| Abstrakt: |
One approach to international relations theory, exemplified by the writings of Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, is concerned with identifying those conditions most likely to generate co-operation among states. Initially labelled the transnational actor approach, it recognises two factors as particularly conducive for expanding international co-operation: the diffusion of science and technology and the existence of institutions -- particularly non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The approach provides a critique of the classic realist school which asserts that states are likely to be constrained from co-operation by the anarchic condition characteristic of international politics. This essay will show that international environmental regulation illustrates the classic problem inherent in forging collaborative policies in a world of sovereign states. However, through a discussion of the debt-nature swaps that follows, evidence is presented to show that the processes identified by Keohane and Nye are indeed at work in international politics. Thus the innovation of debt-nature swaps provides some means for overcoming one major political obstacle to international environmental regulation even though the impetus for the agreements has come largely from NGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
