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

Introduction 7
may not fit easily into any one of these three approaches, and some scholars
contribute to more than one theoretical approach.
Power theorists, most prominently realists, start from an assumption
about the anarchic nature of the international state system and claim that
ideational factors are epiphenomenal because states fundamentally strive
to expand their power and to protect themselves against other states striving
for power and wealth. Supporters of power-based hypotheses point to
the distribution of power capabilities among states and expect shifts in
power capabilities to result in regime change. This view is closely associated
with the claim that a regime is generally created by a hegemon that
possesses “a preponderance of material resources” (Keohane 1984, p. 32).
It is indeed relevant to examine power-based hypotheses; as I will show, the
United States acted as an international leader when the global ocean dumping
regime was built.
Neoliberals stress the significance of interests and assume that states
make their choices independently in order to maximize their own returns.
They claim that cooperation is based largely on self-interest and on realization
of joint gains. Power politics has to give way to bargaining, compromise,
and cooperation, and nonstate actors (especially scientists and
international organizations) may matter. Interest-based explanations often
stress that states’ incentives to cooperate vary with the nature of the problems
they hope to solve. For instance, in regard to the possibilities for successfully
building regimes, some distinguish between benign problems
(coordination problems and conditions for realizing benefits of coordination)
and malign problems (where a skewed distribution of incentives to
cooperate give rise to distributive conflict) (Underdal 1987). Neoliberals
have identified a limited number of leadership types that, under certain
conditions, are instrumental when self-interested states attempt to build
regimes (Young 1991). Scholars who stress the importance of interests
rarely focus systematically on the significance of ideas and perception in
regime development.
A third group of scholars—mainly reflectivists, cognitivists, and social
constructivists—are impressed with the significance of perception and cognition
when states build regimes. 16 Because states’ interests are perceived
and are outcomes of cognitive processes, these scholars claim, they cannot
be determined objectively and deductively beforehand. In their view, knowledge
and values necessarily influence how states define their interests and