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

Introduction 11
broad range of nonstate actors, including prominent individual scientists
and ecologists, specialized organizations of the United Nations, and the
international mass media, framed the issue of ocean dumping, placed it on
the global agenda, and mobilized international political and public support
for the global ocean dumping regime. As a result, the “dying oceans” idea
became institutionalized in the form of the global ocean dumping regime.
More analytically, my case study shows that a loosely organized transnational
coalition of policy entrepreneurs, consisting primarily of environmentalists,
politicians, and national and international government officials,
is able to build an environmental regime by constructing a seemingly evident
and indisputable need for environmental cooperation. The influence
of transnational coalitions of policy entrepreneurs stems from their ability
to politically construct international environmental problems and to act as
international norm setters. In brief, they control the process of international
problem definition. To attract political attention, mobilize international
public opinion, and build public pressure, and at the same time delegitimize
competing problem definitions and neutralize blocking coalitions, transnational
coalitions of policy entrepreneurs use global channels of mass
communication to spread public ideas, metaphors, and slogans that dramatically
and powerfully capture targeted environmental problems. Using
scientific evidence of environmental damage to persuade policy makers is
not a necessary component of these coalitions’ strategy for influence.
Transnational coalitions of policy entrepreneurs attempt to create fair and
flexible institutional solutions that will increase the participation of governments
in regimes.
Persuasive and credible demonstration of a need for international environmental
protection is critical in the problem-definition and agenda-formation
stages of regime formation. Powerful public ideas and symbols of
environmental destruction are necessary to focus public and political attention
on global environmental problems. Transnational coalitions of policy
entrepreneurs deliberately frame and push simple descriptions of targeted
environmental problems in order to mobilize broad support during the
problem-definition stage. Policy entrepreneurs use triggering problems or
focusing events such as perceived ecological catastrophes and environmental
disasters to document the need for environmental policy, to build
public support for environmental policy, and to justify government involvement.
21 Environmentalists, scientists, and mass media are important in