AWA: Academic Writing at Auckland

Environmental Policy within international organizations is a topic that has not been at the forefront of political theory until very recently. This has meant that there is limited literature on the subject, which is something that Frank Biermann, Bernd Siebenhüner, and Anna Schreyögg, have attempted to combat by collating research and writings in their book International Organizations in Global Environmental Theory. The editors’ goal is to provide wider information on this developing issue and to offer “fresh analysis to the study of international organizations” (4). Their argument stems from the idea that the problems of global environmental change have “challenged the international research community to generate new theoretical understandings“ (xiii) of international organizations, and they are doing this by emphasizing the emergence of environmental politics as a distinct academic field, and as an increasingly important component of international decision-making. The authors predominantly focus on the larger and more well known organizations because they are ‘more interesting’ (12), such as the United Nations and Greenpeace. This ignores the influence that smaller organizations have, which could have produced a wider variety of findings. Despite this, the abundance of research that each author has undertaken has produced a reliable piece of literature on global environmental governance and international organizations, successfully achieving the goal of the editors.

The three main areas that the book covers are the rise of environmental policy as an issue within intergovernmental organizations, the increase of international organizations being set up specifically to address environmental issues, and the creation of international organizations that are not public or state actors. These are all analyzed through a variety of methods, including single-case studies, multiple-case studies (or comparative studies) with an emphasis on both quantitative and qualitative data. The single-case studies provide an in depth analysis of the effects of the processes and structure of an organization on the environment. This method has been used by authors such as Axel Dreher and Magdalena Ramada Y Galán Sarasola in their analysis of the United Nations, which has resulted in large amounts of data being collected on this particular organization. What a single-case study lacks is the opportunity for comparison, which ignores the wider spheres of influence that the growing number of International organizations have. Multiple-case studies allow the authors to compare organizations with each other, including the negative effects that they have on the environment, and the steps they are taking to remedy this. This has been undertaken by a number of authors in this book, such as Liliana B. Andonova’s comparison of five public-private partnership initiatives in Chapter 10 (195-222). All of the theoretical perspectives and the methods undertaken by the authors conclude that the role of international organizations is increasing when it comes to environmental protection. The outcome of the book is that there is a need for a joint effort in producing an “effective, efficient, and equitable” solution (13).

Part one of this book addresses intergovernmental organizations and their approach to, and influences on the environmental governance. Many international organizations have significant influence on global environment and governance processes, and examples given include Dreher and Sarasola’s research into the influences of international organizations on the global environment and on environmental governance in chapter 2 (19-50). They found that it was significant and often autonomous. These findings are based on numerous regression analyses on a number of organizations with an environmental focus, providing evidence of the quantitative influence many of these organizations have on this field. This section also explores how and why environmental issues often have low domestic priority in most countries. Many of these actors are reluctant to undertake environmental policies that are costly and do not provide immediate economic return, which challenges the idea of how much influence international organizations have on environmental policies. This provides insight into the state of the political landscape in terms of the environment, which successfully contributes to the editors’ aim of providing more information on the role of international organizations in environmental governance.

Part two looks at how international organizations have developed environmental programs and policies into their existing practices. This section asserts that these organizations can play an important role in the global approach to environmental governance and protection. The first chapter provides the example of the United Nations, an international organization that did not acknowledge the environment in its original charter, while Chapter 7 (133-150) analyses how reformation of the design of the United Nations can mitigate the environmental problems it encounters. This research found that the UN Environment Program was highly influential when it came to initiating negotiations and setting agendas, but lost this influence when it came to policing the outcomes of these talks, once again providing a critical analysis on the role that international organizations play in global governance. This chapter uses various schools of thought to argue both sides of this debate, initially coming to the conclusion that realists would argue that changing the organization design would have no affect on their influence, as organizations are “a mere reflection of the will of the most powerful members” (133). The authors ultimately decide to look at the issue from an institutionalist or social constructivist point of view, as realists would not be concerned with this ‘soft’ issue. By arguing through the lens of a variety of schools of thought, this section provides credibility to the findings of the research, as it implies that there was limited bias in this research.

The final section of the book provides analysis of new international organizations, particularly ones that are made up of a hybrid of both the public and private sectors. Non-state actors from the business and environmentalist sectors are taking up functions that have traditionally been the role and responsibility of governmental actors and intergovernmental organizations. This topic has been subject to analysis by Adonova, as well as Phillip Pattberg, and Vanessa Timmer in their respective chapters. Organizations such as CERES (235), which aim to establish more sustainable management practices, are analyzed, and these groups are often presented as implementing measures that go beyond the self-interest of the participating companies and enter into the global political sphere. Political Organizations such as Greenpeace are also acknowledged as nongovernmental organizations that have a significant impact on international negotiations. This highlights a trend of international cooperation facilitated through intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. It also acknowledges the changing structure of the global political sphere, with an increased presence of different types of international organizations with regulations that transverse traditional state borders. This provides more in-depth insight into the contemporary political landscape.

The predominant weaknesses of this book include the fact that there is not a large amount of evidence or examples that can be used to support claims made by the authors, other than the research that they themselves have undertaken. Pattberg explicitly declares this in his chapter with the statement that “evidence is still rather scarce, and comparative case studies using quantitative methodologies are missing” (240). This means that there may not be sufficient evidence to support all of the claims that each author makes. This, however, can be forgiven, as this lack of information is the reason that the editors have produced this literature.  A second weakness is that only the larger international organizations have been analyzed for this book. This ignores a large number of the over 250 international organizations that existed at the time of publication, which could have provided a wider scope of information about the global political landscape. However, it is unfair to expect that each organization be researched in depth for this book, and so this does not detract from the high quality literature that has been produced.

Biermann et al. have successfully created a piece of literature that acknowledges and provides insight into the importance of international organizations in environmental governance. The methodological diversity that has been utilized in the research undertaken for this book reflects the complex nature of its subject. Each section of the book testifies to the idea that international organizations role in environmental governance is increasingly relevant, as nation states must work together to ensure that environmental protection is taking place. By covering the changing role of international organizations Biermann et al. have produced a resource that actively provides insight into the place these organizations hold in our contemporary globalized society. The rising importance of environmental problems on the international agenda has been addressed throughout the book, as well as the methods being undertaken to combat these problems. This has resulted in an in-depth piece of literature that provides a wider source of information on an ever-increasingly relevant aspect of the contemporary political landscape.