ABSTRACT
Environmental foreign policy is fraught with examples of states rhetorically affirming international action to address environmental threats and accepting international commitments that are never met in practice. This situation raises troubling questions for the study of environmental foreign policy and compliance with international environmental commitments. This is particularly true in the case of developed states, which typically possess the resources to comply with international agreements if there is sufficient political will. The foreign policy establishments of states value national reputations for fulfilling international obligations. Most states are thus reluctant to take on commitments that cannot be met. Given this general tendency to fulfill international obligations, why have developed states been willing to undertake environmental commitments without fulfilling them? One frequent explanation for failure to fulfill commitments is that gov-
ernments undertake international obligations in good faith but then fail to fulfill them due to domestic political obstacles to implementation (Levy et al. 1993: 404-8; VanDeveer 2005). While this is certainly true in many cases, this chapter argues that governments frequently utilize environmental foreign policy as a symbolic tool to manage international identities in the eyes of both domestic and international constituencies. “Social identities are sets of meanings that an actor attributes to itself while taking the perspective of others, as a social object” (Wendt 1994: 385). States have a social identity that encompasses a self-understanding of the role and purpose of the state (Reus-Smit 1999, 22). This identity operates at two interconnected levels. Domestically, a state’s identity emerges from the history, values, and political culture of the state. However, state identities are also projected into the international system and are shaped in reference to other actors and institutions in that system, which in turn feeds back into the domestic identity of the state (Wendt 1999: 224). National identities are maintained and evolve in response to government action and rhetoric, which then stimulates feedback from other actors both domestically and internationally, which continues to shape the national identity. The concept of “legitimacy” is closely linked to the identity of the state as
an actor at both the domestic and international levels. For a government to
rule effectively domestically it must either be perceived as legitimate by a substantial majority of the population or be capable of imposing its will through force to maintain control. The voluntary compliance with the law associated with the perception of legitimacy is much cheaper for governments than the constant threat and use of force. Governments thus value the domestic perception of legitimacy. Legitimacy is also linked to the identity of the state at the international
level. Ian Clark provides the most definitive discussion of the concept of legitimacy in international relations (2005). A full elaboration of the theoretical understanding of legitimacy is beyond the scope of this chapter, but a brief description of the relationship between international norms and legitimacy is necessary. As Clark notes, “Legitimacy possesses no independent normative context of its own” (ibid.: 207). A consensus on the appropriate norms to govern behavior in the international system provides the framework for states to be accepted as legitimate within the system. At the international level, the perception of legitimacy, or what some authors refer to as a state’s status or reputation, by other states is critical to the effective pursuit of foreign policy objectives (Johnston 2001: 501-2). Cooperation and compromise are much easier to achieve when states view one another as legitimate members of the international community that share a common set of values and norms. It is thus essential for governments to maintain identities as legitimate actors to secure their interests. Legitimacy is inherently a social concept. It is the acceptance of the state’s identity, interests, and actions as appropriate by those affected by the state’s actions (Reus-Smit 2007: 158-9). As Reus-Smit notes, “Actors establish their legitimacy, and the legitimacy of their actions, through the rhetorical construction of self-images and the public justification of priorities and practices, and other actors contest or endorse these representations through similar rhetorical processes” (ibid.: 163). Legitimacy in the current international system is tied to a state’s accep-
tance of a range of international norms associated with liberal democratic states (Clark 2005). States that do not affirm these norms are viewed with greater suspicion and find it more difficult to convince others of the rectitude of their foreign policy positions and will have greater difficulty achieving their national interests. Governments therefore have an incentive to affirm liberal international norms to cultivate an identity as a legitimate international actor even though the government may have no intention of fulfilling the behavioral changes associated with the norm. This is a form of symbolic politics, which will be discussed in greater detail below. The character of environmental politics makes it particularly conducive to
symbolic politics. Liberalism’s focus on the rights of the individual and restraint of government power has increasingly been supplemented by the inclusion of environmental protection as a state obligation. Affirmation of sustainable development as a core economic and environmental objective of the state has increasingly become associated with acceptance as a legitimate
state within the international community; thus, states face pressure to affirm norms related to sustainability. Environmental policy is also ripe for symbolic politics because enforce-
ment mechanisms in environmental agreements have been lax, and the second tier diplomatic status of most environmental issues has meant that states are unlikely to face substantial political or economic costs or military consequences from failure to fulfill international environmental commitments. States can thus more easily take on environmental commitments without fearing the consequences of failure to meet those commitments. These issues will be taken up in greater detail below, but the important point is that the nature of environmental policy creates incentives for states to pursue symbolic environmental politics. The focus of this chapter is on how symbolic politics has affected the pursuit of environmental foreign policy and how this in turn has impacted the capacity for states to successfully address the environmental problems facing the international community. This chapter falls within the “Ideas” column of the Barkdull and Harris
matrix, but it does not fit neatly into a single level of analysis. The role of international state identities and related norms operate at the systemic level and fundamentally shape the definition of environmental foreign policy interests and their strategic pursuit. However, governments seek to establish state identities in the eyes of both domestic and international actors. State identities are shaped by societal values and norms and the tension between international norms and domestic norms can be problematic for environmental foreign policy. The evolution of state identities and the relationship between identities, norms, and foreign policy cannot be understood without reference to all three levels of analysis. It is often useful to analyze one level in isolation in studying a particular aspect of global environmental politics; however, the relationships among these ideational variables and environmental foreign policy is much more complicated and requires evaluating the influence of forces operating across multiple levels. The chapter is organized into four sections. The first section explores
the nature of symbolic politics and the forms that it may take in environmental foreign policy. The second section evaluates the reasons that environmental politics lend themselves to symbolic politics, and the third section briefly explores some examples of the use of symbolic politics to illustrate the arguments put forth in the first two sections of the chapter. Finally, the role of symbolic politics raises important questions related to environmental regime effectiveness. What is the effect of symbolic politics on efforts to address transnational environmental problems? Does the repeated rhetorical affirmation of a norm eventually produce compliance or does it provide a mechanism for sustained evasion of concrete actions while avoiding the challenge to legitimacy that would result from outright rejection of the relevant norms? These issues will be taken up in the conclusion.
