ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on transnational actors and their agency in global environmental politics. It examines by locating transnational actors in international relations (IR), defining more clearly some of the key concepts and how these have evolved over time, and how they relate to developments within the discipline of IR. Environmental politics, whether national or international, it would seem then, still lies in the hands of the state, much in line with traditional, state-centric realist IR theory. Liberal and critical approaches to IR want to highlight that beyond the realm of inter-state politics there is an array of actors, such as transnational social movements, non-governmental organizations or transnational corporations. The analytical framework of international regimes has tended to be replaced by that of global governance. Within the literature on global governance, transnational actors are often said to be located within the sphere of global civil society.
