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

Transnational Coalitions 55
had defined. The strength of this regional pollution control arrangement
varied in relation to the ecological epistemic community’s influence on
domestic policy making. The countries where the epistemic community
was strongly represented, i.e., privileged access to national decision makers,
were the most active supporters of international commitments and the
most successful in national compliance along the lines of the epistemic
community’s shared view. Countries with weak representation of the ecological
epistemic community were less supportive of international commitments
and adopted weaker domestic pollution controls. Governments
would be persuaded to establish environmental protection policies when
individuals from the ecological epistemic community presented their advice
in a forceful and consistent way to national decision makers. This also
served to minimize the influence of the opposition. 56 Similar to the case of
the Med Plan, Haas (1990b, p. 361) claims that recent international efforts
to protect the ozone layer were driven largely by an ecological epistemic
community that “identified the broad scope of international policy” and
“pressured governments to comply with international standards.” Litfin
(1994), however, has concluded that epistemic communities and consensual
knowledge as defined by Haas in reality were not so influential in the
development and framing of the international response to the stratospheric
ozone depletion problem.
Epistemic-community theorists argue that the political influence of an
epistemic community grows with its control over bureaucratic power. In
countries in which it gains significant bureaucratic control, it will institute
environmental protection policies. At the national level, members of an
epistemic community might be present in areas such as budgetary finance,
staffing, and enforcement authorities (Haas 1990b, p. 351). At the international
level, an epistemic community might supply international officials
who will influence agenda setting and policy debates and who will draw
attention to international problems and their possible solutions. Thus, an
epistemic community might, as a transnational network, influence policy
making in several countries.
The epistemic-community analyst would be inclined to look for evidence
that an ecological epistemic community basically created the global ocean
dumping regime. The ecological epistemic community would persuade
domestic decision makers of the need for protection of the marine environment
against ocean dumping. The epistemic community would press