The Environment and International Relations

Citation

O'Neill, K. (2017). The Environment and International Relations (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is part of Cambridge's Themes in International Relations series, whose volumes are described in the front matter as concise, accessible surveys for upper-level undergraduates and graduates, each with chapter-by-chapter guides to further reading and discussion questions. The second edition runs to about 300 pages in nine chapters, with a bibliography of some 35 pages. The publisher says that it uses the theories and tools of international relations to analyse global environmental problems through a historical and analytical framework that draws on several disciplines, and that this edition is updated to the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The new chapter is the one on market mechanisms (Chapter 8).

Chapter 1: Introduction: The Environment and International Relations

The opening chapter (27 pages) presents the book's framework. The preface indicates the stance behind it: global environmental politics lives with a tension between the normative wish to protect the environment and the analytical need to explain political dynamics as they are, and the book is built on the idea that one must first understand the governance systems that exist.

Chapter 2: Global Environmental Problems

A survey of the problems themselves. The title signals that the problems are treated before the actors and institutions that respond to them.

Chapter 3: Actors in Global Environmental Politics

The participants in environmental politics. This chapter introduces the parties whose interactions are analysed in the governance chapters that follow.

Chapter 4: State-Led Global Environmental Governance

Governance in which states take the lead, typically treaties and intergovernmental institutions. At about 34 pages it is the longest chapter in the book.

Chapter 5: The Impacts and Effectiveness of Global Environmental Governance

The effectiveness question: what impact global environmental governance has had and how far it works. This follows from the preface's point that progress depends on understanding the governance systems now in place.

Chapter 6: Global Economic Governance and the Environment

The relationship between global economic governance and the environment, as the title indicates. The contents do not list its sections, so its exact coverage is best checked in the book.

Chapter 7: Non-State Global Environmental Governance

Governance that is not led by states. The chapter title distinguishes it from the state-led governance of Chapter 4, so the two chapters are best read as a pair.

Chapter 8: The Global Politics of Market Mechanisms

The chapter added in the second edition. The publisher describes it as examining the emergence and politics of market mechanisms as a new mode of global environmental governance.

Chapter 9: Conclusions: The Environment and International Relations in the Twenty-First Century

The closing chapter, which draws the book's arguments together and looks at the twenty-first century.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1-3: Framework, problems and actors

• Normative and analytical tension: the preface's point that those who work in the field want to protect the environment but must also explain real political dynamics.
• Global environmental problems: the subject matter that the later governance chapters respond to.
• Actors: the participants in environmental politics, introduced in Chapter 3.

Chapters 4-7: Forms of governance and their effects

• State-led governance: governance driven by states and intergovernmental institutions.
• Non-state governance: governance that is not led by states.
• Effectiveness and impact: the subject of Chapter 5.
• Economic governance: the link between global economic rules and the environment.

Chapters 8-9: Markets and the future

• Market mechanisms: a new mode of governance, treated in the new Chapter 8.
• Twenty-first-century outlook: the direction of the conclusion.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Compact for the subject. At about 300 pages including references, and with nine chapters, it covers problems, actors, state-led and non-state governance and markets in a single volume, which makes it practical for a course that has other readings.
• A clear view of the field. The sequence of chapters moves from problems to actors to forms of governance to effectiveness, so a reader gets a logical order of questions to ask about any issue.
• Treats non-state governance and markets as governance. Chapter 7 and the new Chapter 8 show that the book looks beyond intergovernmental treaties, which is useful for readers who want a wider view than a treaty-by-treaty account.
• Series design. The series description says that each volume will include chapter-by-chapter guides to further reading and discussion questions, which would help seminar use.

Limitations

• Little detail visible about individual cases. The contents list no chapters on particular treaties or issues such as ozone or biodiversity; readers who want detailed regime case studies will find them in a longer treaty-oriented text.
• Fixed to 2015. The edition is updated to the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, so later developments need other sources.
• Audience may be more advanced than a first course. The series description in the front matter names upper-level undergraduates and graduates as its readers, which is a higher starting point than an introduction for first-year students; this is worth weighing for readers new to international relations.
• No independent review located. The assessment rests on the publisher's description, the contents and the preface.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the shorter of the two introductory textbooks in the environmental politics list. Chasek, Downie and Allan's Global Environmental Politics is a larger survey organised around the development of individual treaty regimes, and is the place to go for case-by-case detail on whaling, ozone, climate, biodiversity, chemicals and plastics; O'Neill is the more analytical, framework-driven alternative and can be read before it or alongside it. Neil Carter's The Politics of the Environment adds green political thought, activism and national policy, which O'Neill touches on less.

Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons, Robyn Eckersley's Environmentalism and Political Theory and Matthew Paterson's In Search of Climate Politics are more specialised works, a study of how communities govern shared resources, a work of environmental political theory and a monograph on the politics of climate change. They are best approached after a survey like O'Neill's.

How to Use This Book

The book is for students of political science, international relations or environmental studies who want a framework for thinking about global environmental governance. The preface addresses students who have grown up with serious environmental trends and who need to understand the existing institutions before they can change them.

A practical plan:

• Read in order. The chapters build: problems, actors, governance, effectiveness. Chapters 1-3 are essential for the rest.
• Core. Chapters 4, 5 and 7 together give the main comparison between state-led and non-state governance and what each achieves.
• Optional by course. Chapter 6 on economic governance suits courses with a trade or political economy emphasis, and Chapter 8 on market mechanisms suits courses on climate policy.
• Use the series features. If the chapters carry the series' further-reading guides and discussion questions, use them for seminar preparation, and use Chapter 9 as a prompt for an essay.
• Pair with a case book. Because the contents are organised by theme rather than by treaty, read one detailed case from a longer text, such as the regime chapters of Chasek, Downie and Allan, alongside Chapters 4 and 5.