Transnational delegation in global environmental governance: When do non-state actors govern?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Green, Jessica F.
• 署名单位: New York University
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.12141
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 263-276
• 关键词: design

摘要

Non-state actors - including firms, non-governmental organizations, and networks - are now a permanent fixture in environmental politics. However, we know surprisingly little about when states choose to delegate to non-state actors through multilateral treaties. This paper provides an historical picture, tracing patterns of delegation to non-state agents in a random sample of multilateral environmental agreements from 1902 to 2002. I introduce a new unit of analysis - the policy function - to understand what non-state actors actually do as agents. I find that analyses of delegation are sensitive to the unit of analysis; patterns of delegation at the treaty level are very different from those at the level of individual policy functions. While overall the decision to delegate to non-state actors - what I term transnational delegation - is rare, it has grown over time. Complex treaties, those with secretariats, and those focused on the management of nature are more apt to delegate to non-state actors. Non-state agents fill a small, but growing role in multilateral environmental treaties.