Roundtable Commentaries: State Behavior
International Cooperation and Global Environmental
Challenges
Paul Wapner
The American University, USA
E
volutionary theory teaches us, according to Yuwa
Wong, that states will privilege the national interest over the global one. States have evolved as
protectorates over given territories and maintain cohesion by differentiating and protecting themselves from
each other. This involves coercing loyalty and inculcating solidarity among their citizens. As separate units,
states care exclusively about their own well-being. This
has, according to Wong, disastrous ramifications for
global environmental politics.
Wong's work builds on a host .ofstudies that reveal a
fundamental mismatch between the quality of environmental challenges and the political system upon which
we rely to respond (Falk, 1972; Johansen, 1980;Thomas,
1992). Environmental problems are unitary in character.
They do not respect national boundaries and, in the
extreme, threaten the entire earth. In contrast, the state
system is fragmentary. Individual sovereign units operate within a so-called "self-help" system in which they
must satisfy their own interests before worrying about
others (Waltz, 1979). In such a situation, Wong argues
that the very nature of the state makes it unable to
undertake significant global action to protect the environment.
Noting that states within a self-help system will not
act altruistically, Wong writes, "Without exaggeration,
sovereign states today are the most serious roadblocks
to realizing visions of a common humanity with a viable
common future." Given this analysis, Wong claims that
to rely on states to undertake genuinely cooperative
action with regard to the environment is to misplace
hope. States cannot unlearn what their evolutionary past
Paul K. Wapner is Assistant Professor in the Department of
International Politics and Foreign Policy,School of International
Service, The American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave.,
NW, Washington, DC20016-8071, USA. He holds a master's
degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. Dr. Wapner specializes in international environmental politics and international relations theory. He is the
au thor of three academic articles, numerous conference papers,
and the recipient of a number ofacademic awards, including the
MacArthur Foundation Award for International Peace,
Security, and Cooperation. His most recent work attempts to
understand the role of environmental activist groups in world
politics. He is currently completing a book entitled EnvironmentalActivism and World Civic Politics.
has taught them. We must look outside the state system
for promising global initiatives.
Wong is right insofar as states will never become
altruistic actors. They will always privilege the national
interest over the global one. This does not mean, however, that states will never make headway toward protecting the global environment. Working for
environmental well-being is not an altruistic act; rather,
it is a selfish one. It involves protecting the quality of
one's air, water, soil, and atmosphere. The problem is
that a single state cannot work for environmental protection alone; it must work with others. In a word, it must
cooperate. Wong claims that states have not and cannot
cooperate; it is not in their nature. Much empirical and
theoretical work in international relations contradicts
this position.
As Axelrod (1984), Keohane (1989), Young (1989),
and others demonstrate, states find ways of cooperating
under so-called anarchical conditions. To be sure, this
cooperation is imperfect, and states often realize suboptimal outcomes in their interactions for various reasons
(Oye, 1985). But the imperfections should not bleach out
the general pattern. States, more often than not, find
themselves sharing a harmony of interests (not always
mutual) and create international regimes to realize
those interests. Without cooperation one could not take
a plane from here to India, mail a letter to China, or
exchange money at the border of Russia. Moreover,
without cooperation nuclear states would be involved in
an all-out competition over weaponry, and states would
pursue protectionist policies to insulate their economies. While the world is not one happy family, it is full
of instances of cooperation.
It is worth repeating that international cooperation is
not about altruism. States cooperate because they think
they are better off doing so. At a minimum, it lends
predictability to inter-state relations and thus lowers
transaction costs, increases transparency, and inculcates
trust among actors. These effects are in a state's best
interest. Additionally, states often share interests in
tackling a common challenge and work together because
resolution is in everyone's interest. Cooperation as such
is about realizing one's interest through working with
others.
Curiously enough, this last instance is most evident in
environmental affairs. All states fear, for example, ozone
Politics and the Life Sciences February 1994
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31
Roundtable Commentaries: State Behavior
depletion. Whether one is rich or poor, in the South or
the North, thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer will
increase the amount of solar radiation hitting the planet
and will adversely affect everyone. Upon a consensus
understanding of ozone depletion and with the help of
international institutions (Haas, 1992; Parsons, 1993),
states agreed to ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and
other ozone-depleting substances by as early as 1996
(Rowlands, 1993). It is important to note that states did
not sign the Montreal Protocol and its upgrades because
they were altruistic-they did so because they thought it
was in their best interest.
To be sure, the Montreal Protocol is one of the best
international agreements focusing on global environmental issues and has been hailed as a monumental
achievement (Benedick, 1991). But it is not simply an
aberration. Numerous treaties relating to global environmental protection have been signed and partially
implemented (Caldwell, 1990; Porter and Brown, 1991).
At stake in each one is the recognition that environmental problems threaten one's security and therefore it is in
each state's interest to undertake remedial, cooperative
action.
Environmental issues confront states with an instance
of convergence between the national and global interest.
The difficulty is that while states are becoming increasinglyaware of such convergence, they are being asked to
make and observe commitments in which the convergence itself is difficult to discern. This does not mean that
it cannot be identified; it simply implies that it is not
alwayseasy to do so. What is needed, given this analysis,
is not to look outside the state system per se for hopeful
initiatives, as Wong suggests, but rather to work for
greater recognition among states of the conjunction of
national and global interest with regard to environmental protection. This approach includes enhancing the
capabilities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
which are absolutely central to pressuring states toward
such recognition (Sands, 1991; Wapner, 1993), and supporting those states that already understand the intimate
32
connection between their own well-being and that of the
earth's.
States need to cooperate to address global environmental problems. Wong is right to show that they will
not do so out of the goodness of their hearts, because
their hearts are constructed to care primarily about
themselves. States will do so, however, as they realize
that their own fate is linked ecologically with the
planet's. Evolutionary theory proves it.
References
Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic
Books.
Benedick, R. (1991). Ozone Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Caldwell, L. (1990) International Environmental Policy. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
Falk, R. (1972). This Endangered Planet. New York: Vintage Books.
Haas, P. (1992). IlBanning Chlorofluorocarbons: Epistemic Community Efforts to Protect Stratospheric Ozone." International
Organization 46: 187-224.
Johansen, R. (1980). The National Interest and the Human Interest.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Keohane, R. (1989). International Institutions and State Power.
Boulder, CO: Westview.
Dye, K. (1985). IIExplaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies." World Politics 38: 1-24.
Parsons, E. (1993). "Protectlnq the Ozone Layer." In P. Haas, R.
Keohane, and M. Levy (eds.), Institutions for the Earth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Porter, G. and J. Brown (1991). Global Environmental Politics.
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Rowlands, I. (1993). "The Fourth Meeting of the Parties to the
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Sands, P. (1991). "The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in
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Thomas, C. (1992). The Environment in International Relations.
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Wapner, P. (1993). Making States Biodegradable: Environmental
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Young, O. (1989). International Cooperation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
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Politics and the Life Sciences February 1994
Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 88.99.165.207, on 12 Jul 2017 at 17:46:41, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at
https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0730938400022176