What data do we need to assess the effectiveness of international environmental regimes?
Jan 28th, 2011 by Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega
There is a rather large body of literature that examines qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the effectiveness of international environmental regimes (for examples, you can read Sprinz 2000 literature review, with reference to some early work by Bernauer 1995 and Young 1994, as well as recent work by Mitchell 2007 and 2010). I asked you to follow the two dimensions of regime effectiveness (problem solving and compliance) posed in Dr. Kate O’Neill’s (2009) recent book and explore different regimes. In this exploration, you were asked to look at the kinds of data you would need to use to assess the effectiveness of regimes and how these variables differ from issue area/case study to issue area/case study. Feel free to use this blog entry as space to discuss the challenges of selecting analytical variables to assess effectiveness.
I thought of an issue that was not brought up in class. The reading and members of my group mentioned that one needs to forecast or predictively model various alternatives in order to determine the regime’s comparative effectiveness. This includes the “do nothing” approach. However, depending on the issue area one studies this could be very difficult and financially costly.
Thus I wonder, who would fund the research necessary to make predictions? Proponents of the regime that was chosen would not want research to be conducted that showed that their preferred regime is ineffective.
Furthermore, how would a person/scientist actually figure out exactly what would happen given a certain alternative regime? When it comes to international regimes, one must consider international actors who may be influenced by agreements made elsewhere. These actors may act in unpredictable ways.
Also, for geographically unbounded issues, such as climate change, there are so many factors at work that it seems impossible to accurately model future trends.
Just a thought…