Politico-Environmental Relations in the International Arena
Politico-Environmental Relations in the International Arena

Summary/Abstract: Environmental issues have been on the international agenda for so long. However, International Relations (IR) theory acknowledged the environmental problem belatedly. When dealing with it, IR theory generally saw this problem as an annex to its central concerns. So, the environment as a research subject is considered either an issue of conflict or of cooperation from the perspectives of realism and liberal institutionalism respectively. By questioning this sort of consideration as a starting point, this article discusses the international environmental problem within the context of complexity and multiplicity of structural contradictions and overlapping and opposing interests of actors. The first section reveals the impasses of mainstream IR theory. The second section explores different aspects of the internationalisation of the environment through a critical reassessment of state-centric understandings and problem-solving strategies. The interactions between national and international domains are also argued by employing normative environmental regulations. The last section examines the effects of corporations, states, international institutions and NGOs as main actors on the internationalisation of the environment. This examination needs to take into consideration actor-structure relations. In other words, instead of separating politics from economics, and actors from capitalist structures at the domestic and international levels as does mainstream IR theory, this article analyses the roles of actors within the framework of interrelationships between the national and international spheres on the one hand and between economic and political structures on the other.

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