Overview

An analysis of patterns of change in international environmental regimes, with five case studies illustrating the patterns identified. International environmental regimes—institutional arrangements that govern human-environmental interactions—are dynamic, changing continuously over time. Some regimes go from strength to strength, becoming more effective over the years, while others seem stymied from the beginning. Some regimes start strong, then decline; others are ineffective at first but become successful with the passage of time. In Institutional Dynamics, Oran Young offers the first detailed analysis of these developmental trajectories. Understanding the emergent patterns in environmental governance and how they affect regime effectiveness, he argues, is an important part of solving environmental problems. Young proposes a framework for analyzing patterns of institutional change based on the alignment of internal, endogenous factors—which include flexibility, monitoring procedures, and funding mechanisms—with such external, exogenous factors as the attributes of environmental problems, the political and economic contexts, and technological innovations. He offers five case studies of environmental regimes, governing environmental problems ranging from climate change to the protection of the Northern Fur Seal, each of which exemplifies one of the emergent patterns he has identified: progressive development, punctuated equilibrium, arrested development, diversion, and collapse.

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9780262514408

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Reviews

This book breaks new ground in analyzing the dynamics of change in environmental institutions while offering the same impressive theoretical creativity, conceptual precision, and broad learning that we expect from the work of Oran Young. It is a valuable piece of work, and I expect to make use of it in both my research and teaching. --Edward A. Parson, Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law, Professor of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan Institutional Dynamics makes a very convincing, and truly novel, argument that we need to take two steps back (both analytically and temporally) to look at the 'broad sweep' of institutions to be able to see how international environmental regimes change over time. Young is surely the best-placed scholar in the field to build the 'big-think' type of argument this book puts forth. --Ronald Mitchell, Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon Young's book is a creative theory-building effort as well as a fresh reinterpretation of five well-known case studies in the history of international environmental law. With Young's guiding hand and prolific scholarship, the study of international environmental regimes has evolved from early questions such as whether these institutions matter at all and how they form to today's research frontier, which is the search for theories that explain dynamic patterns and evolution. --David G. Victor, Professor, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego

Author Information

Oran R. Young is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Institutional Dynamics: Emergent Patterns in International Environmental Governance (MIT Press) and other books.

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