Navigating Regional Environmental Governance

Abstract

Abstract. Global environmental governance is growing increasingly complex and recent scholarship and practice raise a number of questions about the continued feasibility of negotiating and implementing an ever-larger set of global environmental agreements. In the search for alternative conceptual models and normative orders, regional environmental governance (REG) is (re)emerging as a significant phenomenon in theory and practice. Although environmental cooperation has historically been more prevalent at the regional than at the global level, and has informed much of what we know today about international environmental cooperation, REG has been a neglected topic in the scholarly literature on international relations and international environmental politics. This introduction to the special issue situates theoretical arguments linked to REG in the broader literature, including the nature of regions, the location of regions in multilevel governance, and the normative arguments advanced for and against regional orders. It provides an overview of empirical work; offers quantitative evidence of REG's global distribution; advances a typology of REG for future research; and introduces the collection of research articles and commentaries through the lens of three themes: form and function, multilevel governance, and participation.

Regional Environmental Governance and Avenues for the Ecosystem Approach to management in the Baltic Sea Area

“…A regional focus may also ease the use of ecological borders rather than political ones (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2010;Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2012). There are several aspects that make the Baltic Sea an interesting area of study:…”

“…It can be said to be an emergent academic subfield within the more established disciplines of International Relations (IR) and International Environmental Politics (IEP) (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2010;Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2012). The early development of these academic fields in the 1980s was based on the regional dimension as a vital component; however, the status of the region received less attention and was incorporated in the global sphere of IEP.…”

“…The early development of these academic fields in the 1980s was based on the regional dimension as a vital component; however, the status of the region received less attention and was incorporated in the global sphere of IEP. Now, in a world quite different from the one that existed 30 years ago, a call for regional attention is heard from various scholars (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2012;Conca, 2012;Debarbieux, 2012). "It is time to bring the regional back in to the study of global environmental politics", write Balsiger and VanDeveer (2012, p.1).…”

“…It is believed that a world order of international regimes with a growing number of global environmental agreements and connected challenges such as global convention fatigue, ineffective steering and compliance, high transaction costs and yet other difficulties, could benefit from a change in scale, e.g. a shift from global to regional perspectives (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2012). Regional environmental governance is a term consisting of three separate entities (the 'region', the 'environment' and 'governance') which form an elusive trinity of interpretations (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2012).…”

“…a shift from global to regional perspectives (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2012). Regional environmental governance is a term consisting of three separate entities (the 'region', the 'environment' and 'governance') which form an elusive trinity of interpretations (Balsiger & VanDeveer, 2012). As thoroughly discussed by Debarbieux (2012), the notion of 'region' is somewhat heterogeneous, the only common ground being to: "…focus on a special kind of spatial entity -supranational or transnational ones."…”