Doing away with plastic shopping bags: international patterns of norm emergence and policy implementation

The rapid and widespread emergence of an anti-plastic shopping bag norm and associated regulatory policies around the world in recent years forces a rethinking of current understandings of norm dynamics and policy implementation. The patterns of this movement are explored and characterised as a South to North, non-networked and multi-scalar series of events that together represent a globally significant emergence of a new environmental norm. It also shows that differences in policy outcomes as a response to this norm in different countries and at different jurisdictional levels are in many ways linked to the influence of material interests in the interpretation of the norm into policy. These variations in domestic norm interpretation in turn influence international norm dynamics.

[1]  R. Lipschutz.  Toxic Exports: The Transfer of Hazardous Wastes from Rich to Poor Countries , 2002 .

[2]  K. Sen.  Globalisation and employment in Bangladesh and Kenya , 2003 .

[3]  Susan K. Sell,et al.  Using Ideas Strategically: The Contest Between Business and NGO Networks in Intellectual Property Rights , 2004 .

[4]  Michael W. Okoth,et al.  Selection, design and implementation of economic instruments in the solid waste management sector in Kenya: The case of plastic bags , 2005 .

[5]  K Spokas,et al.  Plastics - still young, but having a mature impact. , 2008, Waste management.

[6]  Francesca Polletta,et al.  Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics , 1998 .

[7]  M. Finnemore,et al.  International Norm Dynamics and Political Change , 1998, International Organization.

[8]  C. Moore,et al.  Persistent organic pollutants carried by synthetic polymers in the ocean environment. , 2007, Marine pollution bulletin.

[9]  C. Epstein.  The Making of Global Environmental Norms: Endangered Species Protection , 2006, Global Environmental Politics.

[10]  M. Visser,et al.  The economics of plastic bag legislation in South Africa , 2007 .

[11]  A. Zuber,et al.  Persistent Organic Pollutants , 2019, Chemical hazards in foods of animal origin.

[12]  Helge Jörgens,et al.  The Global Diffusion of Regulatory Instruments: The Making of a New International Environmental Regime , 2004 .

[13]  G. Seyfang.  Shopping for Sustainability: Can Sustainable Consumption Promote Ecological Citizenship? , 2005 .

[14]  S. Bernstein,et al.  The Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism , 2001 .

[15]  Michele M. Betsill,et al.  Cities and the Multilevel Governance of Global Climate Change , 2006, Understanding Global Cooperation.

[16]  D. Fuchs.  Commanding Heights? The Strength and Fragility of Business Power in Global Politics , 2005 .

[17]  F. Convery,et al.  The most popular tax in Europe? Lessons from the Irish plastic bags levy , 2007 .