Regulating the Polluters: Markets and Strategies for Protecting the Global Environment

National governments and private stakeholders have long recognized that protecting the global environment requires international cooperation. Climate change, tropical deforestation, biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, hazardous wastes, and ocean pollution are among several issues that have brought national governments together in common purpose. As they have worked to mitigate these global problems, governments have developed a wide variety of environmental regime designs. Some global environmental regimes are more institutionally integrated than others. Some regimes impose legally binding obligations on countries while others involve non-binding commitments. And some regimes involve global standards and rules while others leave national commitments up to countries' discretion. What explains the pattern of regime design in global environmental governance?Alexander Ovodenko demonstrates that national governments have developed different institutional responses to global issues because the markets producing environmental pollution impose varying constraints and create varying opportunities for governments. Contrary to the prevailing literature, governments are more inclined to impose stringent rules and regulations on oligopolistic industries than on competitive ones. The capital resources and innovation potential of oligopolistic businesses make them more cost-effective and economical in reducing pollution and meeting global standards than businesses in competitive industries. In global governance, oligopolistic businesses face a "double-edged sword" arising from their wealth and market concentrations. Regulating the Polluters inverts the literature on regulatory capture and collective action by presenting empirical evidence of the irony of market power in global environmental politics.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Abbreviations Chapter 1: Explaining the Design of Global Environmental Regimes PART ONE Chapter 2: Downstream Consumers and Climate Change Mitigation in the Airlines and Shipping Industries Chapter 3: Consumers and Intermediate Producers in the Phase-out of Agricultural and Industrial Ozone-Depleting Substances Chapter 4: Producers and Market Incentives in the Design of Global Atmospheric Institutions: Financial Assistance and Technology Transfer PART TWO Chapter 5: Industrial and Artisanal Producers and the Hybrid Governance of Mercury Pollution Chapter 6: Producers, Trade Groups, and the Design of Global Environmental Regimes CONCLUSION Chapter 7: Regulating under Constraints Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C: Summary of Interviewee Affiliations and Field Research Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Alexander Ovodenko is an Energy Industry Analyst at the U.S. Department of Energy and a Professional Lecturer at The George Washington University.

Review :
"This carefully researched study makes a valuable contribution to the international political economy literature on environmental protection." -- Thomas Hale (University of Oxford), International Affairs 94:2 "Ovodenko (George Washington) provides a thoughtful, rigorous analysis of global environmental governance. This well-organized and readable volume presents a market theory of environmental regime design...This volume is accessible to beginning and advanced researchers, and students seeking to gain an understanding of specific global environmental issues (commercial shipping and aviation, etc.) or of a fully developed, nuanced model explaining the development of international environmental regimes. Recommended." --CHOICE "In this engaging book, Alexander Ovodenko argues that treaty negotiators face a much tougher task when trying to regulate polluters in competitive markets than those in oligopolistic markets. Ovodenko uses strong theory and compelling empirical analysis to shed important new light on the rational design of international institutions." --Ronald B. Mitchell, author of Intentional Oil Pollution at Sea: Environmental Policy and Treaty Compliance and International Politics and the Environment "Regulating the Polluters offers important new insights into the problem of global environmental governance. Through painstaking empirical research, Ovodenko shows that industries with few large players are easier to regulate in international negotiations. The book not only sheds light on why some environmental agreements succeed and others fail, but also offers constructive ideas for better policy to safeguard the planet from harm." --Johannes Urpelainen, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy Resources and Environment, Johns Hopkins SAIS "As a theory-building book, Regulating the Polluters remains valuable despite leaving the reader wondering what other factors may account for some of the empirical examples raised. Certainly it shows that students of international environmental politics must consider the structure of markets in order to understand how business interests may shape regulatory outcomes. In this way, Ovodenko provides an important theoretical argument to the growing literature on international regulation." - Thomas Hale, University of Oxford, UK