The Earth System Governance Task Force on Accountability in Global Environmental Governance (AGEG) has built a research program on how to assess (and ultimately ensure) the accountability of global environmental governance.
The research program seeks:
- To create a coherent theoretical framework to investigate the nature of accountability in global environmental governance;
- To examine whether accountability gaps exist across environmental cases within the framework; and
- To identify whether these gaps constitute a governance problem and can be ameliorated.
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Upcoming Panel at the International Studies Association Annual Convention San Francisco, Wednesday, April 4, 4:00 PM – 5:45 PM Ruling Out Socially, Environmentally, and Economically-Destructive Extractives? The Power of “Environmentalism” and Anti-Extractivism in Comparative Perspective Read more here. |
Context
The system of global environmental governance (GEG) has been riddled by fragmentation and duplication of efforts, dispersed political authority and weak regulatory influence. The inefficiency of the system has been matched by a growing concern over the future provision of global public goods. A widening gap between capacities and needs has created rising demands for accountability from institutions, to principals and constituencies on the ground. Yet, GEG has been characterized by a culture of unaccountability.
Teresa Kramarz (University of Toronto) and Susan Park (University of Sydney) established AGEG to promote collaborative research on the accountability of global environmental governance by bringing together scholars with intimate knowledge of key environmental regimes (air, water, forests, energy and climate) along with scholars of global institutions (the United Nations Environmental Program, the World Bank and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change among others). In November, the network became a Task Force in the Earth System Governance Global Research Alliance.
Policy Relevance
AGEG envisages creating a unified approach to tracing accountability across global environmental governance which can be applied by all scholars irrespective of issue area or institution. This will be of use to all scholars of the sub-field of global environmental politics and international relations more generally. It will also be of use to national policy makers in negotiations of key global environmental treaties as they determine the best design of global institutions that are mandated to fulfill treaty obligations. The AGEG research network will engage with the conceptual framework established at the inaugural roundtable to identify the accountability chains in their respective environmental regimes (such as climate change). This will be used to identify to whom and for what the environmental regimes are answerable and if they can be made more accountable. This is the first global approach to understanding and mapping accountability in global environmental governance.
Who we are:
This network is an international collaboration of leading scholars in the sub-field of global environmental politics, led by Teresa Kramarz, at the University of Toronto and Susan Park, at the University of Sydney. The research group brings together 30 senior and junior scholars from prestigious universities in developed and developing countries across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
| Aaron Soto-Karlin Aarti Gupta, Wageningen University Alejandro Rossi, Ecojure Allison Chatrchyan, Cornell University Angel Hsu, Yale University Aseem Prakash, University of Washington Bunlong Leng, University of Melbourne Ben Cashore, Yale University Benjamin Donato-Woodger, University of Toronto Benjamin Liadsky, University of Northern British Colombia Beth Edmondson, Federation University Carole-Anne Senit, Utrecht University Christopher Gore, Ryerson University Craig Harris, Michigan State University Craig Johnson, University of Guelph Cristina Balboa, Yale University David Cosolo, University of Toronto David Downie, Fairfield University David Gordon, University of Toronto David Schlosberg, University of Sydney Diarmuid Torney, Dublin City University Eduardo Rolon, Causa Natura Frank Biermann, Utrecht University Geoff Dabelko, Ohio University Hamzat Lawal Harro van Asselt, University of Eastern Finland Hayley Stevenson, University of Sheffield Heike Schroeder, University of East Anglia Hilco van Elten, University of Groningen Howard S Schiffman, New York University James Van Alstine, University of Leeds Javiera Barandiaran, UCSB Jennifer Clapp, University of Waterloo Jennifer Goldstein, Cornell University Jessie Connell, University of Sydney Johannes Kruse, University of Bremen John Didacus Njoku, Federal University of Technology Owerri John Dryzek, University of Canberra Jonathan Rosenberg Jonathan Kuyper, Stockholm University |
Judith van Leeuwen, Wageningen University Kai Sun, Nanjing University Karin Backstrand, Stockholm University Kristen Pue, University of Toronto Kyla Tienhaara, Australian National University Lars Gulbrandsen, Fridtjof Nansen Institute Leah Stokes, MIT Lena Partzsch, University of Erfurt Lorraine Elliott, Australian National University Lynn Wagner, International Institute for Sustainable Development Marc Williams, University of New South Wales Maria Ivanova, University of Massachusetts Mark Buntaine, University of California, Santa Barbara Matt Hoffmann, University of Toronto Michael MacLeod, Saint Mary’s University, Canada Michael Mason, London School of Economics Michelle Scobie, University of the West Indies Nafiseh Jafarzadeh, Macquarie University Adil Najam, Boston University Nick Enfield, University of Sydney Oscar Widerberg, VU University Philipp Pattberg, VU University Pichamon (May) Yeophantong, University of New South Wales Ritwick Ghosh, Cornell University Robert MacNeil, University of Sydney Ruben Zondervan, Earth System Governance Project, and Lund University Shana Starobin, Penn State Sherrie Baver, CUNY Graduate Center Sokphea Young, University of Melbourne Stefan Renckens, University of Toronto Steven Wolf, Cornell University Steven Bernstein, University of Toronto Susan Park, University of Sydney Teresa Kramarz, University of Toronto Tracy-Ann Hyman, University of the West Indies |