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

Conclusion 175
entrepreneurs, in contrast, expanded regime analysis to include the broader
political arena, state-society relationships, and the significance of statesociety
relationships for policy and regime development. The strength of
the TEC approach is that it connects three important factors in environmental
cooperation: policy entrepreneurs, ideas, and the public arena. The
TEC approach combines a focus on an influential transnational actor with
ideational analysis of regime processes.
I have also demonstrated that ENGOs play a crucial role in changing
international environmental norms, principles, rules, and decision-making
procedures, even in the face of opposition from dominant states and lack
of scientific proof of environmental and human health risks. Since the mid
1980s, the global regime on ocean dumping of low-level radioactive waste
has undergone a major change from a permissive allowance of such disposal
to a total ban on disposal that reflects a recent emphasis on precaution
and prevention. A global ENGO mobilized national and international
public opinion, broadened a transnational environmental coalition, monitored
environmental commitments of states, and advocated precautionary
action and protection of the environment. It was evident that theories
emphasizing either material power, self-interests, or knowledge could not
account adequately for the processes and actors that accomplished this
regime change. In particular, they paid little attention to the underlying
ideational and normative dynamics of this regime.
Ideas, Hegemons, and Regimes
In this book I have examined how transnational coalitions of policy entrepreneurs
and public ideas interact in processes constructing or reconstructing
state interests, international environmental problems and issue
areas. I have paid less attention to what, if any, impact such transnational
ideas-based actors might have on relations among states. Reflective and
ideational scholars often seem to believe that the existence of ideas-based
actors is evidence of a diffusion of sovereign power of states to transnational
actors and, by implication, that significant consequences for world order
follow.
Do environmental regimes built by transnational entrepreneur coalitions
benefit some states more than others? Do these regimes distribute costs
and benefits differently than regimes that come about through processes in