The international norms that are developed as tools of global governance can be placed on a continuum from traditional “hard law” treaties to the vaguest and voluntary “soft law.” In this article we develop an analytical framework for comparing norms on different positions along the continuum, thus for comparing international hard and soft law. We root the framework in both the rationalist and the constructivist paradigms of international relations by focusing on two overarching evaluative criteria: effectiveness and legitimacy. These broad concepts are divided into smaller building blocks encompassing mechanisms through which norms can exert influence; for example, by changing material incentives, identities, and building capacity, and by contributing to building source‐based, procedural, and substantive legitimacy. We illustrate the applicability of the framework with three norm processes of varying degrees of “softness” in global climate governance.
Geopolitics and geoeconomics are often addressed together, with the latter seen as a sub‐variant of the former. This article shows the usefulness of differentiating them at a conceptual level. By juxtaposing traditional geopolitics and geoeconomics, we suggest that they have remarkably different qualities and implications for their targets, on both national and international levels. Importantly, these include the formation of alliances, and whether they are driven by balancing, bandwagoning or underbalancing dynamics. An analysis of Russia's shifting geostrategy towards Europe shows these differences in practice. Russian geoeconomics has long been successful as a ‘wedge strategy’, dividing the EU. As a result, the EU has underbalanced and its Russia policies have been incoherent. The observable tendencies in 2014–15 towards a more coherent European approach can be explained by the changing emphasis in Russia's geostrategy. Russia's turn to geopolitics works as a centripetal force, causing a relative increase in EU unity. Centripetal tendencies due to heightened threat perception can be observed in the economic sanctions, emerging German leadership in EU foreign policy, and discussion on energy union. The analysis calls for more attention to the way strategic choices—geopolitics versus geoeconomics—affect the coherence of threatened states and alliance patterns.
India is a key actor in global climate governance, a result of its emissions profile, economic performance, and leadership role in the developing world. This article examines the new dynamics that are affecting the Indian position in global climate negotiations, which until recently has reflected a very traditional developing country position, tinged with neocolonial rhetoric. To analyze the Indian position in the era of thickening international legalization, the article considers the different basic views among the Indian policy-making elite. A significant national consensus exists on the notion that the developed countries have not “taken the lead” as was agreed in 1992 with the adoption of the U.N. Climate Change Convention. However, there is an intensive political debate in India revolving around the extent to which the country should take unilateral action on climate change and whether and how to link such measures to the international legalization process, as well as the respective role of per capita entitlements in the Indian international position. Influenced by international negotiations, the domestic policy dialogue is also shifting in India in important ways toward a more “internationalist” and proactive approach.
Global climate governance has undergone a significant transformation in the past decade. Previously it might reasonably have been characterized as a system governed by the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, with a secondary role for national policy regimes. Since then, a large array of governance initiatives acting across international borders have joined the UNFCCC regime, including those created by subgroups of governments, private sector actors of various types (specific industrial sectors, institutional investors, etc.), non-governmental organizations, and subnational actors like cities and regions. These initiatives are variously understood through ideas such as transnational, private, or non-state governance. 2 Many academic and policy debates about the UNFCCC, however, have largely ignored these developments. "Multilateralists" tend to focus on the design of intergovernmental agreements, with an at least implicit assumption that a "good" design of such a climate regime, combined with national government action, would be necessary and perhaps sufficient to meet the challenge of climate change. 3 By contrast, many "transnationalists" are pessimistic about the multilateral process and at times ignore the UNFCCC and its role, instead focusing on the conditions that give rise to alternative forms of climate governance and how these activities might collectively result in climate governance from the "bottom up." 4 In practice, we know these two spheres interact. The latest round of UNFCCC negotiations launched in Durban in 2011 focuses on increasing
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