1 Evaluating the Influence of Global Environmental Assessments 1

Introduction Global environmental changes and scientific assessments of those changes have become increasingly common elements in international, national, and even local policymaking and decision making. Do assessments of the causes of, impacts of, and options for dealing with global environmental problems influence how society addresses those prob-lems? How do those assessments influence policy and economic decisions at levels from the global to the local? What conditions foster or inhibit such influence? In what ways can careful design of an assessment increase such influence? Large-scale environmental problems typify the challenges of complex interdependence facing today's global community (Keohane and Nye 1977/1989). Both understanding and addressing most such problems require cooperation among different countries, between scientists and policymakers, and across the range of concerned and affected actors from the local to the global level In response to such problems, organized efforts to mobilize scientific information in support of decision making have become increasingly frequent. The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is perhaps the best known assessment but assessments have been regularly conducted in the past and are planned for the future, with recent ones including the by characterizing and trying to explain variation in the influence of a range of global environmental assessments. In this book, we present results from a multiyear, interdisciplinary, international research program that compared a range of environmental assessments from climate change and water management to biodiversity in an effort to better understand how global environmental assessments operate, when and how they influence policymaking and decision making, and how they can be designed to be more effective. 1 In this chapter, we begin by defining and reviewing the " global environmental assessments " (GEAs) we seek to understand and the challenges and opportunities for using them to inform environmental decision making. We then briefly summarize relevant scholarship from a variety of fields that informed our initial research on the influence of GEAs. There follows an outline of the conceptual framework we developed for this study and a preview of the case studies that constitute the bulk of this volume. Our conclusions on both the design of institutions for carrying out more effective GEAs and on the implications of GEA experience for broader social science scholarship on the influence of information are presented and discussed in the book's final chapter. What Are Global Environmental Assessments? Global environmental change, and its human causes and consequences, has …

[1]  S. Jasanoff,et al.  The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers. , 1991 .

[2]  A. Cropper.  Convention on Biological Diversity , 1993, Environmental Conservation.

[3]  P. Sabatier.  An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein , 1988 .

[4]  Johan P. Olsen,et al.  The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders , 1998, International Organization.

[5]  P. Newell.  Ozone discourses: science and politics in global environmental cooperation , 1996 .

[6]  R. Kates.  Climate Change 1995: Impacts, Adaptations, and Mitigation , 1997 .

[7]  H. Jacobson,et al.  Environmental protection : the international dimension , 1983 .

[8]  Shlomo Zilberstein,et al.  Models of Bounded Rationality , 1995 .

[9]  Giandomenico Majone,et al.  The Critical Appraisal of Scientific Inquiries with Policy Implications , 1985 .

[10]  Jill Jäger,et al.  Assessments of regional and global environmental risks : designing processes for the effective use of science in decisionmaking , 2006 .

[11]  C. Mills,et al.  The Theory of Social and Economic Organization , 1948 .

[12]  H. J. Schellnhuber,et al.  ‘Earth system’ analysis and the second Copernican revolution , 1999, Nature.

[13]  Tasneem Hameed,et al.  Change. , 2018, The Journal of the Oklahoma State Medical Association.

[14]  Edith Brown Weiss,et al.  Engaging countries : strengthening compliance with international environmental accords , 1998 .

[15]  S. Jasanoff.  States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and the Social Order , 2004 .

[16]  Michael D. McGinnis,et al.  Polycentric governance and development : readings from the workshop in political theory and policy analysis , 1999 .

[17]  Clark A. Miller.  Hybrid Management: Boundary Organizations, Science Policy, and Environmental Governance in the Climate Regime , 2001 .

[18]  Michael X Cohen,et al.  A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. , 1972 .

[19]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[20]  F. Buttel.  The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process.By Maarten A. Hajer. Oxford University Press, 1995 , 1997 .

[21]  J. D. Morrow.  Modeling the forms of international cooperation: distribution versus information , 1994, International Organization.

[22]  Sheila Jasanoff,et al.  Earthly politics : local and global in environmental governance , 2004 .

[23]  Steinar Andresen,et al.  Science and politics in international environmental regimes : between integrity and involvement , 2000 .

[24]  Leen Hordijk,et al.  Using computer models in international negotiations , 1999 .

[25]  H. Simon,et al.  "Models of Man"@@@Models of Man: Social and Rational. Mathematical Essays on Rational Human Behavior in a Social Setting. , 1959 .

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

[27]  C. Lindblom,et al.  Politics And Markets: The World's Political-economic Systems , 1977 .

[28]  Saleem H. Ali,et al.  Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements , 1994 .

[29]  C. Lindblom.  THE SCIENCE OF MUDDLING THROUGH , 1959 .

[30]  M. G. Morgan,et al.  Integrated assessment of climate change. , 1993, Science.

[31]  M. Granger Morgan,et al.  Technical Uncertainty in Quantitative Policy Analysis — A Sulfur Air Pollution Example , 1984 .

[32]  K. Rothman,et al.  Science and policy making. , 1985, American journal of public health.

[33]  Pm Haas.  EPISTEMIC COMMUNITIES AND INTERNATIONAL-POLICY COORDINATION - INTRODUCTION , 1992 .

[34]  L. Hordijk,et al.  Integrated assessment models for acid rain , 1997 .

[35]  R. Mitchell.  INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS: A Survey of Their Features, Formation, and Effects , 2003 .

[36]  Stephan Haggard,et al.  Theories of international regimes , 1987, International Organization.

[37]  P. Berger,et al.  Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace , 1950 .

[38]  Kathryn Sikkink,et al.  The power of human rights : international norms and domestic change , 1999 .

[39]  S. Jasanoff,et al.  Controlling Chemicals: The Politics of Regulation in Europe and the United States , 1985 .

[40]  J. Rotmans.  Methods for IA: The challenges and opportunities ahead , 1998 .

[41]  D. Reicosky.  Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade , 2000 .

[42]  John F. Richards,et al.  The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution.@@@The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere Over the Past 300 Years. , 1993 .

[43]  William C. Clark,et al.  Learning to manage global environmental risks: volume 1. A comparative history of social responses to climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain. , 2001 .

[44]  W. Steffen,et al.  Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure , 2005 .

[45]  R. Benedick.  Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet , 1991 .

[46]  M. Tolba,et al.  Global Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating Environmental Agreements for the World, 1973-1992 , 1998 .

[47]  Carl Hosticka,et al.  Compass and Gyroscope: Integrating Science and Politics for the Environment , 1995 .

[48]  Peter M. Haas,et al.  Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation , 1990 .

[49]  M. Betsill,et al.  NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: A Framework for Analysis , 2001, Global Environmental Politics.

[50]  John N. Warfield,et al.  Usable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving , 1979 .

[51]  Elizabeth R. DeSombre,et al.  The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale , 2002 .

[52]  J. Alcamo,et al.  The RAINS Model of Acidification: Science and Strategies in Europe , 1990 .

[53]  C. Lindblom.  Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Understand and Shape Society , 1992 .

[54]  W. Rosenblith,et al.  International environmental research and assessment: Proposals for better organization and decision making , 1992 .

[55]  John Theodore Houghton,et al.  Global Warming: The Complete Briefing , 1994 .

[56]  Robert O. Keohane,et al.  Power and interdependence : world politics in transition , 1978 .

[57]  Jeffrey T. Checkel.  The Constructive Turn in International Relations Theory , 1998, World Politics.

[58]  J. Durant,et al.  The public understanding of science , 1989, Nature.

[59]  Lori Cunniff,et al.  Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence, , 2002 .

[60]  M. Granger Morgan,et al.  Learning from integrated assessment of climate change , 1996 .

[61]  Enver Solmon,et al.  The policy making process , 2008 .

[62]  J. Skea,et al.  Acid Politics: Environmental and Energy Policies in Britain and Germany , 1991 .

[63]  T. Risse.  “Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics , 2000, International Organization.

[64]  R. Kates,et al.  The International Response to the Threat of Chlorofluorocarbons to Atmospheric Ozone , 1982 .

[65]  S. Andresen.  Science and politics in the international management of whales , 1989 .

[66]  G. Ikenberry.  3. Creating Yesterday’s New World Order: Keynesian “New Thinking” and the Anglo-American Postwar Settlement , 1993 .

[67]  J. Ruggie.  What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge , 1998, International Organization.

[68]  Robert Jervis,et al.  System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life , 1997 .

[69]  Y. Ezrahi,et al.  The descent of Icarus : science and the transformation of contemporary democracy , 1990 .

[70]  O. Sjaastad.  Epilogue , 1891, The Hospital.

[71]  Jeffrey T. Checkel,et al.  A Constructivist Research Program in EU Studies? , 2001 .

[72]  Thomas Risse,et al.  The Power of Human Rights: Cambridge Cultural Social Studies , 1999 .

[73]  Kenneth N. Waltz,et al.  Theory of International Politics , 1979 .

[74]  John W. Kingdon.  Agendas, alternatives, and public policies , 1984 .

[75]  W. Clark,et al.  Learning to manage global environmental risks: volume 2. A functional analysis of social responses to climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain. , 2001 .

[76]  Richard S. J. Tol,et al.  Challenges and Opportunities for Integrated Environmental Assessment , 1998 .

[77]  G. Brady.  Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , 1993 .

[78]  T. O'riordan,et al.  Climate Change 1995: Economic and Social Dimensions , 1997 .

[79]  Maarten A. Hajer,et al.  The Politics of Environmental Discourse , 1997 .

[80]  F. Giorgi.  The forgiving air. Understanding environmental change , 1997 .