would participate— universal participation shaped even the technical debates over targets/ timetables, carbon sinks, and implementation, and it certainly shaped the discussions over financial and technological transfers. More importantly, however, contestation over the two variants of universal participation provided a key debate at Kyoto. Table 7.1 (included at the end of the chapter), provides a synopsis of COPs 1–3 and it displays the development of the debates over time.

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Southern commitments were a constant source of debate, but in each COP, the international community agreed to leave Southern commitments out. In addition, over time, the number of flexible mechanisms continued to increase as the United States (and other Northern states) included more market-based incentives for Southern states to accede to commitments. Though the North-first variant continued to prevail in its contest with a universal commitment vision of a global response, the debate demonstrated the transition in global response introduced in the first chapter. By 1997, there were two fully articulated visions of universal participation and the United States was acting as a norm entrepreneur, advocating universal commitments. Although this debate did not outwardly alter the normative context, it did structure debate at KP and it would come to have more serious ramifications in the post-KP period.

POST-KYOTO: THE END OR THE BEGINNING OF THE GOVERNANCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE? The KP, in many ways, is an astounding achievement—the scope of the agreement and the complexity of the solutions arrived at to combat this most complicated of environmental problems is a testament to the patience and ability of the negotiators and indeed the entire international community. And yet, in comparison to the celebrated Montreal Protocol, the KP has been roundly critiqued and derided.78 The KP seems destined to never reach the level of reverence accorded the MP. This is not because the MP was somehow better for the environment—the MP’s original measures were woefully inadequate for the job of solving the ozone depletion problem. Instead, the MP is celebrated today as a great achievement because of the process that it spawned—the London Amendments and other agreements (signed by most of the international community) that progressively drove the international community toward eradication of the ozone depletion problem. The MP is considered a successful governance outcome because of what came after the MP, not because of what the document itself called upon the international community to do. The KP suffers in comparison, not because of what it calls upon the international community to do—everyone admits that even if it comes into force, it is only a bare beginning in the battle to control climate change—but because of what has happened in the aftermath of the signing of the KP. The problems that the KP has encountered can, in important ways, be traced directly to the norm slippage surrounding universal participation. The instability in the normative context derived from the contest between the United States–advocated universal commitment and the entrenched notion of a North-first global response has fundamentally shaped the governance of climate change since 1998. The KP did not put

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the continued debate over Southern commitments to rest. While many technical details of the KP needed to be worked out in the subsequent COPs that followed the Kyoto meeting, the specter of Southern commitments would not disappear. Instead, the two variants of a global response solidified. The United States consistently advocated for universal commitments. The EU and G-77 consistently supported the North-first principle. The stability of these two opposing visions of a global response produced an increasingly unstable foundation for the governance of climate change. The fragility of a governance process that lacked intersubjective agreement about the appropriate global response was exposed after the substantive shift in the U.S. position that accompanied the ascension of the second Bush administration in 2001.

The United States and Universal Commitments Even though the United States achieved much of what it wanted in the KP, Congress’s evaluation of it was scathing on the issue of Southern commitments.79 In the Senate the KP was described as “dead on arrival”80 and Congress as a whole was furious that the United States agreed to a protocol that did not commit Southern states to take on commitments comparable to the United States.81 One representative asked, “Since China will soon surpass the United States in the production of atmospheric pollutants, we must ask whether the Administration accomplished anything meaningful at Kyoto.”82 The Clinton administration, well aware of the Congress’s wrath and its own inability to secure the kind of agreement that would pass muster in the Senate, declined to submit the KP for ratification.83 The act of signing the KP did not signal a change in U.S. notions of a global response. The Clinton administration still advocated universal commitments. Following the Kyoto meetings, the United States signaled its intention “to obtain such [meaningful] participation prior to submitting this agreement to the Senate for its advice and consent.”84 The administration knew that it had failed to achieve the kind of Southern participation that it had hoped for, but it did claim to have made “a down payment on developing country participation through the Clean Development Mechanism,” JI, and emissions trading.85 In advocating universal commitments at the Kyoto negotiations, the United States was able to ensure that Southern states would have to take on commitments to enjoy the potential benefits of these programs. Throughout the next three COPs when the parties met to flesh out the details of the KP, the United States continually pushed for the meaningful participation necessary to sell the KP domestically. The United States continued to base its actions and strategies on its universal commitment variant of the universal participation norm and planned a “full court diplomatic press” to “secure meaningful participation of key developing

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countries.”86 The entrepreneurial push of the United States was felt most strongly at the first post-KP meeting of the parties in 1998. The United States was convinced that Southern states would come around—that they would see universal commitment to be in their interest: The reason they [G-77 and China] objected [to voluntary commitments and meaningful participation] is their perception, and an incorrect one, that by taking on binding obligations, they were impairing their level of development . . .87 There was some initial fracturing of the opposition to universal commitments when Argentina agreed to take on voluntary commitments.88 The United States and Argentina were described as stealing the show at the Buenos Aires meeting of 1998 with the “most significant development on voluntary commitments.”89 However, while this “significant development”90 demonstrated one of the first signs of instability in the Southern resolve on a North-first global response, it was one of the only signs from 1998 to 2003 that Southern states would break ranks and take the U.S. suggestion of a universal commitment. The subsequent COPs in 1999 and 2000 concentrated mainly on technical issues—the U.S. entrepreneurial bid to alter the appropriate global response had failed.91 No critical mass (assuming that the United States itself is not a critical mass in this issue) emerged in support of the universal commitment rule, and therefore no cascade was evident, and certainly internalization failed to occur. While the United States did not abandon universal commitments, it did continue to accede to the governance outcomes that flowed from the COP meetings—a trend that would not survive the change in presidential administrations.

The Rest of the World and the North-First Principle U.S. entrepreneurship failed because the rest of the world (or at least most of it) strongly adhered to the North-first principle. The reception of U.S. suggestions—especially at COP 4—was predictably cool. The vision of a global response encoded in the KP defined the governance of climate change for most of the world—especially the Southern states. Both the EU and the Southern states reaffirmed the principle of North-first action and Northern support for Southern actions in the first post-KP meeting.92 The U.S. proposal of Southern commitments was characterized as “destructive for the negotiating climate.”93 This lack of success can be attributed to the strength of the Northfirst variant of universal participation—the G-77/China and increasingly the rest of the Northern states stood firm throughout the 1998–2000 period. According to Vespa, “The EU believed industrialized countries had a moral obligation to make domestic reductions first, in an effort to

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equalize highly disparate global per capita differences in CO2 use.”94 For their part, Southern states still maintained that Northern states should “at least take substantial action to [solve the climate change problem] before the developing countries themselves take on specific limitation commitments.”95 Each of the outcomes from COP 4–6 reaffirmed the principle that Northern states should be the first to take on binding commitments. After Buenos Aires, no other signs of possible change occurred; the commitment of non-U.S. states to the North-first principle solidified significantly, and Southern commitments were not a major area of debate thereafter.96

Stability or Instability? As in the Montreal Protocol, London Amendment, and FCCC, the normative context at the foundation of global governance activities was once again “frozen” in the KP. Universal participation structured what was expected and what was debated in the governance activities that followed the negotiating of the KP. However, the normative context was much less stable in 1997 than in 1992 and the instability grew over time. U.S. actions, driven by a competing vision of a global response, had introduced significant contestation and debate in the lead-up to Kyoto, and this continued in the subsequent COPs that met from 1998 to 2000. By acting as an entrepreneur, the United States increased the social complexity associated with a global response to climate change. By advocating universal commitment and pursuing policies of CDM, JI, and ET, the United States attempted to knock the international community out of the stable North-first variant of universal participation. While the United States was as unsuccessful between 1998 and 2000 as it was in the Kyoto negotiations, the norm contestation that was at the heart of a crucial debate at Kyoto continued to play a major role in shaping the governance of climate change in the postKyoto period. While the normative context had an observable stability throughout the period of 1998–2000, important sources of instability grew. The North-first principle survived significant hegemonic entrepreneurial activity and was reified at each stage of the negotiations. The notion, initially conceived during the ozone depletion negotiations, that a global response entailed Northern states first taking on binding commitments remained entrenched. However, the solidifying of two opposing positions on an appropriate global response meant that the governance of climate change was no longer being built upon foundations of intersubjective agreement. As occurred immediately following the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol, different groups of major actors had significantly divergent ideas about the necessary global response for climate

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change. There was no longer even the illusion of consensus on the appropriate global response—a failing that would shortly prove to have enormous consequences.

THE FAILURE OF THE KYOTO PROCESS? The United States continued nonratification of the KP was a specter that hung over the entire process of governing climate change between 1998 and 2000. The United States was and remains the single most important player for the Kyoto Protocol given the requirement that Northern states totaling 55 percent of the world’s emissions have to ratify for the protocol to come into force—the United States, upon the negotiation of the KP, accounted for 36 percent of the total needed for entering into force.97 During the Clinton administration, U.S. ratification looked difficult, but the prospects turned even dimmer with the succession of the second Bush administration (Bush II). After the election of 2000, the second Bush administration initiated a substantive shift on climate change back to the recalcitrance of the late 1980s. The Bush II administration questioned the urgency of the climate change problem and focused on uncertainty and the costs of fighting climate change to the American economy.98 On participation, the United States remained a stable proponent of universal commitments—the change in administration did not change the U.S. view of an appropriate global response.99 However, the combination of a skeptical substantive view and the understanding that a global response entails universal commitments did lead to a dramatic shift in climate change policy. Convinced that the Kyoto process was “fundamentally flawed,” the Bush administration removed the United States from the process.100 The U.S. refusal to participate in the Kyoto process in 2001 signaled the strength of domestic constituencies opposed to significant action on the climate problem, but it did not immediately signal a weakening of the rule calling for universal participation. Instead, it signaled the United States’ ultimate dissatisfaction with the North-first variant of universal participation. The United States justified its exit on the grounds that the Southern states do not participate enough in the proposed implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.101 The hegemonic norm entrepreneur thus ended its campaign to directly convince states about its vision of a global response, and instead exited from the process that was defined by a normative context that it disagreed with—a potentially very powerful entrepreneurial tool given the predominant position of the United States.102 The U.S. exit did not automatically constitute a failure of the Kyoto process for the rest of the participants. The rest of the world moved forward

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after the U.S. withdrawal, eventually finalizing the last details of the Kyoto protocol.103 Without U.S. official participation (the United States did attend all of the COP meetings) these negotiating rounds were founded on the North-first variant of universal participation. The U.S. exit removed the contestation over universal participation, however, “engaging developing countries on the issue of targets will remain extremely difficult without US participation in the protocol.”104 The completed governance activities moved the world close to bringing the Kyoto Protocol into force and with Russia’s ratification, the Kyoto Protocol reached the necessary 55 percent.105 The question that remains, however, is whether the KP process can succeed without the hegemonic presence.

CONJECTURES: END OF UNIVERSAL PARTICIPATION? Of course, the United States did not withdraw from the KP process directly because of universal participation. The Bush administration was skeptical of climate science and convinced that the costs associated with addressing climate change far outweighed the benefits. However, normative understandings must not be ignored. Clearly, the United States maintained a different vision of a global response throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, and the United States (under both Clinton and Bush II) did not find it appropriate for the United States and the rest of the Northern states to take on the costs of combating climate change alone. Had the United States succeeded in destabilizing the North-first variant of universal participation and catalyzing a critical mass and cascade around the notion of universal commitments, the governance story may have been very different. Thus, it remains crucial to understand how norm dynamics unfold—the path that the international community constructed back in the ozone depletion negotiations (common but differentiated responsibilities, North-first action, Northern support for Southern activities) continued to structure the governance of climate change even in the face of a significant challenge from the hegemon. What remains to be seen is whether the current vision of a global response can survive the exit of the United States over the long term. The events of 2003 and 2004 do not lend confidence in the survival of a global response based on the Kyoto Protocol and founded on universal participation. The recent process of negotiating a global response to climate change also raises interesting questions about what happens when the hegemon acts as a norm entrepreneur. One would think that significant lock-in would result. One would think that this was a low complexity situation that would result in a very stable norm that matched the hegemon’s wishes. At this writing the result of the norm dynamics remains unclear,

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although the United States has certainly failed, to this point, to catalyze norm change. The United States is still alone in its interpretation of universal participation. In the last decade, understandings of who should participate in the governance activities for climate change have fundamentally shaped how that governance should proceed. The question of who should participate was answered early and internalized by all states—everyone should participate. This fundamental understanding has led, in the 1990s, to some of the more contentious debates about how states should participate. Different variants of the universal participation norm have led to the most contentious debates on the governance of climate change. Debates may well have been contentious otherwise, but this particular path of history has been conditioned by the initial understanding of universal participation. Where is the governance of climate change likely to go? What is the likely impact of the U.S. pullout of the Kyoto process? Has the United States abandoned universal participation? Will the norm erode through U.S. actions? The United States still nominally views climate change in with universal participation lenses. Both the Clinton administration and the second Bush administration understood that climate change was a global problem requiring universal participation and each based their strategizing on that understanding. However, the contest and the shift in U.S. climate change positions in 2001–2002 did serve to destabilize the normative context enough to hinder the conclusion of a successful governance outcome. The intersubjective consensus at the foundation of the earlier negotiations eroded during the negotiation of the KP and disappeared altogether following the ascension of Bush II. The exit of the hegemon from the process was the result of the norm contestation—a curious result given expectations about hegemonic entrepreneurs discussed in chapter 4. The United States has begun to experiment with a new understanding of climate change—unilateralism (and in foreign policy more generally) and adaptation to the effects of climate change (rather than mitigation of climate change)—and returned to the skepticism of the early 1990s. The rest of the world is still adhering to the North-first variant of universal participation, yet the United States is a dominant actor. Does the hegemonic exit signal that participation requirements may not remain locked in to universal participation? Is it a critical mass by itself, able to alter the social context to such a degree that other states will take on the universal commitment suggestion? Will the U.S. entrepreneurial activity destabilize the system to such a degree that the universal participation norm erodes altogether? It is too early to tell, but the contestation over this norm is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and the global response to climate is likely to remain in flux.

Agreed to discuss further Northern, not Southern commitments, long-term goals, and launched pilot JI program Geneva Declaration

Outcomes COP 2 Agreed to negotiate binding emissions reductions for Northern, not Southern states

Flexible implementation mechanisms

Joint Implementation/ Emissions Trading

Discussions on launching pilot program

Mandating binding emissions cuts Including Southern commitments

Commitments

Including Southern commitments

Going beyond the FCCC

Debated Issues COP 2

Source: Author constructed table with information from UNFCCC 1995e; 1996b; 1997a

Berlin Mandate

Outcomes COP 1

Joint Implementation

Commitments

Debated Issues COP 1

Table 7.1 COP 1–3 at a Glance

Kyoto Protocol

Outcomes COP 3

Implementation of Commitments

Commitments

Debated Issues COP 3

Mandates binding reductions of about 5% below 1990 levels by 2012 Allows for use of sinks Allows for flexible implementation and trading No new Southern commitments

Mechanisms: ET, JI, CDM Sinks: sequestering carbon Bubbles: Reducing emissions in blocks Hot Air: Increased emissions for some states

Whether to include commitments for Southern states

Amount of reductions

Chapter Eight The Complexity of Constructing a Global Response The Future is not some place we are going to but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination. —John Schaar, quoted in Lamont Hempel, Environmental Governance Present experience is no guide to the future, except when it is augmented with contingent assumptions about the connections of the past to the future. —Elliot Sober, Reconstructing the Past

Emmanuel Adler makes an interesting distinction between worldviews of “being” and “becoming” that seems especially pertinent for this concluding chapter. A being worldview, “sees everything in nature and society as being static and mechanistic, including change,” while a becoming worldview “considers everything to be in flux, as a permanent process of change and evolution, even that which appears to be static.”1 This book argues for and demonstrates the efficacy of the becoming worldview for understanding global governance. Global governance, as defined in chapter 1, is an inherently dynamic concept. Although there appears to be little consensus on what global governance is, looks like, or how to approach studying it,2 the consensus that does exist considers that the rules of global governance are fluid and evolving. Global governance theorists for the most part accept the argument that 187

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“in most social-political systems such entropic states of (final) equilibrium will (fortunately) never be reached.”3 It thus becomes crucial to understand the process through which the rules of global governance evolve. In this volume, I have concentrated on the key role that social norms play in the evolution of global governance. Social norms are at the foundation of global governance as these ideas shape how the global governance enterprise (across multiple issues) proceeds. Social norms provide the contours of global governance, shaping how global responses to problems are defined, identifying the crucial characteristics of problems, and structuring what is both taken for granted and debated in global governance activities. Thus, understanding how global governance proceeds requires grasping two crucial concepts. First, we must understand how social norms emerge and evolve over time, providing new foundations for governance. Social norms are living, dynamic aspects of social life, and equilibrium is a chimera. Even stable social norms require dynamic actions and continual reification to exist. Second, we must understand how social norms influence the more recognizable activities of global governance such as multilateral negotiations. Social norms influence who participates in these activities, what participants see as possible and appropriate, and the debates that arise. The dynamic nature of global governance and the social norms at its foundation are clearly evident in the ozone depletion and climate change cases. The empirical target for this book was a series of transitions in participation requirements that fundamentally shaped how the governance of these issues proceeded. The first transition, evident in the ozone depletion negotiations, transformed how the international community conceived of “global” environmental problems. After 1987 and the Montreal Protocol, it was no longer possible to view global problems as North-only problems. Universal participation emerged as the dominant understanding of a global response. This new conception of ozone depletion had immediate and crucial impacts on the governance of ozone depletion—transforming ozone depletion into a North-South issue almost overnight. More importantly, perhaps, a universal participation norm locked in throughout the international community and came to define the global response to the next environmental problem to top the international political agenda—climate change. From the very beginning, climate change was deemed a universal problem, just not for the material or strategic reasons usually referred to. The political context within which the international community addressed climate change defined it as a universal problem and this determined how the United States and other states defined the problem. Crucially, this intersubjective understanding was just as real as any material or strategic considerations and in fact it shaped the very manner in which the material characteristics of climate change were understood as well as the strategic plans for dealing with the problem.

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The historically derived universal participation requirement put boundaries on how climate change could be addressed, closing off certain avenues while opening others. Such lock-in around universal participation fundamentally shaped the initial governance of climate change and the negotiation of the FCCC in 1992. Universal participation shaped actors’ perceptions, strategies, and behavior, as well as the debates that arose and outcomes that were reached. The lock in around universal participation also fostered the second transition in participation requirements. This transition, more subtle than the first, saw the bifurcation of universal participation into two variants—North-first and universal commitment—during the second phase of the climate change negotiations from 1994 to 2003. Contestation over the appropriate global response translated into crucial debates over the governance of climate change throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Sorting through all of this dynamism—in the abstract and in the specific cases at hand—has not been the strong suit of international relations theory.4 Notions of equilibrium have dominated our discipline and the corrective emerging from the global governance literature is welcome.5 In this volume I turned to social constructivism and the insights of complexity theory as a way to manage the dynamism of global governance in general, and to explain the evolving governance of ozone depletion and climate change specifically. This book told the story of the evolving foundations of the global governance of ozone depletion and climate change. It traced and explained how the global response to these problems changed over time, influenced and structured by underlying norms of appropriate participation. In essence, the emergence and evolution of a universal participation norm fundamentally constrained and shaped how states defined the problems of ozone depletion and climate change, how states behaved in negotiations, and what issues and debates defined the governance process. To explain the emergence and evolution of participation norms I turned to the norm life cycle, a macro process relying on norm entrepreneurs to catalyze both norm emergence and change. I complemented this with a micro process of complex adaptation drawn from the study of complex adaptive systems. This framework allowed me to trace the emergence of universal participation in the 1980s and its evolution in the 1990s. The explanation of norm emergence and evolution further facilitated a full analysis of the governance activities in these periods. Understanding the normative foundations allowed me to explain the strategies and actions of a key participant—the United States—as well as the flow and outcomes of the multilateral negotiations for ozone depletion and climate change. In this concluding chapter, I will take a step back and evaluate the big picture of the preceding analysis and the implications of this study. First, I will discuss the empirical implications and ruminate on what was

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learned about the governance of ozone depletion and climate change. Second, I will turn to thoughts on global governance in the abstract and evaluate the theoretical and methodological approach adopted in this volume. Finally, I will turn to potential caveats, extensions, and the wider applicability of the insights accrued in this analysis.

IMPLICATIONS

The Governance of Ozone Depletion and Climate Change The most important empirical implication of this study is an enhanced understanding of the politics of ozone depletion and climate change. The framework developed in this book was able to explain the puzzle of universal participation and answer the questions posed in chapter 1: • How can we account for changing U.S. positions on participation in the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations from 1985 to the present? Why did the United States come to accept/advocate for universal participation in the late 1980s and then (apparently) reject universal participation by withdrawing from the Kyoto process in 2001? • Why do we see variations in participation requirements in the international community from 1985 to the present? • Why did ozone depletion start out as a North-only problem and come to require universal participation? Why did climate change require universal participation from the very beginning? Why have variants arisen in the understanding of universal participation? How does participation matter? The norm life cycle/CAS framework provides answers for these questions. The transition evident through the ozone depletion negotiations occurred via a process of norm change described by the norm life cycle—a norm entrepreneur (UNEP and Tolba) convinced Southern states to alter their behavior; this altered the social context for other states, driving change throughout the international community. The international community understood that climate change required universal participation from the very beginning, because a norm developed in the ozone depletion negotiations informed states’ rule models and structured their understandings of this problem. The United States supported universal participation because it internalized a universal participation norm into its rule models after the ozone depletion experience. The norm life cycle continued to operate, and two variants of universal participation emerged in the 1990s, leading to contestation not over who participates, but how

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states should participate. The contestation over participation, in part, drove the U.S. withdrawal from the process and has left the governance of climate change at a crossroads. The norm life cycle/CAS framework provides an explanation of crucial aspects of the ozone depletion and climate change regimes. Parts of the framework at the foundation of this explanation for the transitions in participation were formally assessed, and the entire explanation was tested through qualitative case study analysis. The empirical study demonstrated that the expectations derived in chapters 3 and 4 were indeed observed in the empirical record: • A norm entrepreneur pushing universal participation did emerge in the ozone depletion negotiations—Mostafa Tolba and UNEP. • The United States incorporated the new rule (norm) only when old rules were weakened by negative evaluation. • The positively evaluated rule for universal participation that emerged in the ozone depletion negotiations became taken for granted over time and was reused in a similar situation— climate change. • The continual interpretation and evaluation of the universal participation norm led to norm-slippage (divergent understandings of universal participation in the United States relative to the rest of the world). • The norm entrepreneur increased the social complexity evident in the ozone depletion by making suggestions of universal participation, knocking the international community out of a stable Northonly norm. Similarly, U.S. suggestions of universal commitments increased the social complexity surrounding climate change, but as yet have been unable to erode the stability of North-first ideas of a global response. • The norm entrepreneur suggestions in turn decreased the social complexity, catalyzing intersubjective agreement around universal participation. • The norm entrepreneur only had to convince Southern states to catalyze norm emergence. The explanation of the social norms at the foundation of the global governance of ozone depletion and climate change developed through the course of this book is crucial because it also provides significant insights into the process and outcomes of governance activities. It is impossible to fully understand the politics of ozone depletion and climate change without

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understanding the influence of universal participation. Participation requirements defined these issues, determining the structure, substance, and participant strategies in the last two decades. Participation norms played a crucial role in structuring what was taken for granted and what was debated in the governance of ozone depletion and climate change. While the North-only participation norm was in force, development was not a crucial topic of debate, and all states took for granted that Northern states should devise solutions to the problem. After Tolba catalyzed instability in the North-only norm and the emergence of universal participation, ozone depletion came to have significant North-South dimensions. Similarly, in climate change it was taken for granted that all states should be at the negotiating table and that North-South issues would be prominent. Some of the most contentious debates were over development issues important to the South. In the post-FCCC negotiations, universal participation still influenced the debates by making it obvious that Southern states and their issues would be prominent, and the debate shifted to how states should participate. Participation norms had a similar influence on U.S. strategy and behavior. At each stage in the governance of ozone depletion and climate change, the notion of an appropriate global response shaped U.S. strategy—both when the United States desired to be proactive on an issue and when it proved recalcitrant. Because the transitions felt “natural” and universal participation appears to be obvious for these problems, norms-based arguments like the one developed in this volume are too often dismissed as unnecessary. However, beyond the evidence compiled to this point it is useful to ponder two additional concerns. First, consider, for a moment, the obvious counterfactual for the ozone depletion and climate change cases. What would have happened if climate change had come first? Would the global governance of these issues have proceeded differently? If climate change arose to prominence in the mid-1970s it is doubtful that more than one hundred nations would have attended the first negotiating session. In the 1970s and early 1980s there was no context for thinking universally. The characteristics of the problem would have been viewed through lenses that constrained perceptions to national or regional levels of participation—just as happened with ozone depletion. It is the lenses through which problems are viewed that are the key determinant in how a problem is defined and addressed. Climate change was defined as a universal problem precisely because the lenses developed in ozone depletion only allowed actors to see climate change as universal. If the climate change problem came first, would the lenses developed have been different? It is hard to say. Climate change might have proceeded

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as ozone depletion did, North-only first, and then a transition to universal. However, given the U.S. reluctance to address climate change, things might have turned out very differently, and I doubt that development assistance principles would have been so prominent had the world confronted climate change before tackling ozone depletion. The point is that so much of what we know about how the governance of climate change proceeded is dependent upon the social norms of participation at the foundation of these activities—they fundamentally constrain and enable the governance of environmental problems. Second, consider that what everyone knows about climate change— the universality of the problem and the need for a universal global response—may be in the process of changing significantly. To this point, universal participation and contestation over it has defined the governance of climate change, but the robustness and stability of this norm has been called into significant question since 2001. Is universal participation truly locked in or is it eroding? Most states came out of the ozone depletion negotiations not only understanding the need for universal participation, but also accepting a system of two-track responsibilities—the North would go first and the South would follow. In the FCCC negotiations, we saw the United States attack the two-track understanding and push for common but differentiated responsibility with binding measures for both Northern and Southern states. Because there were few serious binding commitments in the FCCC, this issue was not yet all that contentious. In the post-FCCC negotiations that led to the Kyoto Protocol and more stridently since the inauguration of the second Bush administration, however, the commitments of the South became a larger issue. The United States began to advocate for a different interpretation of universal participation through both rhetorical and material means, eventually exiting from the Kyoto process altogether. Will the North-first variant of universal participation norm erode through U.S. actions? Will universal participation itself dissolve? The North-first notion of a global response has shown an amazing resilience to the hegemonic challenge—most other states still resist the U.S. suggestion. However, the shift in U.S. climate change positions in 2001–2002 does signal that participation requirements may not remain locked in to the North-first version of universal participation and perhaps universal participation itself is in danger of dissolution. Is the United States a critical mass by itself, able to alter the social context to such a degree that the universal participation norm erodes? That is difficult to say at this time. What is clear, though, is that the norm life cycle/CAS framework and the Pick a Number model demonstrated how the world moved from a North-only rule to a universal participation rule, as well as how universal participation has evolved and may eventually erode. By explaining how the United

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States and the international community arrived at the “obvious” definition of climate change as a problem requiring universal participation and how this definition continues to evolve, the norm life cycle/CAS framework provides the necessary tools for understanding how an obvious understanding may change.

Approaching Global Governance This study demonstrated the efficacy of approaching global governance through a combination of constructivism and complexity theory. The global governance of environmental issues has received significant scrutiny from multiple perspectives.6 Peter Haas argues that in environmental issues “the evolution of global governance has been driven by combinations of scientific understanding, international institutional guidance, market forces, national leadership, and mass concern.”7 He and others have identified numerous factors that are important in the rule construction process. This project focused on theorizing the processes of global governance that bring such factors together.8 I began with a notion of global governance similar to Rosenau’s notion of governance as the steering mechanism of the international system: The evolution of intersubjective consensus based on shared fates and common histories, the possession of information and knowledge, the pressure of active or mobilizable publics and/or the use of careful planning, good timing, clever manipulation, and hard bargaining—either separately or in combination—foster control mechanisms that sustain governance without government.9 The ozone depletion and climate change cases point to the importance of the construction of a context of shared understandings in shaping the way that control mechanisms are created—the way that intersubjective understandings give meaning to and constrain information, knowledge, pressure, planning, timing, manipulation, and bargaining. The cases established that the dynamic process of the NLC/CAS produced intersubjective consensus and fostered its evolution, shaped the meaning of scientific knowledge, and influenced the bargaining that promotes governance without government. Specifically, this project demonstrated the importance and utility of unpacking the meaning of a global response. The manner in which the governance of global issues proceeds is heavily influenced by what understanding the actors have of global. Further, a common understanding of what the global response entails may be a prerequisite for successful governance outcomes. Consider the key governance outcomes in the ozone depletion and climate change:

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• The Montreal Protocol • The London Amendments • The Framework Convention on Climate Change • The Kyoto Protocol In each case, these outcomes were forged upon a foundation of intersubjective agreement—states knew what a global response entailed. For most of the Montreal Protocol process, all states knew that North-only participation was appropriate. For the London Amendments and the FCCC, states knew that universal participation was appropriate. For the Kyoto Protocol, the North-first variant of universal participation structured the governance process. However, consider also that the times of greatest debate—the period between Montreal and London and the post-Kyoto period—also correspond with the transitions in intersubjective understandings. They represent the time when a stable norm governing the global response was not in force. In 1988–1990, universal participation was in the process of becoming the dominant notion of an appropriate global response. Post-1997, norm contestation between universal commitment and North-first shook the stability of universal participation in fundamental ways. The implication is that global governance may require intersubjective understanding of how to respond to a problem. Constructivist/complex adaptive analysis of the evolution of these foundational norms (in both stable and unstable periods) thus provides significant insight into what was taken for granted and what was debated during the governance of ozone depletion and climate change. Approaching global governance with a macro process of norm emergence (the NLC) and a micro process of actor adaptation (CAS) provides insights into the foundations of governance as well as the process and outcomes of governance. To go farther, the process and outcomes of governance cannot be fully understood unless one grasps the underlying social norm dynamics that constrain and give meaning to the process of global governance. In addition to a new theoretical approach to global governance, this study provided a glimpse at a potentially useful methodological approach to global governance—one that combines analytical, formal, and (qualitative in this case) empirical analysis. The analysis of the foundations of global governance of ozone depletion and climate change began with a verbal model of norm dynamics. This explicit verbal model provided a candidate explanation for the observed transitions in participation requirements hypothesized to exert significant influence over the governance of ozone depletion and climate change. By combining the NLC with the insights of complexity theory, I was able to forge a potential explanation and derive empirical expectations and

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hypotheses. Before going to the empirical record, however, the second stage of analysis called for a formal assessment of the verbal model and candidate explanation. The Pick a Number model was explicitly designed to represent the NLC, and the simulation exercises fulfilled two goals. The first was to assess the plausibility of the norm life cycle. The constructivist argument relied on the norm life cycle to explain the emergence and evolution of universal participation. The modeling exercises established that the dynamics and processes inherent in the norm life cycle, as configured, could in principle produce phenomena recognizable as norm emergence and evolution. The modeling results confirmed that the norm life cycle/CAS framework does provide a plausible candidate explanation for the observed norm dynamics. Beyond establishing the plausibility of the norm life cycle’s explanation for norm emergence, the second goal of the modeling exercises was to begin sketching the boundary conditions for the norm life cycle/CAS framework in preparation for empirical analysis. I wanted to know not just if the norm life cycle dynamics produce norm emergence and change, but under what conditions norm entrepreneurs are able to catalyze these phenomena. The results pointed to important factors to consider empirically—the reach of the norm entrepreneur, and the social complexity of the context facing the agents. Thus, the model provided additional empirical expectations and hypotheses to be tested in the case study analysis. The direct test of the verbal model was the case studies presented in chapters 5–7. The norm life cycle/CAS framework, enhanced by the modeling exercises, structured the case study analysis. The framework provided empirical expectations and a process to trace empirically. The evidence available in the empirical record demonstrated the appropriateness of this framework for explaining the rise and influence of universal participation. Given the results of this study, let me plead for methodological eclecticism. We should not be thinking either formal analysis or case studies. Instead, the formal analysis enhances the empirical analysis, and in turn the empirical analysis should inform further modeling efforts. Combining the insights garnered with both methods provides the best analysis. Solid analysis of global governance entails a recursive process of theorizing, modeling, and empirical investigation. This book reports my efforts at moving from theory (NLC/CAS framework) to a simple model (Pick a Number) to an empirical analysis of the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations. Each stage in the analysis produced insights into the global governance of ozone depletion and climate change, but the integration of multiple methods provided a much fuller picture than any of the stages could have independently.

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EXTENSIONS AND APPLICABILITY This study is neither a panacea for all of the problems that plague the study of global governance, nor (more positively) are the insights and approach restricted to the cases of ozone depletion and climate change. Let me briefly discuss some caveats before turning to questions of general applicability. First, this study uses the insights of complex adaptation extensively and although approaching global governance through the lenses of complex adaptive systems was fruitful, the analysis was truncated in multiple ways. The NLC/CAS framework is a simple structure, but it requires thick, detailed, empirical analysis for testing. Because connections between interacting agents, who are themselves composed of interacting agents, drive the emergence of structures and outcomes, studying these relationships empirically is no trivial task. In this book, I bracketed much of the complex system I was studying in order to keep the task to a manageable size. A full investigation of the emergence of the universal participation norm would require that I explore multiple states as agents, and further explore each of those states as complex systems as well. Similarly, I bracketed many additional factors that influenced the governance of ozone depletion and climate change. The global response to these problems is in some ways massively overdetermined. Scientific knowledge, domestic politics, NGO actions, individual actions, economic pressures, and more all played a role in defining the global governance of ozone depletion and climate change. The claim here is that social norms of participation fundamentally influenced much of how these other factors played out. The claim is not that participation norms are enough to explain the entirety of the governance process. Second, moving from a verbal framework to a simple computational model was merely the first step in the recursive process described above. Further steps (not taken in this study) entail using the results of the empirical analysis to inform theory building (on norm contestation and slippage) and further modeling efforts. Especially important are efforts at adding nuance to the Pick a Number model in order to make it even more representative of the norm life cycle process. Chapter 4 listed a number of social characteristics missing from the Pick a Number model. The next step is to begin incorporating those characteristics and improve both the modeling and empirical analysis of norms and global environmental governance activities. These caveats notwithstanding, this analysis is applicable to multiple issues—environmental or otherwise. The process of constructing a “global” response is important in the study of global governance precisely because global can have a variety of meanings.10 There are many “global” issues that do not require universal participation in the efforts

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toward solving or managing them. Monetary issues are certainly global in scope, but they are not universal issues—a small group of states deals with them. Similarly, poverty finds its causes and effects throughout the world, but this global problem has never “required” concerted universal action. The scope of a problem does not determine the political response. Instead, political responses are always steeped in historical context. Understanding how actors come to hold a common understanding of a problem or issue through interaction and mutual constitution is a crucial first step in understanding/explaining the process of rule construction at the heart of global governance.

CONCLUSION To conclude, it is crucial to clearly differentiate between what this book claims and what it does not. First, I do not claim that eventually solving climate change and other global environmental problems can be accomplished with less than universal participation. Obviously, both ozone depletion and climate change are problems with global extent that emerge from diverse and numerous activities. Solving climate change, especially, will likely require participation at multiple levels (international, regional, transnational, national, and local) and perhaps it will require profound changes in economic, cultural, and political systems. Second, I do not claim that it would have been better if universal participation did not come to define ozone depletion and climate change. It would have been different. Without an initial understanding of universal participation, the climate change negotiations would have been less equitable and sensitive to development concerns. On the other hand, perhaps the negotiations would have been easier in their initial stages and avoided some of the contestation that arose after the FCCC. It is impossible to say if a less than universal participation requirement would have made the governance outcomes for climate change better. There would have been different strategies and different negotiating structures. Personally, I am in favor of universal negotiations, aware that they have drawbacks, and hopeful (yet doubtful) that they will be part of the solution for the climate change problem. Regardless of whether or not universal participation was a good or bad development, I do claim that universal participation was not inevitable. Notions of what is required to respond to global problems are not determined by the inherent characteristics of the problems, rather, such notions are socially constructed. There are numerous problems that might actually need universal participation to solve them—poverty, arms control, terrorism—but are not defined as requiring universal participation. In addition, some of the characteristics of climate change made it

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plausible to start with smaller negotiations, as happened in the ozone depletion negotiations. The existence of a small number of large contributors, the complexity of the problem, the long time scales involved, and the uncertainty surrounding the problem all make initial, less than universal negotiations plausible. Ironically, however, I also claim that universal participation was inevitable, at least for climate change. Possible and impossible understandings of the climate change problem are bounded by social structures. Climate change was defined and intersubjectively understood to require universal participation from the very beginning. This understanding made it impossible to define climate change in any other way, and it influenced the very course and destiny of the international community’s efforts to address climate change. Finally, though universal participation was socially constructed to be obvious, that obviousness can be transient. Obvious understandings are socially constructed and social construction is a continuous process. Obvious understandings change. We need to understand how obvious understandings emerge and change in order to understand how global problems will be dealt with and if we hope to solve them. In the very end, I return to the notion of becoming. Global environmental politics is not unfolding in a mechanistic, linear fashion. Instead, global environmental politics is evolving as new understandings arise and erode, as accepted actions change over time, and as the international community gains experience addressing a multitude of problems that face humanity. Explaining and understanding the details and outcomes of global environmental governance requires a thorough understanding of the processes of social construction and adaptation. These processes have driven the course of global environmental politics in the past and will continue to drive it in the future. These processes will determine how global environmental governance unfolds in a complex, dynamic fashion.

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Notes CHAPTER 1. PARTICIPATION MATTERS 1. Throughout this volume I use North to designate the industrialized world and South to designate the industrializing world. 2. In this volume, I am explicitly looking at state participation. Of course, other actors play an enormous role in the governance of these issues as well. The role of NGOs and MNCs, as well as U.S. domestic politics is discussed in detail in chapters 5–7. See Auer 2000 for an in-depth analysis of state and non-state participation in global environmental governance. 3. In this book “complexity theory” and “the study of complex systems” are used interchangeably. 4. Weiss 2000, 806. 5. Smoots 1998, 81. 6. See Murphy 2000; and Weiss 2000. 7. See Ba and Hoffmann 2005; Keohane 2002; Prakash and Hart 1999 for different perspectives on GG. The notion of the form and process of GG is further developed in Hoffmann and Ba 2005. 8. Conceiving rules broadly means that patterns, institutions, norms, etc. could all be considered rules. In addition, the definition specifies political spaces that lack central authority, because rule making in political spaces with central authority would be government not governance. 9. In this way, this study is akin to Bernstein’s (2001) study that traces the development of liberal environmentalism, showing how ideas shape global environmental governance. 10. Hollis and Smith 1990 argue for a strict dichotomy between understanding and explaining, but I hold that it is impossible to explain without understanding.

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11. See Rosenau 1997b, ch. 8; Rosenau and Czempiel 1992; and Hewson and Sinclair 1999. 12. For accessible introductions to complexity theory see Waldrop 1992; and Holland 1995. 13. Obviously, norms of participation are not the only norms that shape the contours of the multilateral negotiations for ozone depletion and climate change. Others have investigated liberal norms and norms of sustainability. See Bernstein 2001; Harrison 2000a. 14. Both of these implications are discussed at great length in chapters 5–7. 15. The accounts discussed briefly in this section are elaborated upon in chapters 5–7. 16. See Betsill and Pielke 1998; Downie 1995b. 17. Part of the evidence for this lock-in is the conflicts that arise over the labeling of environmental problems. For example in the desertification problem, the South, especially Africa, pushes a “global” definition as this would thus require universal participation and bring the North into the negotiations. Northern states, predictably, argue that it is not a global problem. See Porter and Brown 1996. 18. When discussing ozone depletion it is important to point out that the ozone molecules of interest are in the stratosphere. This is the “good” ozone. The noxious ozone at lower atmospheric levels (i.e., ozone alert days) is a major component of smog. 19. See: Benedick 1991; Rowlands 1995; Porter and Brown 1996; and Litfin 1994. 20. Rowlands 1995, 55. 21. Benedick 1991, 14. 22. Rowlands 1995, 56–57. 23. UNEP 1979a. 24. Rowlands 1995, 49–50. 25. Benedick 1990, 118. 26. See UNEP 1986e; 1987a; 1987b. 27. See UNEP 1987c; 1990. 28. Rathgens 1991, 155. 29. Rowlands 1995, 66. 30. Ibid., 71. 31. IPCC 1990, xi. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., xii. 34. Porter and Brown 1996, 94. 35. See UNGA 1991a; 1991b; 1991c; 1991d. 36. Price 1997. 37. Author’s interview with Paul Horwitz (Former Policy Analyst for UNEP’s Ozone Secretariat, International Advisor, EPA Global Change Division). 38. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998. 39. Chapter 2 systematically assesses alternative explanations drawn from international relations theory. Those less interested in the theoretical contours of international relations can skim this chapter without losing the thrust of the argument.

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CHAPTER 2. ALTERNATIVE STORIES 1. See Young 1997; 1994; Barkin and DeSombre 2000. 2. Downs et al.1997. 3. Downs et al. 1997; 1998. 4. Young and Demko 1996, 232. 5. Haas 1993, 174. 6. Author interview with Fredrick Bernthal, former Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) 1988–90, Chair, IPCC Working Group II, 1988–91. 7. UNGA 1991b, 89–90. 8. U.S. Senate 1992, 120. 9. UNGA 1991c. 10. See Olsen 1968 for the analysis that initiated this important line of research. 11. Oye, 1986; Russet and Sullivan 1971; and Sebenius 1983. 12. Kahler 1993, 296. 13. This is not to say that the neoliberals are correct in their analyses. Kahler 1993 concludes that other obstacles are more important than those presented by large number of parties. 14. Downs et al. 1997, 2. 15. Ibid. 16. Haas 1993, 241. 17. Sebenius 1991. 18. Ibid. 19. Sebenius 1993, 198. 20. This statement ignores the normative aspect of universal participation— the equity issues involved in universal participation. I develop this argument further in later chapters. 21. Zürn 1998, 627. 22. This is nearly ubiquitously recognized. One prediction is that fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions from OECD countries will fall to 37 percent of the global total by 2005. See Barrett 1992, 16. Of course, this observation discounts the historical responsibility of Northern states. 23. Rowlands 1995, 188. 24. Young 1994, 39. 25. Litfin 1994. 26. U.S. House of Representatives 1990b, 31. 27. For an argument along these lines specifically regarding climate change see Demeritt 2002. 28. Uncertainty in the science of global change makes the lenses and interpretations even more important in the ozone depletion and climate change cases. 29. Meyer et al. 1997, 627–28. 30. Haas 1991, 224. 31. Rowlands 1995, 190. 32. Author interviews with Daniel Reifsnyder (Director, Office of Global Change, OES Bureau, U.S. State Department) and William Nitze (Former Deputy

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Assistant Secretary of State for Environment, Health and Natural Resources and former Assistant Administrator for International Activities, U.S. EPA). 33. Annex I countries are Northern states 34. Author interview with Nitze. 35. See Gilpin 1981; Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990; Ikenberry 2001. 36. See Brooks and Wohlforth 2002. 37. The EU as a block produced more, but the United States was the largest single-state producer. See Tolba 1998, 63–64. 38. See Brown 1990, 24; 1997, 11. 39. Author interview with Stephen Seidel (Senior Policy Analyst, EPA Air Office). 40. The United States pledged $150 million to aid Southern states with their commitments in the FCCC and funded Southern states in the FCCC at a commensurate level with the requirements. 41. With a few notable divergences discussed in chapter 5. 42. This is not to say that universal participation has not been used strategically—it has. Indeed, the U.S. justification for recent (since 2001) activities (or nonactivities) in the climate change negotiations is founded upon the need for universal participation. The idea of universal participation has been used to shape U.S. strategy. 43. An argument could be made that those against significant action were tacticians, and those for significant actions were not, but this assertion about differences in the motivations and reasoning skills/methods of people within the U.S. executive branch does not seem plausible. 44. I return to this argument in chapter 6 and present the empirical evidence in detail. 45. I am not claiming that our understanding of climate change has not improved, rather, the aspect of climate relevant to participation—the scope of the problem—has not changed. 46. Price 1997.

CHAPTER 3. THE VERBAL MODEL 1. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998. 2. See Ruggie 1998; Wendt 1999; Adler 1997; Checkel 1998. 3. I do not make an attempt to delineate multiple strains of social constructivism—see Adler 1997; Guzzini 2000—nor do I attempt to fully capture all intraconstructivist debate—see Checkel 1998; 2001; Sending 2002. 4. Crawford and Ostrom 1995. 5. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 891. 6. These characteristics are drawn from a wide reading of norms literature from rationalist and constructivist viewpoints (see e.g., Ensminger and Knight 1997; Ostrom 2000; Bicchieri et al. 1997; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Katzenstein 1996; Kratochwil 1989; Nadelman 1990). 7. This is well known in nonconstructivist approaches as well. See especially Epstein 2000. 8. See Kratochwil 1989; Katzenstein 1996; Finnemore 1996a.

Notes to Chapter 3 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

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Adler 1997, 322. Popper denoted this World Three. See Popper 1982. Yee 1996, as quoted in Adler 1997, 327. See Kratochwil 1989, 25–28. The term logic of appropriateness originated with March and Olsen

1989. 14. For elaboration on this see Checkel 2001; Guzzini 2000; Sending 2002. 15. March and Olsen 1989, 22. 16. Checkel 1998; 2001; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; Guzzini 2000. 17. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 901. This is not to say that norms cannot survive deviation. 18. See e.g., Cederman 1997; 2003; Bak and Chen 1991; Brunk 2001; 2002; Hoffmann 2003a. 19. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 902. 20. Ibid., 904. 21. Ibid., 897. 22. Manicas 1997, 11. 23. Checkel 1998, 342. 24. Johnston 1999, 11. See also Johnston 2001. 25. Rosenau 1990. 26. See e.g., Nadelman 1990; Young 1991; 1999; Moravcsik 1999a; 1999b; Lustick 1993; Schneider and Teske 1992; Bianco and Bates 1990. 27. They discuss possible motivations (i.e., empathy, altruism) and external forces (i.e., socialization) but they do not address processes within the agents being persuaded or socialized. 28. Sending 2002, 445. 29. See Johnston 2001; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; Checkel 2001; Bernstein 2001. 30. For interesting arguments on the need for political science to move beyond Newtonian models see Gaddis 1996; Bernstein et al. 2000; and Hoffmann and Riley 2002. 31. This section is designed to briefly introduce complexity theory in order to use aspects of it in building an analytical framework—it is not a comprehensive exposition on this vast subject. 32. Holland 1992, 17. 33. Simple here is used in comparison to the more complex aggregations. For instance, the behavior of a firm (an agent in the economy) is less complex than the behavior of the economy as a whole, even though the firm is itself a complex agent. 34. Holland 1992; 1995 discusses this concept. 35. Holland 1995; Mitchell 1996; Nadel and Stein 1991; 1992; 1993; 1995; Cowan, Pines, and Meltzer 1994; and Epstein and Axtell 1996. For political science applications see Axelrod1997; Jervis 1997; and Cederman 1997; 2003. 36. The aggregated results of agent actions in a complex system are “emergent” properties—characteristics that are irreducible to the sum of independent agent actions.

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37. See Holland 1995 and Gell-Mann 1994a. Schema is a familiar term in political science—see Khong 1992—but it is used slightly differently here. Holland’s and Gell-Mann’s formulations are reminiscent of and compatible to similar ideas drawn from psychology: knowledge structures, etc. See Piaget 1971; 1977; Minsky 1985; and Schank and Abelson 1977. 38. Emergence is an oft-debated and imprecise concept. For an introduction to emergence and emergent processes, see Holland 1998. 39. Applications differ on how much of an agent’s internal rule model is hardwired. 40. Agents are not always or even usually treated as unitary. When dealing with meta-agents (agents composed of other agents) Subagents within the agent do evaluation. 41. The evaluation stage of complex adaptation is crucial. At this stage, agents alter their rule models, which is key for understanding how ideas become an ingrained part of internal rule models. In addition, however, this stage adds variation in a population of agents, because different agents may have different evaluation processes, and different criteria for fitness. 42. Arthur 1994b, 406. Arthur cites: Schank and Abelson 1977; Rumelhart 1980; Bower and Hilgard 1981; and Holland, Holyoak, Nesbitt, and Thagard 1986 as works from psychology supporting the inductive view of human reasoning. 43. Gell-Mann 1994a, 18–19. 44. March and Olsen 1984, 745. 45. Gell-Mann 1994a, 18–19. 46. In computer modeling, the initial composition of the internal rule models is obviously initialized with specific rules, but they can and, in most modeling examples, do change over time as the agent learns about her environment. 47. New rules can come from outside the agent via mimicry, persuasion, coercion, or suggestion. Alternatively, they can come from inside the agent via trial and error or through mutation, a genetics metaphor complexity theorists sometimes use. 48. Kauffman 1995, 27. 49. Rosenau 1981, 7. 50. This can take place explicitly or implicitly. With explicit evaluation an agent takes stock of outcomes and alters/reifies her rules. Implicit evaluation often takes place at the population level with a natural selection mechanism/metaphor. Agents’ reproduction is based on how well they did in previous rounds and the rule model distribution in the population evolves over time. 51. Bernstein 2001 discusses the manner in which new norms fit with existing social structures as a possible mechanism for “selection.” This is a complementary viewpoint to complexity theory, but the problem still remains as to how the evaluation of normative fit takes place. 52. Betz et al. 1996, 115. 53. Dieter-Opp 1982, 144. 54. Holland 1995, 53–57. 55. Thinking of politics in adaptive terms is not a new endeavor. See Rosenau 1981. 56. See Klotz 1995a; Finnemore 1996a; 2003; Bernstein 2001; Price 1997. 57. Stein 1989, xiii–xiv.

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58. Arthur 1994a; and Pierson 2000. 59. There is also a strong relationship between coevolution and path dependence. Coevolution and initial conditions lead to path dependency. The classic example is the QWERTY keyboard. Initially, for mechanical reasons the QWERTY keyboard was developed. Typists and typewriter manufacturers coevolved with this new technology and technique until all other types of keyboards became “extinct.” Now the QWERTY keyboard is the only path left—even though it is not necessarily the most efficient way to set up a keyboard. There is no way, by just looking at the keyboard, to determine why it is the way it is. The initial conditions, coevolution, and path dependency are too important. 60. Giddens 1984, 27. 61. Price 1997, 7–8. 62. Arthur 1994a, 27. 63. Giddens 1984, chapter 5. 64. For cogent analyses of the construction of “natural” taboos on chemical and nuclear weapons see Price 1997; and Price and Tannenwald 1996. 65. Holland 1992. 66. Page 1999, 5. 67. Rosenau 1995; 1997b; Hoffmann 2003b; 2003c. 68. Cohen 1989, 30. 69. This is not to imply that all agents are equally able to construct world politics. Power is obviously an enormous factor in the construction of world politics. U.S. actions often have a greater impact on structures than do actions of other states. See Hoffmann 2003c. 70. Holland 1992, 18. 71. Weldes 1996, 281. 72. Ibid., 281. 73. Manicas 1997, 11. 74. Giddens 1984, 5. 75. Cohen 1989, 46. 76. Sandholtz 1998, 8. 77. This dual reality also fits well with the sociology of knowledge strain of thought that preceded constructivism. In it, Berger and Luckmann make clear that social facts are real and external to agents. They posit that “the reality of everyday life appears already objectified, that is constituted by an order of objects that have been designated as objects before my appearance on the scene.” However, this world is dependent upon human action that results from and is directed by the internalization of the objective social order that the action itself creates and sustains. See Berger and Luckmann 1966, 21–22, 60–61. 78. On internal rules models see Holland 1995; Gell-Mann 1994a. On schema see Khong 1992; Piaget 1971; Schank and Abelson 1977. 79. Holland 1995, 34–37. 80. Ibid. 81. Giddens 1984, 22. 82. See Bernstein 2001; Florini 1996. 83. Ullmann-Margalit 1977, 8. 84. I am not claiming that ontologically primitive agents stand outside themselves picking interests—the agents are always in the process of figuring out

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what is appropriate and this process is constrained and constituted by the agent’s past experiences. The constitution of agent interests is never completed but this does not have to imply that agents lack the ability to reflect on themselves and their social environment. 85. Risse 2000; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; Checkel 2001; Johnston 2001. 86. Bernstein 2002, 208. 87. Because this framework is to be used to investigate a specific question, I do not discuss all the various ways that a CAS perspective could inform constructivist analysis. Instead, I concentrate on norm emergence and the initial influence that the spread of the universal participation requirement had on the climate change negotiations. 88. Kratochwil 1989, 61. 89. Holland 1995, 53–56. 90. Ibid. 91. Of course, external evaluation and persuasion, socialization, and coercion take place as well. 92. In the cases at hand, persuasion is the most prevalent mechanism. For more on persuasion see Johnston 2001; and Risse 2000. 93. It is possible to encounter infinite regress with this analysis. The United States is an agent with rule models, but it is also a structure for other agents acting within it. Those other agents have rule models that cause their behavior (evaluating U.S. actions) and alter their structure (U.S. rule models). In the analysis of the ozone depletion and climate change cases, I limit the regress and merely focus on the evaluations that come from various groups in the United States. 94. CAS perspectives consider that agents have both active and latent rules in their rule models.

CHAPTER 4. MODELING THE NORM LIFE CYCLE 1. Joshua Epstein argues that to have a candidate explanation for a phenomena, one must show that it is possible to grow the phenomena given the assumptions present in the argument. See Epstein 1999. 2. See e.g., Schelling 1978; Axelrod 1997; Arthur 1994a; Cederman 1997; 2003; Epstein and Axtell 1996; Lustick 2000. 3. Epstein and Axtell 1996, 4, emphasis in original. 4. At least those interested in being “scientific.” See Wendt 1998. 5. Kollman, Miller, and Page 1997, 465. See also Arthur 1994b. 6. Arthur, Durlauf, and Lane 1997, 5. 7. Ibid., 5. 8. Axelrod 1997, 3–4. 9. This is not the only position in this debate—some constructivists are concerned about the overemphasis on structure in constructivist approaches. See Sending 2002, Checkel 1998. 10. Guzzini 2000, 150. 11. Checkel 2001, 561. 12. Guzzini 2000, 164.

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13. Guzzini 2000; Checkel 2001. 14. The differences between methodological individualism and an intersubjective ontology may have been overstated. Kenneth Arrow claims that even in economic models (the most strict of the methodological individualist projects), “individual behavior is always mediated by social relations” (1994, 5). One change in this sentence would make it amenable to constructivists—the verb mediated would need to be changed to constituted. Granted, this is an important difference, but perhaps the perspectives are not as far apart as conventionally considered. 15. Checkel 2001, 559; Guzzini 2000, 169. 16. ABM can be employed in numerous ways. Some try and mimic actual social systems in their simulations—the agents would then represent actual states, organizations, or people. Others use the models in a much more abstract way, in the hopes of discerning fundamental features of social systems. The agents thus do not represent actual political actors, but are abstractions like the players in game theoretic models. 17. Moravcsik 1999a; 1999b; Young 1999. 18. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999; Bianco and Bates 1990; Frohlich, Oppenheimer, and Young 1971. 19. This model was written in C⫹⫹, using Microsoft Visual Studio. The computer code for the model is available upon request from the author. 20. The average prediction is a way to aggregate individual actions into population outcomes. There are other ways (voting schemes) and I am currently investigating a number of them. 21. Any of these rules could be a norm. The rule-based behavior is modeled after Arthur’s heuristic style of agent-based modeling (1994b). 22. Having a universe of seven rules and endowing the agents with only three of them was done to keep the model very simple. This can be easily altered to explore more complex situations. 23. In the case of a tie for the highest score, the agent randomly chooses one—she flips a coin. 24. I have experimented extensively with this variable and altering it had negligible effects on the results. In the simulations presented below, the interval ranges from ten to twenty rounds. 25. Societal punishment for breaking a norm—sanctions, see Axelrod 1997; Elster 1989. 26. Some coordination studies are moving toward constructivist analysis as the importance of shared “mental models” (intersubjective understandings) for picking among multiple equilibria is being recognized. See Richards 2001. 27. The noise added or subtracted from the average prediction is a random draw from a uniform distribution bounded by 0 and the specified maximum noise level. When the noise is reported as 5 percent, a number between 0 and 5 has been added or subtracted to the average prediction. 28. Keck and Sikkink 1998. 29. As this model was explicitly designed with international norms in mind, there is less emphasis on direct agent-agent interaction. 30. In a set of thirty simulation runs, the agents coalesced around rule 4 in twenty-six runs, they coalesced around rule 5 in two runs, and did not stabilize within one thousand rounds in two runs.

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31. There may be synergy here. One reason an idea may be intrinsically attractive is the lack of social complexity surrounding the idea. 32. While any of the rules can rise to normative status, rule 4 (the natural norm) is the most prevalent because in some runs, the system reaches stability before the norm entrepreneur makes a suggestion in round 50. In a set of thirty runs, the agents coalesced around each rule, except for rule 6: rule 1 (four runs), rule 2 (two runs), rule 3 (four runs), rule 4 (eleven runs), rule 5 (seven runs), rule 7 (two runs). 33. Arthur 1994a. 34. David 1985. 35. Arthur 1994b. 36. Ikenberry and Kupchan 1990; Ikenberry 2001. 37. Ruggie 1993; Ikenberry 2001. 38. Finnemore 1996b. 39. Wapner 1996. 40. Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999. 41. Klotz 1995a. 42. Price 1997. 43. Finnemore 1996b. 44. Numerous other sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the parameter sensitivity of the model along a number of dimensions. The reach analysis is the most relevant for the analysis of norm emergence and evolution in the ozone depletion and climate change negotiations. 45. Defining norms as 70 percent same rule-usage was arbitrary. However, I conducted similar analysis with norm thresholds at 80 percent and 90 percent and saw negligible qualitative difference. In cases of norms that last a significant number of rounds (10⫹), generally the entire population of agents adopts the norm. 46. Axelrod 1997. 47. Bernstein 2001; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998. 48. Another sensitivity analysis performed on this model explored the role of varied population sizes and varied number of available rules. The results are akin to those obtained by altering the noise. When the population size increases, while the number of available rules stays constant, the social complexity, in effect, is lowered. It is easier for the population to find the natural norm. When the number of rules is increased as well, the social complexity increases. 49. Pierson 2000. 50. I freely substitute normative political context and political context for structure and international political context. 51. The articles were culled from the Dow-Jones Interactive Database and Lexis-Nexis. 52. Finnemore 1996b, 22. 53. Dessler 1989, 462.

CHAPTER 5. OZONE DEPLETION 1. See Haas 1992; Rowlands 1995; Litfin 1994; Parson 1993; and Hampson 1995.

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2. James Rosenau coined the categories sovereignty free and sovereignty bound in an attempt to move beyond state-centric thinking. See Rosenau 1990. 3. UNEP 1979a. 4. International Environment Reporter 1986e, 331. 5. Obviously, this is a simplification—the rule model that the United States was using at this time was not somehow natural or static, rather, it is a snapshot of an evolving rule model. 6. Article 8 in Vienna Convention, reprinted in Benedick 1991, 218–29. 7. Figures derived from Benedick 1991, 265–69. 8. Ibid. 9. The work of the CCOL and the reports from its numerous meetings can be found at http://www.unep.org/ozone. 10. The full name of the ad hoc committee was: The Ad Hoc Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts for the Preparation of the Protocol on Chlorofluorocarbons to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. For reports on these committee meetings, see UNEP 1986e; UNEP 1987a; and UNEP 1987b. 11. The eighth meeting of the CCOL was split into two parts. The first met in February 1986 and had three Southern attendees. The second met in November of 1986 and had no Southern attendees. See UNEP 1986a; 1986c. In two CCOL-sponsored workshops Southern states accounted for seven out of twentythree and eight out of twenty-six attendees. See UNEP 1986b; UNEP 1986d. 12. See Sims 1996, 201–14. 13. Author interview with Stephen Seidel. The Toronto Group consisted of the United States, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries. 14. Author interview with Paul Horwitz 15. Rajan 1997, 59. 16. Tolba 1998, 63–64; Rowlands 1995, 165. 17. Rowlands 1995, 165. 18. Benedick 1991 highlights the potential of the South, but curiously, he only notes it as an issue after the Montreal negotiations. 19. Rowlands 1995, 165. 20. Author interview with Allan Miller (National Resource Defense Council, Global Environment Fund). 21. Text of Vienna Convention, Preamble and Article 4—reprinted in Benedick 1991, 218–29. 22. Parson 1993. 23. Hampson 1995. 24. Miller 1995, 73. 25. See Downie 1995a; and UNEP 1979b for a history of UNEP. See also, Bernstein 2001, 56–57. 26. UNEP 1979b, 9. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 8. 29. Miller 1995, 73. 30. Author interview with Paul Horwitz. 31. Downie 1995a, 173–74. 32. Ibid., 180.

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33. Sims highlights the misgivings the South had about the possibility that the ozone problem would be globalized by the North and would adversely affect the South. See Sims 1996, 201–14. 34. See Harrison 2000b, for more on the development of U.S. foreign policy toward ozone depletion and climate change in the 1970s. 35. Benedick 1991, 42–43. 36. In this case, universal participation fit with the U.S. government’s goal of competitiveness and U.S. corporations’ goal of a level regulatory playing field. 37. The San Francisco Chronicle, 2 July 1986, g4. 38. Environment Reporter 1986, 2134; International Environment Reporter 1986a; International Environment Reporter 1986d, 286. 39. See Parson 1993, 41; International Environment Reporter 1986f, 346–48. 40. International Environment Reporter 1986f, 346. 41. The ozone hole crisis lowered the social complexity surrounding the decision to address ozone depletion—the possible actions narrowed down to one—significant action was seen as the only appropriate response. However, the crisis did not alter the U.S. notions of participation. 42. See U.S. House of Representatives 1987, 119–30 for the Circular 175 document authorizing the United States to negotiate an ozone protocol. See also The Wall Street Journal, 6 November 1986. 43. As quoted in The Washington Post, 30 November 1986, a4. 44. Ibid. 45. International Environment Reporter 1986f, 348. 46. Early EU positions are evident in a draft protocol it submitted to UNEP for the December 1986 Geneva negotiating session. See UNEP 1986f. 47. It should be noted, however, that throughout the negotiations both antagonists were proposing actions that they had already taken. See Litfin 1994; Parson 1993. 48. Tolba 1998, 63–64. 49. See Litfin 1994, 107. 50. Litfin 1994, 107; and Parson 1993. 51. The EU was especially concerned about competitiveness and perceived the United States to be ahead in the development of substitutes—See Tolba 1998, 62. 52. Author interview with David Doniger (Natural Resources Defense Council). 53. Author interview with Stephen Andersen (EPA Global Change division). 54. Testimony of Negroponte (Assistant Secretary of State, OES), U.S. Senate 1987, 45. 55. Benedick 1991, ch. 5. 56. U.S. Senate 1987, 137. 57. In an interview with Paul Horwitz, when I asked about Tolba and UNEP I was stopped and told that in the ozone issue UNEP ⫽ Tolba. 58. Rowlands 1995, 224. 59. Author interview with Paul Horwitz. 60. See Parson 1993, 59; and for quote Ling 1992. 61. See Benedick 1991; Tolba 1998. 62. Author interview with Paul Horwitz.

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63. Miller 1995, 74. 64. Benedick 1991, 72. Author interviews with Stephen Seidel confirmed this assertion 65. Author interview with Paul Horwitz. 66. Hampson 1995, 263–66. 67. Early USSR positions proposed a set of CFC control measures. See UNEP 1986h. 68. UNEP 1986e. 69. UNEP 1986g; and UNEP1986e, 4. 70. See UNEP 1986e, 15; and Benedick 1991, 70. While the EU was attempting to slow the negotiations, it is also clear that some of their “maneuverings” were actually the result of difficulties negotiating as both a single body—the EU commission—and several states. 71. International Environment Reporter 1986g, 442; International Environment Reporter 1987a. 72. U.S. Senate 1987. Negroponte remarked that Argentina, Brazil, and Egypt were active. 73. Tolba 1998, 68. 74. UNEP 1986e, 5–6. The quote is from Argentina’s representative. 75. Ibid. 76. Eileen Claussen noted that in early 1987, it was clear that Southern countries were going to be players sometime in the future. Author interview with Claussen (former director EPA Atmospheric and Indoor Air Programs and former Assistant Secretary of State, OES). U.S. actions, however, make it clear that the United States did not consider them to be much of a factor in 1987. 77. Quoted in International Environment Reporter 1986g, 442. 78. International Environment Reporter 1987a. 79. The San Francisco Chronicle, 19 February 1987, 16; Environment Reporter 1987a, 1796. 80. UNEP 1987a, 3. 81. Benedick 1991, 70–71. 82. Ibid., 71. 83. Parson 1993, 42. 84. Tolba 1998, 69. 85. Environment Reporter 1987b, 1828. 86. Benedick 1991, 55–58. 87. Environment Reporter 1987c, 2008. This would seem to signal the lack of interest of Southern states that would not support aggressive action (China and India) as well as a lack of concern with those states’ absence. 88. Environment Reporter 1987c, 2007. See also, Environment Reporter 1987d; International Environment Reporter 1987b, 100–101—in this latter article there is no mention of the South. 89. Benedick 1991, 72; Tolba 1998, 71. 90. Tolba 1998, 71. 91. See Benedick 1991, 72; and Tolba 1998, 71. It is interesting, given Tolba’s views on the need for participation, that the South was not included. Tolba kept development issues on the agenda, but the main obstacles to agreement were disputes between the EU and the United States.

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92. Benedick 1991, 72. 93. Tolba 1998, 71 94. The San Francisco Chronicle, 13 May 1987, a1. 95. International Environment Reporter 1987d, 195–96. 96. Ibid. 97. The Washington Post, 29 May 1987, a1; and Benedick 1991, 58–62. 98. Benedick 1991, 58–62. 99. See The San Francisco Chronicle, 6 June 1987, 9; and The Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, July 1987, 1477. 100. The South or Southern concerns (regarding ozone depletion) were not mentioned in any article in the summer of 1987 in either the top fifty U.S newspapers or the summer issues of the International Environment Reporter. 101. UNEP 1987c. 102. The Boston Globe, 8 September 1987, 1. 103. The San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 September 1987, a17. 104. The Boston Globe, 12 September 1987, 16. 105. Environment Reporter 1987e, 1347. 106. Benedick 1991, 74. 107. Ibid., 93. 108. Parsons 1993, 60. 109. UNEP 1987c. 110. This does not invalidate the framework or model work, rather, this is why both modeling and case studies are valuable. 111. Miller 1995, 73; Rajan 1997, ch. 4. 112. Author interview with Alan Miller. 113. Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999 discuss the crucial importance of instrumental behavioral change in the socialization process. 114. Morrisette, Pantinga, and Toman 1991, 213. 115. Downie 1995a, 180. 116. Ibid., 177. 117. Ibid. 118. Miller 1995, 74. 119. UNEP 1987c. 120. Benedick 1991, 93. 121. Tolba 1998, 73. 122. Miller 1995, 78–79. 123. Author interview with Paul Horwitz. 124. Author interview with Stephen Seidel. 125. The Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 19 September 1987, 2283. 126. The Boston Globe, 20 September 1987, a25. In addition, the MP succeeded in generating a substitute “race.” 127. The San Francisco Chronicle, 28 October 1987, a24. 128. Benedick 1991, 216. 129. The Washington Post, 27 September 1988, a3; The Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 19 March 1988, 706. 130. The Washington Post, 27 September 1988, a3.

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131. The Boston Globe, 17 September 1987, 12; and Menyasz 1987, 534. 132. U.S. House of Representatives 1990b, 48. 133. The Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 20 February 1988, 370; International Environment Reporter 1988d, 210–11; and International Environment Reporter 1988h, 465. 134. International Environment Reporter 1988b, 111. 135. Global Climate Change Digest 1988. 136. The Wall Street Journal, 25 March 1988. Indeed, it is hard to overestimate the importance of industry’s role in pushing universal participation in ozone depletion. Though industry did not create this vision of a global response, once it was in place, industry played a crucial role in fostering the evolution of U.S. rule models toward universal participation. 137. India did not even attend the MP negotiations. 138. Rowlands 1995, 169–70. 139. International Environment Reporter 1988d, 226. 140. Author interview with Alan Miller. 141. The Washington Post, 27 September 1988, a3. 142. Author interview with Paul Horwitz. 143. Stafford 1988, 67–70. 144. U.S. House of Representatives 1989a, 1. 145. Ibid., 684. 146. Both Stephen Seidel and Paul Horwitz pointed out the desire for new markets as possible industry motivation. 147. The Los Angeles Times, 30 September 1988, 3. 148. U.S. House of Representatives 1989a, 264. 149. The Wall Street Journal, 25 March 1988. 150. Quoted in The Los Angeles Times, 21 March 1988, 1. 151. Quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle, 17 December 1988, a13. 152. U.S. House of Representatives 1990a, 58. 153. U.S. House of Representatives 1989a, 77–78, 1002. 154. Ibid., 1–2. 155. Again, I am bracketing larger constitutive effects that a universal participation norm may have had on U.S. goals themselves. The U.S. desire to solve the ozone depletion problem did not solely stem from environmental concern— the convergence of the interests of environmental NGOs and the chemical industry drove U.S. interests at this point. 156. Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999. 157. Bernstein 2001; 2002. 158. Haas 1991, 224. 159. Stephen Seidel recalled that both India and China were concerned with the potential for being left behind technologically. Author interview with Stephen Seidel. 160. Quoted in Menyasz 1987, 534. 161. Quoted in The Los Angeles Times, 6 March, 1. 162. Such an approach may have been appealing to those large Southern states in that they would not have had to share the development assistance funds with other states.

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163. The evidence for this statement is more in the lack of statements for a splitting up of the Southern negotiating block, rather than in positive statements of solidarity. 164. UNEP report printed in U.S. House of Representatives 1989a, 1050. 165. Ibid., 1072. 166. Author interviews with Eileen Claussen, Stephen Seidel, and Paul Horwitz. 167. The new understanding was relatively easy to internalize and felt like incremental change because it “fit” with the interests of many of the important players and normative understandings within the United States and because global had defined the rhetoric from the very start. Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 908–909 and Bernstein 2001 note the importance of fit. 168. Normative “choice” may seem an inappropriate term, given my assertion that no options other than universal participation were available. However, it was a choice in the same sense that rational choices are indeed “choices.” In rational choice, there really are no options as it is possible to calculate the optimal course of action. 169. UNEP 1989. 170. UNEP 1989, paragraph 11. 171. The Washington Post, 3 March 1988, a1. 172. Dickson and Marshall 1989, 1279. 173. International Environment Reporter 1988k, 643. 174. Quoted in The Los Angeles Times, 6 March 1989, 1. 175. Litfin 1994, 129. 176. International Environment Reporter 1989a, 106. 177. Ironically, Bernstein traces the original use of the polluter pays principle internationally to the OECD. See Bernstein 2001. 178. International Environment Reporter 1989c, 169; and International Environmental Reporter 1989a, 106. 179. International Environment Reporter 1989c, 169; The Washington Post 7 March 1989, a16. 180. The Boston Globe, 8 March 1989, 3. 181. Ibid. 182. International Environment Reporter 1989a, 106; and International Environment Reporter 1989c, 169. 183. UNEP 1989, paragraph 11. 184. Benedick 1991, 125. 185. UNEP 1989, paragraphs 23–25. 186. Frederick Bernthal, quoted in International Environment Reporter 1989e, 226. 187. International Environment Reporter 1989e, 225. 188. U.S. House of Representatives 1989a, 77. 189. Baker 1990, 19. 190. See International Environment Reporter 1989h, 336. 191. The San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 January 1990, a7. 192. U.S. House of Representatives 1990a, 61. 193. Global Climate Change Digest 1990b. 194. The Washington Post, 9 May 1990, a1.

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195. Ibid. 196. The Washington Post, 10 May 1990, a21. 197. The Washington Post, 16 June 1990, a1. 198. The Los Angeles Times, 21 June 1990, 7. 199. UNEP 1990. 200. The Los Angeles Times, 23 June 1990, 3. 201. U.S. House of Representatives 1990b, 6. 202. Ibid., 74. 203. Sell 1996. 204. Dessler 1989. 205. See UNEP 1999, Table 1. Available at: www.unep.org/ozone/ DataReport99.htm. The numbers may be slightly off as some states were not required to report their production levels.

CHAPTER 6. THE GOVERNANCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE I 1. UNGA 1988. 2. Everything from breathing to growing rice, to burning coal, wood, and oil produces carbon dioxide or methane—the chief anthropogenic greenhouse gases. 3. Dowdeswell and Kinley 1994, 115. 4. Obviously the sources and impacts of the problem are not distributed equally among nations. 5. Michael Farrell from Oak Ridge National Laboratories, quoted in International Environment Reporter 1988j, 537. 6. Donna Fitzpatrick, Undersecretary, Department of Energy, quoted in: U.S. House of Representatives 1988b, 86 (emphasis added). 7. Richard Morgenstern, Deputy Assistant Administrator U.S. EPA (Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation) quoted in: U.S. Senate 1991, 149 (emphasis added). 8. See Haas 1992; Litfin 1994; Bernstein 2001. 9. See Litfin 1994; Demerit 2002. 10. In this chapter and volume I discuss the EU as a single bloc—as they negotiated with a single voice. See Sbragia and Damro 1999 on the development of the EU’s environmental voice. 11. International Environment Reporter 1988f, 385. 12. Bernstein 2001. Past 1988, when the normative context had transformed to universal participation, what scientists considered to be necessary changed as well. 13. Brown 1990, 19. 14. International Environment Reporter 1986c, 285. 15. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, quoted in International Environment Reporter 1987c, 120–21. The Mitre Corporation (a U.S. Defense Department think tank) came to this same conclusion. See International Environment Reporter 1987e, 665–66. 16. Author interviews with William Nitze and Daniel Reifsnyder—both reiterated the importance of China and India. 17. Author interview with William Nitze.

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18. Barrett 1992, 16. 19. Sandbrook 1991, 415—he is discussing the situation in 1991, and may be recounting historical responsibility for current concentrations in the atmosphere. 20. Sebenius 1991. 21. Author interview with Frederick Bernthal. 22. The United States and the other Northern states, did, however, have to pay for Southern participation in the negotiations themselves; setting up a participation fund to ensure that the South was represented at the negotiations. 23. Dowdeswell and Kinley 1994, 115 (emphasis in original). 24. Part of the U.S. commitment and ease in internalization of the universal participation idea can be attributed to industrial concerns and their commitment to global competitiveness. Industry’s understanding of the problem was constrained by the normative context as well. 25. International Environment Reporter 1988a, 105. 26. Global Climate Change Digest 1989c. 27. Jager and Ferguson 1991, 509. 28. Author interviews with Daniel Reifsnyder and Eileen Claussen. 29. Author interview with Daniel Reifsnyder. 30. Author interview with Reifsnyder. See also Tolba 1998; and Rowlands 1995—the MP is most often credited with setting the stage for the structure of the climate change negotiations. 31. U.S. House of Representatives 1988a, 5. 32. The Los Angeles Times, 4 February 1990, 4. 33. U.S. House of Representatives 1989b, 13. This quote also demonstrates that the United States was committed to development assistance before any negotiations took place. 34. Daniel Reifsnyder traces the use of the GEF in climate change as a response to the Multilateral Fund in ozone and the fear in Europe and the United States of the consequences of universal participation. Author interview with Daniel Reifsnyder. 35. Brown 1990. 36. See Sebenius 1991; Soroos 1991; and Nilsson and Pitt 1994. 37. Bodansky 1994, 58. 38. Author interview with Paul Horwitz. 39. Author interview with Paul Horwitz. 40. Author interview with Stephen Andersen. 41. Curiously, states ignored the early North-only definition of the ozone depletion problem, demonstrating how a new norm can shift understandings of what is possible and impossible. 42. International Environment Reporter 1988g, 417. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. At this early stage, this was mostly rhetoric, but it came to have a significant impact as universal participation dominated nations’ understanding of climate change. 45. International Environmental Reporter 1988l, 644–45. 46. International Environmental Reporter 1989g, 335–36. 47. Djoghlaf 1994, 100–101.

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48. Djoghlaf 1994. Author interview with Reifsnyder reinforced the notion that South’s interest in the IPCC process. 49. UNGA 1988. 50. Ibid. 51. International Environment Reporter 1989i, 527. 52. Text of Noordwijk Declaration, from International Environment Reporter 1989j, 624–27. 53. Ibid. 54. Jager and Ferguson 1991. 55. Bodansky 1994, 50. 56. Jager and Ferguson 1991, 517. 57. Ibid., 4. 58. Ibid., 539. 59. Ibid., 534. 60. The Washington Post, 30 October 1990, a17. 61. U.S. House of Representatives 1989b, 6. 62. International Environment Reporter 1989b, 109—first quote is direct from Tolba, the second is a paraphrased statement from Tolba in the article text. 63. In an interview, Nitze recalled that the issue wasn’t “worth fighting over” for the United States. 64. International Environment Reporter 1991a, 3. 65. Author interview with William Nitze. 66. At this stage the discussion of “North-south issues during 1988 and the beginning of 1989 was long on vague statements of intent, but short on specific proposals.” Rowlands 1995, 192. 67. In discussing U.S. positions, and U.S. interactions with Congress, I am using U.S. as shorthand for the administration and executive branch agencies— the entities that articulated the U.S. positions in the negotiations and domestically. 68. The United States had a history of dealing with climate change before 1988–1990. The United States was at the forefront of climate science at the behest of the Carter administration. See Harrison 2000b. 69. All of the officials interviewed who were involved with the climate change issue acknowledged that climate change was defined as a global problem requiring wide participation. 70. Author interviews with Eileen Claussen, Stephen Seidel. 71. Author interview with Eileen Claussen. 72. Testimony of William Nitze in: U.S. Senate 1987, 157. 73. Nitze testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1989b, 11. 74. International Environment Reporter 1989d, 178. The quote references EPA report: Lashoff and Tirpak 1990. 75. Lashoff and Tirpak 1990—The report does not treat India separately, thus making the “rest of the developing world” category important. A large percentage of this category’s importance is likely found in India and Brazil. 76. The EPA was certainly environmentally aggressive (author interview with Richard Morgenstern) though their view did not come through often. The State Department also tended to favor aggressive international action. See The Washington Post, 6 May 1989, a2. Bodansky (1994, 50–51) claims that the aggressive actions of

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those two agencies in the MP negotiations spurred the Reagan and Bush administrations to keep control of the climate process in the White House. 77. International Environment Reporter 1986b, 241. 78. As early as 1986 President Reagan’s science advisor was highlighting the uncertainty of climate science. See International Environment Reporter 1986b, 241. 79. International Environment Reporter 1988i, 476. 80. Global Climate Change Digest 1989a. 81. See for instance: The Boston Globe, 12 February 1990, 33. 82. This is not to say that there was no uncertainty or that the costs of combating climate change were negligible. However, the decision to focus on uncertainty and economics rather than the potential urgency of the problem was the result of domestic political decisions. See Bodansky 1994, 51. In addition major U.S. industries were vehemently opposed to significant climate change actions and they influenced U.S. positions throughout the climate process. 83. See The Washington Post, 26 October 1989, a15; and Bodansky 1994, 54. 84. Rowlands 1995, 134. See also Council of Economic Advisors 1990, ch. 6. There were other cost estimates around, and many were much less dire than this one. 85. The Washington Post, 29 July 1988, a17. 86. Author interview with Frederick Bernthal. 87. For more on the issue of scientific uncertainty, see Betsill 2000. 88. Paterson 1996, 64. 89. Gupta 1997, 88. 90. This linkage was reinforced by the sustainable development discourse. See Bernstein 2001. 91. Strategic bargaining has been used to explain a number of outcomes in environmental politics (see Porter and Brown 1996; and Grubb et al. 1993), and it has traditionally been viewed as the primary tactic by which the South can force the North to acknowledge the link between environmental protection and development and achieve developmental concessions. See Hurrell 1992; Sell 1996; and Sanderson 1993. 92. Schoppa 1999, 311. 93. Sell 1996, 115. 94. Ibid., 98. 95. Lebow 1996, 56–60. The ozone situation is aptly characterized as a Type I encounter, while climate change is not. 96. For the United States, the costs of solution to the climate change problem are staggering and the benefits diffuse. In addition, the South was not a unified block. Small island nations stood to benefit from a solution to the climate change problem, while oil-producing and coal-using states did not. 97. The large ones are focused on because of their power to undermine agreements. Smaller Southern countries, especially island states, are more likely to be in favor of environmental agreement because of the potential damage of global warming. They therefore lack interest asymmetry, while also having less power to undermine agreements.

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98. Sell 1996, 107–108. 99. Lebow 1996, 56–60. 100. Ibid. 101. Rowlands 1995, 198–99. 102. Young 1994. 103. The sustainable development discourse gained strength in this same period (Bernstein 2001). However, universal participation was still crucial because Southern participation guaranteed that Southern issues would be on the agenda. 104. International Environment Reporter 1988c. 105. Author interview with Daniel Reifsnyder. 106. Nitze recalls that choosing to head up this working group, rather than the science working group “saved the IPCC process” because it saved the scientific group from being politicized. Author interview with William Nitze. 107. International Environment Reporter 1988e. 108. The Washington Post, 2 February 1989, a34. The no-regrets policy became a standard mantra of the United States. Fredrick Bernthal coined the term. Author interview with Frederick Bernthal. 109. International Environment Reporter 1989f, 279. 110. The San Francisco Chronicle, 8 May 1989, a19. 111. See U.S. Senate 1989a, 143–45. This action did not endear the administration to Congress or the international community, and it has been cited as a possible factor in the change in U.S. position toward accepting negotiations. See Bodansky 1994, 54. 112. The Los Angeles Times, 12 May 1989, 24. It is not entirely clear why the criticism triggered acquiescence at this stage. 113. Global Climate Change Digest 1989b. 114. Though the United States acquiesced in May, Nitze recalls that the final realization that negotiations were going to take place did not happen until the November Noordwijk meeting. Author interview with William Nitze. 115. The Los Angeles Times, 1 November 1989, 8. 116. The Wall Street Journal, 8 November 1989. 117. The Washington Post, 7 November 1989, a1. 118. U.S. Senate 1989b, 5. 119. Ibid., 10. He also objected to the one-shot nature of Noordwijk, outside the UN process. 120. Global Climate Change Digest 1990a. 121. Global Climate Change Digest 1990c. 122. The Washington Post, 19 April 1990, a19. 123. The Los Angeles Times, 11 July 1990, 10. 124. The Boston Globe, 29 June 1990, 3. 125. U.S. Senate 1990, 44. 126. Ibid., 47. 127. Ibid., 49. 128. The Boston Globe, 24 October 1990, 26. 129. Ibid. 130. The Boston Globe, 29 October, 1990, 1. 131. The Washington Post, 8 November 1990, a22.

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132. Jager and Ferguson 1991, 537. 133. U.S. House of Representatives 1991, 12. 134. U.S. Senate 1991, 75. 135. The Washington Post, 10 January 1991, a3; The Washington Post, 9 February 1991, a3. 136. U.S. House of Representatives 1991, 29. 137. Ibid., 124–28. 138. Testimony of Representative Kostmayer in: U.S. House of Representatives 1991, 39. 139. This principle allowed the United States to “count” the actions it was already taking to comply with the MP process, because CFCs are important greenhouse gases as well. 140. Testimony of Robert Reinstein in: U.S. House of Representatives 1991, 11–12. 141. UNGA 1991a. 142. The Washington Post, 15 February 1991, a6. 143. See U.S. House of Representatives 1991; U.S. Senate 1991. 144. C. Dasgupta quoted in: International Environment Reporter 1991b, 65. 145. Author interview with Daniel Reifsnyder. However the ultimate U.S. focus came to be economic concerns/competitiveness in the climate change issue. 146. International Environment Reporter 1991c, 97. 147. Author interview with Daniel Reifsnyder. 148. Author interview with Sue Biniaz (Legal Advisor, Oceans, Environment, and Science Bureau, U.S. State Department). 149. Author interview with Sue Biniaz. 150. This quote is a paraphrased version of Ripert’s statement in, International Environment Reporter 1991b, 65. 151. The Washington Post, 17 April 1991, b3. 152. UNGA 1991b. This was a series of informal papers provided by delegations. 153. Ibid., U.S. paper. 154. UNGA 1991c. 155. Ibid., 13. 156. Ibid., 14. 157. Ibid., 16. 158. Ibid., 17. 159. International Environment Reporter 1991e, 415. 160. International Environment Reporter 1991f, 417. 161. International Environment Reporter 1991g, 440–41. 162. International Environment Reporter 1991d, 400. 163. International Environment Reporter 1991h, 502. 164. Ibid. 165. Ibid. 166. UNGA 1991d, 19–25. 167. International Environment Reporter 1991h, 502, quoting Zammit Cutajar, chief of negotiating committee secretariat.

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168. See International Environment Reporter 1991i, 539; International Environment Reporter 1991j, 539–40; and International Environment Reporter 1991k, 673–74. 169. Bodansky 1994, 66; Hampson 1995, 319. 170. UNGA 1992a, 18–130. 171. Ibid., 9–10. 172. Ibid. 173. Ibid., 18–130. This was especially true of the commitments section. 174. The Washington Post, 27 February 1992, a8. 175. U.S. House of Representatives 1992, 158. 176. Ibid., 11. 177. Ibid., 14–15. 178. A Commerce Department report detailing the impacts of carbon taxes to control climate change showed the United States being relatively worse off than all other OECD states. Ibid., 101–13. 179. Ibid., 27–51. 180. The Washington Post, 28 February 1992, a3. 181. The Washington Post, 12 April 1992, a44. 182. Bodansky 1994, 68–69. 183. The Washington Post, 8 May 1992, a15. 184. Bodansky 1994, 69. 185. First part of the quote is from The Washington Post, 8 May 1992, a15 and the second part is from The Washington Post, 7 June 1992, a28. 186. Young and Reilly 1992, 23. 187. The Washington Post, 1 June 1992, a1. 188. Text of UNFCCC, Article 11 “Financial Mechanism,” in Mintzer and Leonard 1994, 353. 189. Text of UNFCCC Article 4, “Commitments,” Ibid., 344–45. 190. Text of UNFCCC Article 4, “Commitments,” Ibid., 341–47. 191. Text of UNFCCC Article 4, “Commitments,” Ibid. 192. U.S. Senate 1992, 91–92.

CHAPTER 7. A NEW GLOBAL RESPONSE? 1. Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1995. 2. This bracketing is also necessary for brevity. The post-FCCC negotiations have been among the most complex environmental negotiations to date and entire volumes have been dedicated to sorting through the various technical aspects of the negotiations. For more on those debates, see Barret 2003; Luterbacher and Sprinz 2001; Victor 2001; and McKibbin and Wilcoxen 2002. 3. The sustainable development discourse was important as well. See Bernstein 2001. 4. To be very clear, I am labeling the United States as a hegemon because of its overall position in the international system and its prominent place in the climate change issue. This does not mean that the United States can solve the climate change

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problem by itself or that it can force other states to view climate change the way it does. In fact, one result of this analysis is that hegemonic status does not always lead to successful entrepreneurship in the face of an entrenched norm. 5. Klotz 1995a. 6. Adler 1997, 329. 7. Price 1997; Ba and Hoffmann 2003. 8. On types of change see Rosenau 1995; 1997. 9. See Bernstein 2001; 2002; Betsill 2000. 10. Finnemore and Sikkink, 891 (emphasis added). 11. This is not to claim that the United States is somehow “outside” the normative context picking what norms to follow. Instead, the universal participation norm constituted U.S. interests in and strategies for addressing climate change. Because norms are not wholly deterministic, different interests, norms, and ideas combine to shape any actor’s interpretation of the norm (as well as their goals and strategies), but no actor can help being constituted by their normative context. 12. Dessler 1989. 13. UNGA 1992b. 14. Of course, enticing Southern commitments was not the only reason for pursuing these mechanisms—the United States has long desired to use marketmechanisms to pursue environmental goals. See Pomerance testimony, U.S. Senate 1994; UN FCCC 1995a, 83. 15. The CDM was a Brazilian proposal supported by the United States. See Yamin 1998. 16. This also signaled a continuing commitment to market mechanisms. 17. See Agrawala and Andresen 2001, 121. 18. Hazel O’Leary testimony, U.S. Senate 1994. See also, Karl Huakser (Deputy Assistant Administrator, EPA) testimony U.S. House of Representatives 1994; 1995; Susan Tierney (Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Energy) testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1995. 19. See U.S. Statement in UNFCCC 1995a, 75–86. 20. See UN FCCC 1995a, 80, 83. 21. O’Leary and Pomerance testimonies, U.S. Senate 1994. 22. See UN FCCC 1995a, 79, 83. 23. Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1994. 24. Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1995. 25. Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1994. 26. Again, the goals of any actor are not determined solely by a single norm. While universal participation shaped how the United States envisioned climate change, multiple ideational influences combined to constitute U.S. goals in the negotiation. 27. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995a, 2. 28. Pomerance testimony, U.S. Senate 1994. 29. UN FCCC 1995a, 97–100. 30. Pomerance testimony, U.S. Senate 1994. 31. The principle of CBDR was invoked constantly in country statements and the principle of Northern support for Southern action was never questioned— implementing such support was, however, a much more contentious issue. 32. See UN FCCC 1995a; 1995b; 1995c; 1995d.

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33. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995a; 1995b; 1995c; 1995d. 34. See UN FCCC 1995a, especially statements of Brazil, Denmark, France, Micronesia, and Trinidad and Tobago. 35. Ibid., especially statements by United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, and New Zealand. 36. Ibid., especially statements of United States and Canada. 37. Ibid., especially statements of Denmark and Netherlands. 38. See UN FCCC 1995c; Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995c. The procedural items concerned location of the Secretariat, voting rules, etc. 39. See Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1994; UN FCCC 1995a. 40. See Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1994; UN FCCC 1995a. 41. See Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1994; Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995a; 1995b, 1; 1995c; UN FCCC 1995a. 42. Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1994; 1995; Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995c; UN FCCC 1995c. 43. JI is not only intended for North-South cooperation, but is instead a general mechanism for achieving emission reductions in an efficient manner. See UN FCCC 1995c. 44. Testimony of Timothy Wirth (Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs), U.S. Senate 1996. 45. Ibid. 46. The United States agreed that lag times may be appropriate as was the case in ozone depletion. 47. Wirth Testimony, U.S. Senate 1996. See also Administration Statement, U.S. House of Representatives 1996b. 48. Chairman Murkowski testimony, U.S. Senate 1996. 49. UN FCCC 1995e. 50. Pomerance testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1996a. 51. UN FCCC 1995e. 52. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1996b, 10. 53. UN FCCC 1996b, 30. See also UN FCCC 1995d. 54. This was a constant theme before and at COP 2. See Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1996b, 7. 55. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995d, 2. 56. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995d, 2; UN FCCC 1996a, especially the EU statement. 57. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1995d, 3. 58. UN FCCC 1996a. 59. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1996a, 9. 60. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1996b, 9, 12; UN FCCC 1996b. 61. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1996b, 12 62. Andresen and Agrawala 2002, 47. 63. U.S. Senate 1997a. 64. Putnam 1998; Evans et al. 1993. On the issue of congressional thoughts on Southern commitments, see, U.S. House of Representatives 1997a; 1997b; 1997c; 1997d; 1997e; U.S. Senate 1997a; 1997b; 1997d.

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65. Testimony of Chairman Gilman, U.S. House of Representatives 1997e. 66. See testimony of Stuart Eizenstat (Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs), U.S. House of Representatives 1998a; See also Agrawala and Andresen 2001. 67. Testimony of Janet Yellen (Chairwoman, Council of Economic Advisors), U.S. Senate 1997b. 68. Ibid. 69. Testimony of Wirth, U.S. Senate 1997b. 70. Ibid. 71. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1997, 2. 72. For analysis of various aspects of the Kyoto meeting and the KP see Barret 2003; Harrison 2000b; Yamin 1998; Simpson 2002; Andresen and Agrawala 2002. 73. See UN FCCC 1997a. 74. Andresen and Agrawala 2002, 48. See also Eizenstat testimony in U.S. Senate 1998. 75. The EU was also hampered at times, by incoherence in its positions due to internal dissension. On this point see Andresen and Agrawala 2002, 47–49; Sbragia and Damro 1999. 76. Agrawala and Andresen 2001, 123. See also UN FCCC 1997b. 77. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1997m 14. 78. See Victor 2001; McKibbin and Wilcoxen 2002. 79. See especially, U.S. House of Representatives 1998b; U.S. Senate 1998. 80. The Washington Post, 11 December 1997, a37. 81. See U.S. House of Representatives 1998a; U.S. Senate 1998. 82. Statement of Chairman Gilman, U.S. House of Representatives 1998a, 2. 83. The environmental community was less than enthusiastic, for different reasons, characterizing the KP as “a baby step towards a solution” to the climate change problem. The Washington Post, 14 December 1997, a10. 84. Testimony of Melinda Kimble (Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans), U.S. House of Representatives 1998b. 85. Eizenstat testimony U.S. House of Representatives 1998a, 17. See also Eizenstat testimony U.S. Senate 1998. 86. Eizenstat testimony, U.S. House of Representatives 1998a, 19. 87. Ibid., 23. 88. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1998, 13. 89. Ibid. 90. Tangen (1999, 178) posited that a change in the Southern position was possible, but it never materialized. 91. See International Affairs 2001; UN FCCC 1999; 2000. 92. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1998, 11. 93. Tangen 1999, 176. 94. Vespa 2002, 406. 95. Simpson 2002, 45. 96. Earth Negotiations Bulletin 1999, 15. 97. This information gathered from UN FCCC website. See http:// unfccc.int/resource/kpco2.pdf. 98. See Lisowski 2002, 164. See also White House 2001, 13–14.

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99. Simpson (2002, 42) traces this position of the Bush II administration from COP 4–6 during the Clinton administration. 100. The New York Times, 24 July 2001, al; White House 2001, 13. 101. Lisowski 2002, 164; Agrawala and Andresen 2001, 125; White House 2001; 13. 102. Indeed, in subsequent climate negotiations, the international community has spent considerable time trying to convince the United States to re-engage. See The New York Times, 19 December 2004 (www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/ science/19climate.html). 103. See, UN FCCC 2001a; 2001b; 2002. 104. Lisowski 2002, 163. 105. See UN FCCC website .

CHAPTER 8. THE COMPLEXITY OF CONSTRUCTING A GLOBAL RESPONSE 1. Adler 1991, 43. 2. See, e.g. Murphy 2000; Weiss 2000; Smoots 1998; Hewson and Sinclair 1999; O’Brien et al 2000; and Ba and Hoffmann 2005. 3. Kooiman 1993, 37. 4. Rosenau 1995; 1997. 5. Ba and Hoffmann 2005. 6. See Wapner 1996; Lipshutz 1996; Hempel 1996; Young 1997; and Haas et al. 1993. 7. Haas 1995, 346. 8. See Young 1994; 1997; and Hempel 1996 for further works on the processes of global governance. See Hoffmann 2005 for more on a social constructivist approach to global governance. 9. Rosenau 1997, 147. 10. See Wapner 1994 for an interesting attempt to lay out the differences between “truly” global and local/regional issues.

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Index ABM. See agent-based modeling adaptation, 47–48 See also complex adaptation Ad Hoc Working Group, 87, 89 See also under ozone depletion Adler, Emanuel, 164, 187 agent-based modeling, 18, 46 agents and, 57 baseline model, 63–64 description of, 56–59, 209n16 hypotheses, 78 implications for global governance, 72 limits of, 65 mechanisms in, 62–63 norm life cycle and, 59 results of simulations, 66–71 agents, 37–38, 48, 205n33, 205n36, 206n47 agent-based modeling and, 56–57, 60–61 complex adaptation and, 39–41, 43 norms and, 46, 50 rule models and,125, 134, 207n84 social structure and, 58–59, 74 Anderson, Stephen, 92, 134 Arap Moi, Daniel, 116 Arthur, Brian, 41 Australia, 128, 172 Axelrod, Robert, 58 Axtell, Robert, 56 Baker, James, 117, 145 Barrett, Scott, 129

Beijing Declaration, 153 Benedick, Richard, 91–95, 96, 98, 104 Berlin Mandate, 173 Bernstein, Steven, 48 Bernthal, Frederick, 23, 130, 141, 147 Biniaz, Sue, 151–152 Bodansky, Daniel, 134, 137, 154 Brazil, 88, 112, 128 Britain, 23, 115, 145 Bromley, Allen, 146–47 Buenos Aires, 181 Bush, George H. W., 52 administration of, 118, 133–34, 140–41, 145, 155 Bush, George W. administration of, 183, 184 Byrd-Hegel resolution, 176 See also under United States Canada, 90, 128, 172 carbon dioxide, 12, 128 See also greenhouse gases carbon sinks, 162 CAS. See complex adaptive systems CCOL (Co-ordination Committee on the Ozone Layer), 87 CDM. See clean development mechanism CFCs. See chlorofluorocarbons Chafee, John H., 118 Checkel, Jeffrey, 37, 58–59

249

250

Index

China, 27 climate change and, 128, 178, 180 ozone depletion and, 88, 97, 107, 112, 116 chlorofluorocarbons, 9–10, 27, 107 EU production of 92, 115 Northern production of, 112 Southern production of, 88, 98, 108 U.S. production of, 28 Claussen, Eileen, 116, 139 clean development mechanism, 168, 180 climate change, 8–9, 161–62, 185 conventional wisdom of, 126 counterfactual case of, 192–94 implications of, 190 link to ozone depletion, 132 normative context of, 135–38, 168–69, 182 political response to, 12–13, 25, 26, 123–24, 149–57, 170–79 science of, 12, 140, 147, 162 universal participation and, 22, 25, 84, 124, 130, 162 Clinton, Bill, 52 administration of, 168, 174, 176, 180 coevolution, 39, 41–42, 47 path dependency and, 207n59 See also complex adaptation common but differentiated responsibilities, 158 meaning of, 166 complex adaptation, 33–34, 45, 47–48 process of, 39–40 complex adaptive systems, 39, 43, 49, 53 extension and applicability of, 197–98 norm life cycle and, 43–48, 84, 100, 132, 158, 190–91 complexity theory, 7, 17, 38–39 social constructivism and, 44–48, 84 See also complex adaptation; complex adaptive systems

computer simulation. See agent-based modeling conference of the parties, 170–79, 181–82 See also climate change: political response to; Framework Convention on Climate Change constructivism. See social constructivism Cook, Liz, 110, 119 Co-ordination Committee on the Ozone Layer, 87 COPs. See conference of the parties critical mass during ozone depletion negotiations, 99 emergence of, 49–50 See also under norm life cycle Dessler, David, 80 Dieter Opp, Karl, 42 Dingell, John, 106, 109, 11 Doniger, David, 92, 107 Dowdeswell, Elizabeth, 132 Downie, David Leonard, 101–2 Downs, George, 22–24 Earth Summit. See United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development emissions trading, 169, 175, 180 entrepreneurship, 37, 49, 101 See also norm entrepreneurs Environmental Protection Agency, 96, 106, 110, 117, 139 EPA. See Environmental Protection Agency Epstein, Joshua, 56 ET. See emissions trading EU. See European Union European Union, 14, 27 climate change and, 127, 146, 148, 151, 172, 175, 178 position on ozone depletion, 92, 94, 97, 115 universal participation and, 30, 169, 172, 181

Index evaluation, 42–43, 206n41, 206n50 domestic factors in, 51–52 See also complex adaptation FCCC. See Framework Convention on Climate Change Finnemore, Martha, 17, 35–36, 71, 77 First World Climate Conference, 12 Framework Convention on Climate Change, 3, 12–15, 23, 123, 156–58, 167 France, 23, 152 Friends of the Earth, 107, 110, 119 “Friends of Tolba.” See under Tolba GEF. See Global Environmental Facility Gell-Mann, Murray, 41 Geneva Declaration, 175 Geneva negotiations, 94–97 Germany, 23, 152, 156, 175 Giddens, Anthony, 44, 46, 47 Global Environmental Facility, 148, 154, 156 global environment governance, 2, 21, 24, 26, 85, 194–95 global governance, 5–6, 22, 187–88 definition of, 6, 201n8 participation and, 7–8, 11–12 global warming. See climate change Gore, Al, 147 “Grand Bargain.” See London Amendment greenhouse effect, 12 greenhouse gases, 25 Northern production of, 28, 128, 143, 171, 203n22 Southern production of, 129, 143 G-77, 14, 178 Guzzini, Stefano, 58–59 Haas, Peter, 23–24, 194 hegemony, 28–29, 130, 184 Helsinki. See London Amendment Holland, John, 39, 45, 47, 51 Horowitz, Paul, 16, 87, 104

251

INC. See Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee India, 27 climate change and, 128, 151 ozone depletion and, 88, 97, 107, 112, 116 Indonesia, 112 Industry climate change and,140, 218n24 ozone depletion and, 109–10, 119, 215n136 Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee, 13, 148, 150–56 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 12–13, 123, 132, 136, 147 internalization. See norms, norm life cycle intersubjectivity, 35, 46–47, 63, 65, 188, 207n77 climate change and, 164 ozone depletion and, 99 IPCC. See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Japan, 27, 94, 97, 128, 145–46, 148, 172 JI. See joint implementation Johnston, Iain, 37 joint implementation, 168, 172–73, 180 Kauffman, Stuart, 42 KP. See Kyoto Protocol Kratochwil, Friedrich, 50 Kyoto Protocol, 14, 30, 178–79, 183 Lashof, Daniel, 154 Lebow, Richard Ned, 142, 143 Litfin, Karen, 116 lock in in climate change, 125 examples of, 69 of universal participation, 9, 11, 19, 51–52, 120, 189 logic of appropriateness, 35, 47 and the norm life cycle, 65

252

Index

logic of consequences, 62 London Amendment, 24, 115–19 Malaysia, 112 Manicas, P., 36, 46 March, James, 35, 41 Miller, Allan, 88 models, 18 agent-based, 18, 46 formal, 55 Pick a Number, 60–64, 196 rational choice, 24–25 rule, 41–42, 45, 46 traditional, 57 verbal, 18, 33 Montreal negotiations, 97–99, 104 Protocol, 11, 24, 84, 108, 115–20 See also London Amendment MNCs (multinational corporations), 166 Multilateral Fund, 119, 131 See also London Amendment multilateralism, 21, 24 multinational corporations, 166 Murkowski, Frank, 174 mutual constitution, 164 NASA, 140, 145 Natural Resources Defence Council, 107 Negroponte, John, 92, 94 neoliberalism, 24 Newtonian systems, 38, 44 NGOs. See nongovernmental organizations Nitze, William, 27, 129, 133, 139 NLC. See norm life cycle nongovernmental organizations, 51–52, 166 climate change and, 144, 148, 153 ozone depletion and, 107, 110, 119 Noordwijk, 123, 137, 145–46 norms, 6, 16, 19, 34, 46–47, 71, 80 changing participation and, 2–3, 7–8, 15, 35, 197 characteristics of, 34, 46

contestation, 14, 17, 164 definition of, 34 dynamism of, 164 emergence of, 36, 47–48, 63, 73 evolution of, 47–48, 50 global governance and, 188 internalization of, 36, 38, 125, 158–59, 167 slippage, 165–66 norm entrepreneurs, 36, 59–60, 166, 184 agent-based modeling and, 59, 64, 66–71 effects on social complexity, 75–76 reach of, 71–72, 77 norm life cycle, 17, 35–37 agent-based modeling and, 59 cascade and transition, 50 complex adaptive systems and, 43–48, 84, 100, 132, 158, 190–91 critical mass in, 36, 49–50 extension and applicability of, 197–98 limits of, 37–38 verbal model and, 33 North first. See under universal participation North-only. See under participation Northern states, 2, 25 climate change and, 13, 151, 175 ozone depletion and, 11 production of chlorofluorocarbons, 112 universal participation and, 26 NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), 107 Office of Budget and Management, 118, 140, 145 Office of Technology Assessment, 109 O’Leary, Hazel, 170 Olson, Johan, 35, 41 OMB. See Office of Budget and Management OTA. See Office of Technology Assessment

Index ozone depleting substances, 10 See also chlorofluorocarbons ozone depletion, 8–9, 109 constructivist/complex systems explanation of, 100 counterfactual case of, 192–94 discovery of ozone hole, 91 implications of, 190 link to climate change, 132 political response to, 10–11, 24, 26, 90–99, 105, 109–13, 119 science of, 9–10, 25–26, 107, 202n18 universal participation and, 22, 84, 114, 115–20, 132–35 Ozone Trends Panel, 107 Parsons, Edward, 88, 92, 98 participation, 2, 4, 13, 15–16, 21, 50 climate change and, 8 global governance and, 7–8, 155, 188, 192 neoliberalism and, 24 norms of, 15, 35, 79, 138, 192, 197 north-only, 2, 19, 23, 86–87, 94, 99 ozone depletion and, 8, 99 rational choice explanations of, 24 requirements in international community, 3, 22 See also universal participation path dependency, 44 coevolution and, 207n59 Pick a Number model, 60–64, 196 Pomerance, Rafe, 110, 161, 171–72, 174 rational choice, 24–25 explanation of climate change negotiations, 124, 129–30, 142–43 explanation of ozone depletion negotiations, 111–12 Reagan, Ronald administration and climate change, 140–41 administration and ozone depletion, 97–99 realism, 27–29

253

regime theory, 24 Reifsynder, Daniel, 151 Reinstein, Robert, 149, 150, 151, 155 Rio de Janeiro, 156–57 Ripert, Jean, 152, 153 Risse, Thomas, 111 Rosenau, James N., 42, 194 Rowlands, Ian, 25 rule models, 41–42, 45, 46 See also complex adaptation rules, 60–61, 201n8 See also agent-based modeling; Pick a Number model Russia, 172, 184 See also USSR Saving the Ozone Conference. See London Amendment schemata, 41, 46 See also rule models science, 25–27 influence on policy, 124, 127, 135 universal participation and, 126–29 Sebenius, James, 24–25, 129 Second World Climate Conference, 13, 123, 132–33, 137 Seidel, Stephen, 28, 87, 106 Sell, Susan, 143 Sikkink, Kathryn, 17, 35–36, 71, 77 Smith, Richard, 117, 133, 138 social complexity, 63, 73–77, 182 social constructivism, 5, 16, 31, 38 agent-based modeling and, 62 complexity theory and, 44–48, 84 criticism of, 37 formal modeling of, 58 norms in, 34–35 Southern states, 2, 25 climate change and, 13, 136, 137–38 development concerns and, 141–42, 152–54 ozone depletion and, 11, 87, 92, 97, 100, 104, 112 production of chlorofluorocarbons, 88, 98, 108 universal participation and, 26, 30, 169, 178, 182

254

Index

subjectivity, 46, 165 Sununu, John, 118, 140 SWCC. See Second World Climate Conference teleology critique of, 44–45 Thomas, Lee, 96 Tolba, Mostafa, 4, 19, 96, 98, 112, 192 climate change and, 136, 145 “Friends of Tolba,” 93, 96 as norm entrepreneur, 89–90, 94, 100–1 Toronto Conference, 135 Toronto Group, the, 90 transformational approach, 22 Umbrella group, 172 UN. See United Nations UNCED. See United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development UNEP. See United Nations Environment Program unilateralism, 185 United Nations, 21 General Assembly, 123, 131, 138 resolution on climate change, 136 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, 156–57 United Nations Environment Program, 4, 10, 52, 123 climate change talks and, 131, 145 as norm entrepreneur, 90, 100–1 United States, 1, 27–29 climate change and, 8, 15, 27, 124, 127, 139–41, 145–46, 148, 150–157, 170–79, 183 Congress, Houses of, 106, 109, 117–19, 141, 144, 150, 170, 176–77, 180 as critical mass, 194 domestic factors in evaluations, 51–52, 109, 144, 153, 174 hegemony and, 27–29, 130, 223n4

as norm entrepreneur, 75, 163, 166–67, 181 Northern states and, 144 ozone depletion and, 10, 85, 92–99, 104, 114, 115–19 position on universal participation, 29, 106, 109, 125, 141, 143–49, 174 production of chlorofluorocarbons, 28 production of greenhouse gases , 128, 171 rule model of, 138–39, 168, 172 strategies and behaviors of, 4, 15, 98, 111–13, 118, 131, 143–49, 168–69 universal commitment and, 146, 151, 166, 170–71, 180–81 universal participation, 2, 14–15, 21, 22, 26, 52 changing meaning of, 2, 47, 163, 167–68, 179 climate change and, 22, 124, 132–35, 162, 173 development and, 141–42 emergence of, 11, 83, 113, 188 end of, 184–85 evolution of, 30, 49–50 implications of, 158 lock-in around, 9, 11, 19, 51–52, 120, 125 North First variant, 3, 14, 144, 166 ozone depletion and, 22, 114, 115–20 rational choice explanations of, 24, 111–12, 129–30 realism and, 27–29 scientific explanation of, 25–27, 126–29 social constructivism and, 31 universal commitment variant, 3, 14, 167–68, 181 See also norms; participation USSR, 27, 94, 128, 145–46, 148 See also Russia

Index verbal model, 18, 33, 49–53 Vienna Convention, 11, 86, 95 Weldes, Jutta, 46 Wirth, Tim, 174, 177 WMO. See World Meteorological Organization

255

World Meteorological Organization, 10, 12–13, 85, 123, 131 World Resources Institute, 110, 113 worldviews, 187 Worldwatch Institute, 128, 133 Young, Oran, 23, 26

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SUNY series in Global Politics James N. Rosenau, Editor

American Patriotism in a Global Society—Betty Jean Craige The Political Discouse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations—Brian C. Schmidt Power and Ideas: North-South Politics of Intellectual Property and Antitrust— Susan K. Sell From Pirates to Drug Lords: The Post–Cold War Caribbean Security Environment—Michael C. Desch, Jorge I. Dominguez, and Andres Serbin (eds.) Collective Conflict Management and Changing World Politics—Joseph Lepgold and Thomas G. Weiss (eds.) Zones of Peace in the Third World: South American and West Africa in Comparative Perspective—Arie M. Kacowicz Private Authority and International Affairs—A. Claire Cutler, Virginia Haufler, and Tony Porter (eds.) Harmonizing Europe: Nation-States within the Common Market—Francesco G. Duina Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations—Paul J. D’Anieri Leapfrogging Development? The Political Economy of Telecommunications Restructuring—J. P. Singh States, Firms, and Power: Successful Sanctions in United States Foreign Policy— George E. Shambaugh Approaches to Global Governance Theory—Martin Hewson and Timothy J. Sinclair (eds.) After Authority: War, Peace, and Global Politics in the Twenty-First Century— Ronnie D. Lipschutz Pondering Postinternationalism: A Paradism for the Twenty-First Century?— Heidi H. Hobbs (eds.) Beyond Boundaries? Disciplines, Paradigms, and Theoretical Integration in International Studies—Rudra Sil and Eileen M. Doherty (eds.) International Relations—Still an American Social Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought—Robert M. A. Crawford and Darryl S. L. Jarvis (eds.) Which Lessons Matter? American Foreign Policy Decision Making in the Middle East, 1979–1987—Christopher Hemmer (ed.)

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SUNY series in Global Politics

Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: Transaction Costs and Institutional Choice— Katja Weber Counter-Hegemony and Foreign Policy: The Dialectics of Marginalized and Global Forces in Jamaica—Randolph B. Persaud Global Limits: Immanuel Kant, International Relations, and Critique of World Politics—Mark F. N. Franke Money and Power in Europe: The Political Economy of European Monetary Cooperation—Matthias Kaelberer Why Movements Matter: The West German Peace Movement and U. S. Arms Control Policy—Steve Breyman Agency and Ethics: The Politics of Military Intervention—Anthony F. Lang, Jr. Life After the Soviet Union: The Newly Independent Republics of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia—Nozar Alaolmolki Information Technologies and Global Politics: The Changing Scope of Power and Governance—James N. Rosenau and J. P. Singh (eds.) Theories of International Cooperation and the Primacy of Anarchy: Explaining U. S. International Monetary Policy-Making After Bretton Woods—Jennifer Sterling-Folker Technology, Democracy, and Development: International Conflict and Cooperation in the Information Age—Juliann Emmons Allison (ed.) System of Violence: The Political Economy of War and Peace in Columbia— Nazih Richani The Arab-Israeli Conflict Transformed: Fifty Years of Interstate and Ethnic Crisis—Hemda Ben-Yehuda and Schmuel Sandler Debating the Global Financial Architecture—Leslie Elliot Armijo Political Space: Frontiers of Change and Governance in a Globalizing World— Yale Ferguson and R. J. Barry Jones (eds.) Crisis Theory and World Order: Heideggerian Reflections—Norman K. Swazo Political Identify and Social Change: The Remaking of the South African Social Order—Jamie Frueh Social Construction and the Logic of Money: Financial Predominance and International Economic Leadership—J. Samuel Barkin What Moves Man: The Realist Theory of International Relations and Its Judgment of Human Nature—Annette Freyberg-Inan Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse, Norms, and International Regimes, and Political Community—Rodger A. Payne and Nayef H. Samhat

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