Money or Mandate? Why International Organizations Engage with the Climate Change Regime

Hall, Nina

doi:10.1162/glep_a_00299

Cited by 54 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…migration, development, security, disaster risk and reduction, health (see e.g. Dellmuth et al 2018;Hall 2015). This is far from the "legal transformation" model put forward by Galaz et al (2014), but may represent incremental change.…”

Section: International and Regional Governance Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing borderless climate risks: moving beyond the territorial framing of adaptation

Benzie

Persson

2019

Int Environ Agreements

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Despite the increasing relevance of cross-border flows of goods, capital and people in shaping risks and opportunities today, we still live in a "bordered" world, where the nation state plays a key role in planning and governance. Yet, climate change impacts will not be contained within country borders, meaning that climate change adaptation governance should also consider "borderless climate risks" that cascade through the international system, in relatively simple or highly complex ways. In this paper, we demonstrate how the notion of borderless climate risks challenges the dominant territorial framing of adaptation and its problem structure. To advance knowledge, we ask: why has a territorial framing and the national and sub-national scales dominated adaptation governance? How do borderless climate risks challenge this framing and what are possible governance responses? We draw on constructivist international relations theory and propose that the epistemic community that developed to interpret climate change adaptation for decision-makers had certain features (e.g. strong environmental sciences foundation, reliance on place-based case study research) that established and subsequently reinforced the territorial framing. This framing was then reinforced by an international norm that adaptation was primarily a national or local responsibility, which has paradoxically also informed calls for international responsibility for funding adaptation. We conclude by identifying types of governance responses at three different scales-national and bilateral; transnational; international and regionaland invite more systematic evaluation by the IR community.

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Section: International and Regional Governance Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing borderless climate risks: moving beyond the territorial framing of adaptation

Benzie

Persson

2019

Int Environ Agreements

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“…The linking of the organisation's core mandate with climate change and the Pacific comes at a time when increasing funding is likely to flow into the region. Furthermore, the absence of a regional representation of the IOM, which internationally holds a privileged position on climate migration (Hall 2015;Ober and Sakdapolrak 2017), may provide the opportunity for the ILO as another international organisation to occupy this space. Through its involvement in the PCCM project the ILO has become a new player in responses and policy making on climate and migration in the Pacific, which is a significant expansion of their core mandate and increases organisational relevance to the region and to new funding sources (Ober and Sakdapolrak 2017 describe a similar process for the IOM at the international level, while Jinnah 2011 discusses the more general phenomenon of 'climate change bandwagoning').…”

Section: Echoes Of Earlier Development Discourse Outside-driven Agenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration as climate adaptation? Exploring discourses amongst development actors in the Pacific Island region

Remling

2020

Reg Environ Change

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This paper investigates the perspectives of a set of actors devoted to development in the Pacific on climate change, migration, and adaptation. While much of the debate over climate and migration is centred around the Small Island Developing States in the Pacific, little is known about how the debate is articulated at that regional level. Drawing on poststructuralist discourse theory and using semi-structured interviews with a set of development actors working in the region, the paper discerns three distinctive discourses on climate and migration. These are (1) a main discourse that promotes international labour migration as an adaptation response and two alternative discourses that challenge the main discourse's views, by suggesting (2) that migration is of marginal importance and engagement with socioeconomic factors that influence Pacific Islands' vulnerability is more pressing, and (3) that out-migration is undesirable but that communities may have to be relocated within their countries. The paper further explores why the discourse on labour migration may have emerged and why it is being perpetuated by actors that originate outside the Pacific region. The paper concludes by suggesting that significant differentials in economic and political resources exist between the main discourse and the alternative discourses. In addition to these empirical insights, the paper adds new findings to the growing literature on the politics of climate migration discourses. Unlike earlier work that identifies a shift from an alarmist to an optimist framing, it illustrates that both alarmist and optimistic imaginaries operate simultaneously in the discourse on labour migration.

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“…Meanwhile, an actor‐oriented perspective has tried to make linkages between key organisations and policy‐making, at times navigating the mechanistic and structural divide. A prominent example is the role of IOM in climate–migration debates (Hall ), currently in a leading position in the migration‐as‐adaptation discourse (Felli ; Nash ), as both a foil to the securitisation of ‘climate refugees’ and as an alternative solution related to its mission (Vlassopoulos ). IOM actively and strategically acquired this position over time through making links to policy‐makers through organising high‐level panels, workshops, and publications in authoritative journals.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Policy‐making Related To ‘Migration As Adapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many studies however rely on document analysis to draw conclusions, sidestepping important machinations that go into the making of such documents (Ferraris ). As a rare exception, Hall () interviews IOM and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) staff in order to explain their (non‐)engagement in the climate–migration field, which shows IOM's ‘pragmatic strategy’ in itself, but with little insight into the networked and relational aspects of this type of policy‐making vis‐à‐vis other organisations.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Policy‐making Related To ‘Migration As Adapmentioning

confidence: 99%

How do social practices shape policy? Analysing the field of ‘migration as adaptation’ with Bourdieu's ‘Theory of Practice’

Ober

Sakdapolrak

2017

Geographical Journal

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In recent decades, there has been a shift in the climate‐migration discourse: from one preoccupied with ‘climate refugees’ to one of ‘migration as adaptation’. Academics and policy‐makers alike see migration as a way to generate income, diversify livelihoods, and spread risk in the face of climate change. Past literature has found that policy prescriptions at this nexus may play into existing politics and framings, especially in the struggle for funding or in the age of the ever‐present neoliberal agenda. This paper makes the case that perhaps the machinations behind policy recommendations need not appear to be sinister. While higher‐level structural considerations should be taken into account and doubtless undergird the trajectory of policy‐making, organisations often follow existing pathways neither because of empirical evidence nor with malicious intent, but rather because it is part and parcel of existing practices of positioning themselves within the system and playing the rules of the game. In fact, every‐day and seemingly mundane practices can accumulate and ‘hang together’ to shape and determine policy outcomes. This happens in a variety of ways in the field of ‘migration as adaptation’, but in its most explicit form can be unveiled in the organisational practices of writing publications and participating in conferences and working groups, for example. By using a practice‐oriented approach, with Bourdieu's ‘Theory of Practice’ as a guide, this paper provides an understanding of the logic and practices of the migration‐as‐adaptation policy sphere and the limited policy prescriptions related to it as well as suggests sites at which to target interventions for more radical policy imaginings.

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Money or Mandate? Why International Organizations Engage with the Climate Change Regime

Cited by 54 publications

References 16 publications

Governing borderless climate risks: moving beyond the territorial framing of adaptation

Governing borderless climate risks: moving beyond the territorial framing of adaptation

Migration as climate adaptation? Exploring discourses amongst development actors in the Pacific Island region

How do social practices shape policy? Analysing the field of ‘migration as adaptation’ with Bourdieu's ‘Theory of Practice’

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