Theory of environmental regionalism

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Theory of environmental regionalism

Sturmak Kyryll

1st Year of Master degree, International Relations Department,

Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University

One of the most common approaches to international relations research today is definitely regional studies. This is a modern method of investigating interstate relations, based on the division of counties on regional peculiarities. Such a classification became possible due to the ongoing phenomenon of globalization, which quickly transformed into regionalization and localization. The key elements of this method are the interdependence of neighboring states within a certain geography, their common goals and interests, and joint economic, political, and socio-cultural tendencies. In the 1980s, two Swedish Scientists B. Hettne and F. Soderbaum investigated the trend for the conclusion of multilateral agreements between countries on a regional basis and pioneered the theory of regionalism (often called 'new regionalism').

The study of regional environmental mechanisms has been developed after scholars noticed that about 60 % of all climate-related agreements constituted regional treaties, and was closely connected with the political ideology of the postmodern era.

The core principle of states' difference according to their green performance was based on the idea of sustainable development -- 17 environmentally aimed goals presented by the United Nations that can help humanity deal with climate change consequences.

And despite there have been dozens of international initiates aimed at fighting global warming, melting glaciers and massive environmental pollution since the 1990s (e. g. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement), the countries of Southeast Asia still cooperated primarily with those of their region, while the Euro-Atlantic or Latin American states tended to cooperate within their own geographical formation. From these observations, the concept of environmental regionalism arose, which is exactly the division of the entire world into several regions and a more compact study of international 'green' relations in this context.

Since not a single global effort has been able to achieve significant success in climate actions, it has led to the creation of smaller groups of countries (regions, sub-regions, interstate unions) that demonstrate the most successful performance in terms of ecology. Quite often, such groups elaborate on joint environmental initiatives and eventually begin to be perceived as a single actor, and their foreign policy is usually considered a common (sub)regional phenomenon. In short, within the most advanced regions, each individual state makes a significant contribution to the elimination of the problem that allows researchers to talk about the best climate-related regional policies in Western Europe, Scandinavia, the Baltics, Oceania and the Pacific. At the same time, several regions with the poorest environmental performance have emerged (the Sahel, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Latin America); they require a fundamental rethinking of their green strategy or further international support in order to finance their efforts of combating the effects of rapid climate change.

Because environmental regionalism is not a unified and well-structured doctrine, there are dozens of social scientists who use this method in assessing climate policy but most of them are limited to the analysis of one particular region and can be representatives of other theoretical schools at the same time.

For instance, J. Balsiger is known for his work on European green regionalism, particularly in the Alpine sub-region; Ch. Foster is a major ecology researcher at Harvard; J. Blatter specializes in studying this theory in North America; J. Carew-Reid coined fame as a classic of the Australian school of new regionalism; K. Kato is the famous Japanese researcher on Southeast Asian environment; M. Saguier and famous German environmentalist K. Siegel are mainly engaged in regional studies of South America; A. Obydenkova is a prominent specialist of the post-communist space, and in the works of D. Morales & L. Sariego-Kluge one can find the application of eco-theory for many peripheral regions. Also, this approach has not still gained popularity in some other regions and is traditionally seen as 'left-liberal political populism', so there are scholars in third-world countries and Russia who tend to criticize regional studies with environmental overtones. However, green regionalism remains extremely attractive for modern IR and thus, requires further theoretical development and practical usage.

regional environmental mechanism

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