The Earth System Governance Project is pleased to announce the publication of a special issue of Global Environmental Politics 13(3) on ‘the institutional fragmentation of global environmental governance’, guest-edited by the Earth System Governance Research Fellows Fariborz Zelli (Lund University) and Harro van Asselt (Stockholm Environment Institute).
The special issue is dedicated to the expanding research agenda on institutional fragmentation. The term refers to the growing diversity and challenges to coordination among private and public norms, treaties and organizations that address a given issue area of international politics. International relations scholars have increasingly addressed this phenomenon, framing it with alternative concepts like regime complexes or polycentricity. A considerable part of the existing debate is still focused on whether a centralized or polycentric governance architecture is preferable. Instead, as the various contributions show, domains of global environmental governance—like climate change, biological diversity, renewable energy, and forestry—are already fragmented. It is therefore time to address new, more pertinent questions and help advance institutionalist research on this phenomenon. The contributions therefore address four major research themes for analyzing the fragmentation of different domains of global environmental governance: taking stock; causes; consequences; and responses.
For detailed information go to the journal website.
The introduction by Fariborz Zelli and Harro van Asselt can be accessed freely here.
Content
The Institutional Fragmentation of Global Environmental Governance—Causes, Consequences and Responses (Fariborz Zelli and Harro van Asselt)
Fragmentation in Global Energy Governance: Explaining the Creation of IRENA (Thijs Van de Graaf)
Multi-Forum Non-State Actors: Navigating the Regime Complexes for Forestry and Genetic Resources (Amandine Orsini)
Legitimacy in an Era of Fragmentation: The Case of Global Climate Governance (Sylvia I. Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and Jeffrey McGee)
Fragmented International Governance of Arctic Offshore Oil: Governance Challenges and Institutional Improvement (Christoph Humrich)
Managing Institutional Complexity and Fragmentation: The Nagoya Protocol and the Global Governance of Genetic Resources (Sebastian Oberthür and Justyna Pożarowska)
On Fragmentation, Differentiation and Coordination (Michael Zürn and Benjamin Faude)
