Domestic Politics and the Formation of International Environmental Agreements

Simon Dietz, Carmen Marchiori and Alessandro Tavoni ()
Additional contact information
Simon Dietz: Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science
Carmen Marchiori: Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science

No 2012.76, Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Abstract: The theory of international environmental agreements overwhelmingly assumes that governments engage as unitary agents. Each government makes choices based on benefits and costs that are simple national aggregates, and similarly on a single set of national-level motivations, together drawing a strong analogy with the behaviour of an individual or firm in other strategic contexts. In reality, however, various domestic special interests shape environmental policy, including how national governments cooperate on cross-border issues. Therefore in this paper we introduce to a classic model of international environmental cooperation the phenomenon of domestic political competition, whereby lobby groups seek to influence policy by offering to fund political campaigning. We use the model to establish some general conditions for the effects of lobbying on the stringency of policy and the size of coalitions cooperating to provide an environmental good. Using specific functional forms, we obtain a range of further results, including circumstances in which the omission of lobbying results in environmental protection being underestimated.

Keywords: Game Theory; International Environmental Agreements; Lobbying; Special-Interest Groups; Strategic Cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 H41 K33 Q2 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-gth and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/w ... oads/NDL2012-076.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements (2017)
Working Paper: Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements (2017)
Working Paper: Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements (2017)
Working Paper: Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements (2016)
Working Paper: Domestic Politics and the Formation of International Environmental Agreements (2012)
Working Paper: Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fem:femwpa:2012.76

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alberto Prina Cerai ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).