15 November 2008 The Evolution of Global Environmental Commitments Thomas Bernauer, Anna Kalbhenn,...

15 November 2008

The Evolution of Global Environmental Commitments

Thomas Bernauer, Anna Kalbhenn, Vally Koubi, Gabi Ruoff

International Political Economy Society Conference

Philadelphia, 14. - 15.11.08

2/1215 November 2008

Research Question

To what extent is the evolution of global

environmental commitments influenced by

Globalization Contingency effects Domestic factors?

Spatial and temporal dynamics of

international cooperation

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Theoretical Framework

Economic Integration: Trade Openness

The more open a country, the greater the loss from a reduction in trade

Environmental regulation (like a tax on exports) increases the costs of exportables

The probability of ratification decreases

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Theoretical Framework

Political Integration: Membership in International

Organizations

Countries that are “entangled” in a larger network of international cooperation are more likely to behave cooperatively in the realm of environmental politics too

The probability of ratification increases

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Theoretical Framework

Contingency Effects

Countries are more likely to ratify if other countries, especially those in their “peer group”, have done so

- Number of countries ratified

- Number of countries in the same region

- Number of countries in the same income bracket

- Pivotal countries

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Theoretical Framework

Domestic Factors: Democracy Demand Side:

- Democracies tend to have higher civil liberties

- better informed citizens can push governments and impose higher audience costs, hence likelihood of ratification increases

Supply Side:- According to median voter argument, democratic governments

(=better providers of public goods) are expected to ratify global environmental treaties more often than autocracies

- According to political myopia argument, democratic leaders (=interested in re-election) should be reluctant to ratify

ambiguous effect on ratification

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Theoretical Framework

Domestic Factors: Income Non-linear effect (inverted U-shaped) between income

and likelihood of ratification

Controls: Power Environmental stringency Age of treaty Geographic region

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Research Design

New dataset global environmental treaty

ratifications Time period 1950 - 2000 Unit of analysis: country-treaty-year

- Country-treaty pair in dataset from treaty existence until ratification by respective country

Binary-time-series-cross-sectional approach with cubic

time polynomial to approximate hazard (Carter and

Signorino 2008)

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ResultsIGO membership 0.01 *** (0.00) Trade openness -0.14* * (0.05) # of other countries that rat ified

0.02 *** (0.00)

% of same income group that ratified

-0.00 (0.00)

% of countries in regio n that rat ified

0.03 *** (0.00)

Democracy (Polity) 0.02 *** (0.01) GD P p.c. 1.05 * (0.58) GD P p.c. ^2 -0.04 (0.04) SO2 p.c. 0.13 *** (0.03) GD P -0.11* (0.06) t -0.31** * (0.02) t2 0.01 *** (0.00) t3 -0.00** * (0.00) Cons tan t -10.25** * (2.61) Observat ions 74706 1

BTSCS logit regressions, robust standard errors in parentheses,clustered by country; *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

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Simulated Probabilities Baseline ModelSimulated Probability Pr(ratification=1)

Mean to Max Min to Mean Min to Max

Trade openness -0.001 (0.000)

-0.005 (0.003)

-0.006 (0.003)

Democracy 0.001 (0.000)

0.001 (0.000)

0.002 (0.001)

IGO membership 0.006 (0.003)

0.002 (0.000)

0.008 (0.003)

Number of countries 0.138 (0.052)

0.001 (0.000)

0.139 (0.053)

% income group -0.000 (0.001)

-0.000 (0.000)

-0.000 (0.001)

% region 0.076 (0.016)

0.001 (0.000)

0.077 (0.016)

Robust Standard errors in parentheses; all other variables are kept a t their mean values

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Approximation baseline hazard

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Conclusions

Trade has indeed a negative effect

Democracy: only weak, though positive effect results driven by civil liberties

IGO membership and contingency variables increase likelihood of treaty ratification

contingency effects stronger than country-specific effects