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

192 Chapter 10
arena in situations such as that of radwaste disposal, which is characterized
by an uneven distribution of benefits and costs across countries. In
any case, to increase the effectiveness of environmental regimes, deliberation
should certainly be stimulated whenever and wherever possible.
Widely accepted ideas and policy entrepreneurs can affect the deep normative
structure of environmental regimes and environmental cooperation.
Policy entrepreneurs who shape the principles, norms, and values that
define particular issue areas have a significant influence on regimes. Their
power stems from their ability to influence the way in which states and the
international community conceive of environmental issues. Under certain
intellectual and contextual conditions they influence environmental
regimes by using ideas and metaphors strategically to focus public and
political attention on issues, by broadening support behind their solutions,
and by brokering among states and stakeholders. Transnational coalitions
of policy entrepreneurs and ENGOs can perform crucial roles in such
respects. They are potentially most influential when they are concerned
with plus-sum issues. Unless they are able to manipulate state incentives,
for instance by mobilizing domestic and international pressure through
effective campaigning, they have little influence when issues are primarily
distributive or redistributive.
It is a short step from interest-based analysis to prescriptive advice stressing
the importance of designing negotiations and institutions that distribute
the benefits and costs of cooperation evenly across states, make sure
that the benefits of cooperation exceed costs, and that incentives to discourage
free riding are provided. There is in a sense an equally short step
to be taken by scholars of epistemic communities who claim that these communities
help protecting the environment and increasing societal welfare
more broadly. 28 But these theories might not be particularly helpful when
developing policy prescriptions because, as I have demonstrated, neither
the environmental and economic costs and benefits nor the scientific basis
of popular policies necessarily attract as much attention as interest-based
and knowledge-based regime analysis predict and hope.
However, ideas are no panacea. Just as improving scientific and technical
knowledge does not necessarily increase cooperation, ideas do not necessarily
facilitate regime formation or increase the effectiveness of
environmental regimes. Ideas might be fundamentally wrong and lead to