ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with an area of development-environment lin-
kages that has not seen a process of institutionalization, whether in con-
nection with the Rio-Johannesburg concern for sustainable development or
otherwise. International institutions-including treaty-based accords, reg-
ulatory regimes, soft-law arrangements, and the programmatic activities of
intergovernmental organizations-are undeniably important, and the study
of actors and institutions are where the heart of political analysis lies. There
is, nevertheless, a wide variety of environment-development challenges that do not neatly fit either the pattern of existing institutions or the tendency of
most environment-development scholarship to focus its analysis on institu-
tional case studies. This happens particularly with regard to global-local
linkages; disconnected power relations of distant locales, whose political
and economic regimes intermesh mostly in uneven ways, make it impossible
to devise institutional frameworks that can address this layer of dislocated
power spheres, and address the serious side effects of political and economic
arrangements. In this chapter, I will look at a case-textiles-that illustrates clearly why
a focus away from institutions makes an important contribution to the
study of international relations (IR) more generally. The global political econ-
omy of textiles is a classic example of the complex nature of power, equity,
and environmental, social, politica,l and economic issues that interweave to
form social reality at global and local levels. The case also suggests that
local frameworks of governance can have a significant global impact and
may provide alternatives to a global institutional framework of regulation and governance.
