Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

128 Chapter 7
interests of other governments, and had little experience with comparable
interstate interactions and instances of cooperation. The Stockholm secretariat
was more familiar with the concerns and interests of governments
and other stakeholders than governments themselves were. A wide policy
window appeared, and the secretariat, which was well placed to take
advantage of the opportunity, brokered effectively. In summary, the secretariat
simuntaneously pushed and pulled governments to cooperate by
mobilizing public opinion and support, identifying joint gains to states,
devising politically attractive regime features, and forming coalitions with
domestic groups.
Conclusions
A transnational coalition of policy entrepreneurs played a major role in the
establishment of the global ocean dumping regime. It persuaded states to
change or redefine their interests with respect to ocean protection, identified
shared interests among states, discovered joint gains, mobilized domestic
support, and designed politically attractive features of the regime. In
short, the transnational coalition of policy entrepreneurs provided both
ideational and entrepreneurial leadership in the regime-building process.
The interests and positions of states in the environmental field were recent
and developing rather than well established and fixed, and influential policy
entrepreneurs knew states’ interests and positions better than states
themselves did. This informational advantage made it possible to design
and propose regime features that helped states overcome significant obstacles
to establishment of the global ocean dumping regime. Entrepreneurs
could furthermore mobilize domestic support for international cooperation
in a situation where new widespread environmental ideas, values and interests
were emerging, thus creating common ground among states. They
effectively persuaded governments to adjust domestic and international
policies in line with a recent fundamental ideational change.
This case documents an ideational path to regime establishment that previously
has attracted little attention. As I have shown in this chapter, none
of the prominent approaches gives a satisfactory account of how the global
regime for controlling ocean dumping was built. To judge from this case,
knowledge-based analysis attaches too much importance to the knowledge