IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/glopol/v15y2024i2p288-300.html

Here to stay? Challenges to liberal environmentalism in regional climate governance

Author

Listed:
  • David Krogmann

Abstract

While regionalism is highly relevant in many policy fields today, regional idiosyncrasies have been poorly understood in the literature on multilateral climate governance. This article explores regional ideas in climate governance by comparing the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS). As international climate governance has institutionalised a normative compromise of liberal environmentalism since the 1990s, the article further assesses ideational challenges to this compromise. It examines how these ideas have evolved over time and explains variation between the organisations through the advent of new knowledge. Relying on qualitative content analysis, the article finds that both CARICOM and CBSS have supported and reproduced liberal environmentalism in the past. More recently, CARICOM has started to connect climate change with notions of survival and justice, implicitly challenging liberal environmentalism, while CBSS remains situated within established discourses of sustainable development. The article then argues that the availability of new knowledge from both scientific as well as experiential sources explains the evolution of ideas in regional organisations. Problem definitions of climate change evolve within regional organisations when officials gain access to new scientific data and are able to combine or confirm them with experience from their day‐to‐day work.

Suggested Citation

  • David Krogmann, 2024. "Here to stay? Challenges to liberal environmentalism in regional climate governance," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 15(2), pages 288-300, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:15:y:2024:i:2:p:288-300
    DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.13321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13321
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1758-5899.13321?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wright,Christopher & Nyberg,Daniel, 2015. "Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107078222.
    2. Steven Bernstein, 2002. "Liberal Environmentalism and Global Environmental Governance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 2(3), pages 1-16, August.
    3. Fariborz Zelli & Harro van Asselt, 2013. "Introduction: The Institutional Fragmentation of Global Environmental Governance: Causes, Consequences, and Responses," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 13(3), pages 1-13, August.
    4. Matthias Heymann, 2010. "The evolution of climate ideas and knowledge," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 1(4), pages 581-597, July.
    5. Wright,Christopher & Nyberg,Daniel, 2015. "Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107435131.
    6. Parsons, Craig, 2002. "Showing Ideas as Causes: The Origins of the European Union," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(1), pages 47-84, January.
    7. Finnemore, Martha & Sikkink, Kathryn, 1998. "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 887-917, October.
    8. Steffen Bauer, 2006. "Does Bureaucracy Really Matter? The Authority of Intergovernmental Treaty Secretariats in Global Environmental Politics," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 23-49, February.
    9. Martin B. Carstensen, 2011. "Ideas are Not as Stable as Political Scientists Want Them to Be: A Theory of Incremental Ideational Change," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 59(3), pages 596-615, October.
    10. Andrew J. Jordan & Dave Huitema & Mikael Hildén & Harro van Asselt & Tim J. Rayner & Jonas J. Schoenefeld & Jale Tosun & Johanna Forster & Elin L. Boasson, 2015. "Emergence of polycentric climate governance and its future prospects," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(11), pages 977-982, November.
    11. Barnett, Michael N. & Finnemore, Martha, 1999. "The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(4), pages 699-732, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carlos R. S. Milani & Leonildes Nazar Chaves, 2022. "How and why European and Chinese pro-climate leadership may be challenged by their strategic economic interests in Brazil," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 403-422, December.
    2. Lea Steininger & Casimir Hesse, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp357, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    3. David Coen & Kyle Herman & Tom Pegram, 2022. "Are corporate climate efforts genuine? An empirical analysis of the climate ‘talk–walk’ hypothesis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 3040-3059, November.
    4. Julia Gray, 2024. "The life cycle of international cooperation: Introduction to the special issue," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 641-664, October.
    5. Daniel Muth & Mathieu Blondeel & Philipp Pattberg, 2025. "The Architecture of Global Carbon Pricing Governance: Institutions, Functions and Policy Pathways," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 16(5), pages 811-828, November.
    6. Adela Toscano-Valle & Antonio Sianes & Francisco Santos-Carrillo & Luis A. Fernández-Portillo, 2022. "Can the Rational Design of International Institutions Solve Cooperation Problems? Insights from a Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-22, June.
    7. Nathalie Lazaric & Loubna Echajari & Dorota Leszczyńska, 2025. "The Multiplicity of Paths to Sustainability, Grand Challenges and Routine Changes: The Long Road for Bordeaux Winemakers," GREDEG Working Papers 2025-27, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    8. Barbara Kump, 2021. "When do threats mobilize managers for organizational change toward sustainability? An environmental belief model," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 2713-2726, July.
    9. Avidan Kent, 2014. "Implementing the principle of policy integration: institutional interplay and the role of international organizations," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 203-224, September.
    10. Charlotte Demonsant & Kevin Levillain & Blanche Segrestin, 2022. "Questioning the logic of collective climate action: framing the climate action situation and the model of "Common rescue"," Post-Print hal-03722106, HAL.
    11. Terrence L. Chapman & Huimin Li, 2023. "Can IOs influence attitudes about regulating “Big Tech”?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 725-751, October.
    12. Matthijs Bal & Andy Brookes, 2022. "How Sustainable Is Human Resource Management Really? An Argument for Radical Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-14, April.
    13. repec:hal:gemptp:halshs-01958956 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Nyberg, Daniel & Murray, John, 2023. "Corporate populism: How corporations construct and represent ‘the people’ in political contestations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    15. Michael Quinlan, 2020. "Five challenges to humanity: Learning from pattern/repeat failures in past disasters?," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 31(3), pages 444-466, September.
    16. Glover, Jane & Touboulic, Anne, 2020. "Tales from the countryside: Unpacking “passing the environmental buck” as hypocritical practice in the food supply chain," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 33-46.
    17. Maria J. Debre & Hylke Dijkstra, 2023. "Are international organisations in decline? An absolute and relative perspective on institutional change," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(1), pages 16-30, February.
    18. Basha, Shabeen Afsar & Benkraiem, Ramzi & Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Masum, Abdullah-Al, 2025. "Does political risk exacerbate climate risk? Firm-level evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 104(PA).
    19. Belinda Wade & Andrew Griffiths, 2022. "Exploring the Cognitive Foundations of Managerial (Climate) Change Decisions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 15-40, November.
    20. Jonathan Pickering & Carola Betzold & Jakob Skovgaard, 2017. "Special issue: managing fragmentation and complexity in the emerging system of international climate finance," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-16, February.
    21. Kay Junge & Kirill Postoutenko, 2021. "Redundancy, Noisy Signaling, and Semantic inflation: Studying the Patterns of Self‐Destruction in Complex Systems," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(6), pages 902-910, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:glopol:v:15:y:2024:i:2:p:288-300. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.