21. POLITICO-ENVIRONMENTAL RELATIONS IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA
- Author:
- Aykut Shepherd
- Publication Date:
- 02-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Alternative Politics
- Institution:
- Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
- Abstract:
- Environmental issues have been on the international agenda for so long. However, International Relations (IR) theory acknowledged the environmental problem belatedly. When dealing with it, IR theory generally saw this problem as an annex to its central concerns. So, the environment as a research subject is considered either an issue of conflict or of cooperation from the perspectives of realism and liberal institutionalism respectively. By questioning this sort of consideration as a starting point, this article discusses the international environmental problem within the context of complexity and multiplicity of structural contradictions and overlapping and opposing interests of actors. The first section reveals the impasses of mainstream IR theory. The second section explores different aspects of the internationalization of the environment through a critical reassessment of state-centric understandings and problem-solving strategies. The interactions between national and international domains are also argued by employing normative environmental regulations. The last section examines the effects of corporations, states, international institutions and NGOs as main actors on the internationalization of the environment. This examination needs to take into consideration actor-structure relations. In other words, instead of separating politics from economics, and actors from capitalist structures at the domestic and international levels as does mainstream IR theory,
- Topic:
- Environment, Political structure, Institutionalism, and NGOs
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Middle East