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

Transnational Coalitions 45
international level, although they do not do so domestically. More generally,
it matters greatly whether regimes and policy negotiations are concerned
with plus-sum or zero-sum situations. Causal ideas and persuasion
are most influential when policies are concerned with efficiency (with
“expanding the pie”) but are unlikely to be influential in resolving distributive
issues (“dividing the pie”). Indeed, Majone (1996b, p. 618) argues
that “ideas matter most when collective decisions are about efficiency
issues—how to increase aggregate welfare—rather than about redistributing
resources from one group of society to another. Conversely, arguments
are powerless when politics is conceived of as a zero-sum game.” 27 Other
scholars expect similarly that persuasion and joint problem solving will
dominate when countries attempt to solve benign cooperation problems—
that is, those problems that have potential for realization of Pareto improvements
and therefore reduce incentives to cheat (Underdal 1987). 28
Both causal and principled ideas might figure significantly in regimes concerned
with the regional and the global environment, because environmental
damage in principle is inflicted on all countries, creating common
vulnerability as well as incentives to reduce environmental damage. In contrast,
a skewed distribution of economic and environmental incentives for
cooperation characterizes one-directional environmental risks and issues. A
country incurs economic costs if it curbs emissions causing transboundary
pollution, whereas downstream and downwind countries benefit to the
extent that environmental damage is reduced. In those situations, because
one part’s gain is the other part’s loss, causal ideas are unlikely to play a significant
role. However, principled ideas attracting strong public and political
support might have an impact on upstream and upwind countries.
Power-Based Regime Analysis and the Global Ocean Dumping Regime
Realist analysts and power theorists primarily study military power; they
study international political economy only to a lesser extent. They have so
far paid little attention to global cooperation on environmental protection.
Nonetheless, it is quite obvious that realists see the structure of the international
system as a severe obstacle to such cooperation. For instance,
Waltz (1986, p. 106) concluded, with regard to cooperation to protect the
environment: “The very problem . . . is that rational behavior, given structural
constraints, does not lead to the wanted results. With each country