ABSTRACT
Scale in global environmental governance (GEG) is defined in different ways. The concept applies to different levels at and across which governance can occur. These are often jurisdictional: local, national, regional, and global. It is also used in the sense of scaling out, capturing how phenomena and events broaden out to or manifest at scales from micro (individuals, communities) to macro levels (regional or global). Researchers who study scale often examine vertical linkages between and across scales, and movement of ideas, policies, and actors between scales (as opposed to horizontal linkages such as institutional interactions). Some also examine the social construction of scales (Marston 2000). It has become an important concept in GEG because of the emergence of institutions that operate at different scales and because of the growing interest in the role of local and regional knowledge, politics, and communities in the instigation, compliance, and implementation of GEG (Andonova and Mitchell 2010).
