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

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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