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Cited by 335International Environmental Law and PoliciesInternational Relations and Foreign PolicySustainability and Climate Change Governance

Introduction: The Institutional Fragmentation of Global Environmental Governance: Causes, Consequences, and Responses

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Zelli, Fariborz, van Asselt, Harro·2013·Global Environmental Politics
DOI 10.1162/glep_a_00180
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Abstract

This article introduces a special issue on 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 increasingly address this phenomenon, framing it with alternative concepts like regime complexes or polycentricity. A considerable part of the existing debate remains focused on whether a centralized or polycentric governance architecture is preferable. Instead, as this special issue shows, domains of global environmental governance—like climate change, biological diversity, renewable energy, and forestry—are already fragmented. It is time to address new, more pertinent questions and help advance institutionalist research on this phenomenon. We introduce four major research themes for analyzing the fragmentation of different domains of global environmental governance: taking stock, causes, consequences, and responses.

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  • Governance efforts need to account for fragmentation when organizations in inter-connected areas make choices that have bearing on each other, by examining connections and positioning decisions within a dense network of issues and entities.

    “Consequently, governance efforts need to account for fragmentation when organizations in inter-connected areas make choices that have bearing on each other; by examining these connections and positioning any decision within a dense network of issues and entities [143].”

    From Data Governance in the Age of Large-Scale Data-Driven Language Technology (2022) · cites this paper as [143]

    In “Moving Institutionalism and Global Environmental Governance Research Forward,” the paper says fragmentation analysis considers the whole set of institutions and their relations, and that institutional complexity needs to be factored into research. “The Concept of Fragmentation” also describes environmental domains as touching other domains and institutions. These passages support examining connections, but they do not say that organizations’ choices affect one another or that every governance decision should be positioned within such a network. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Research works printed but not linked: 13

  1. Bernstein, Steven, and Maria Ivanova. 2007. Institutional Fragmentation and Normative Compromise in Global Environmental Governance: What Prospects for Re- embedding? In Global Liberalism and Political Order: Towards a New Grand Compro- mise? edited by Steven Bernstein and Louis W. Pauly, 161-185. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
  2. Biermann, Frank, Philipp Pattberg, Fariborz Zelli, Harro van Asselt, Ingrid Boas, Chris- tian Flachsland, Nitu Goel, Andries Hof, Anne Jerneck, Eric Massey, Lennart Olsson, and Johannes Stripple. 2009b. Global Climate Governance after 2012. Ar- chitecture, Agency and Adaptation. In Making Climate Change Work for Us, edited by Mike Hulme and Henry Neufeldt, 263-290. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni- versity Press.
  3. Chambers, W. Bradnee. 2008. Interlinkages and the Effectiveness of Multilateral Environmen- tal Agreements. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
  4. Guetzkow, Harold. 1966. Relations among Organizations. In Studies on Behavior in Orga- nizations, edited by Raymond V. Bowers, 13-44. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
  5. Oberthür, Sebastian, and Olav Schram Stokke, eds. 2011a. Managing Institutional Complex- ity: Regime Interplay and Global Environmental Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  6. ---. 2011b. Conclusions: Decentralized Interplay, Management in an Evolving Interinstitutional Order. In Managing Institutional Complexity: Regime Interplay and Global Environmental Change, edited by Sebastian Oberthür and Olav Schram Stokke, 313-341. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  7. ---. 2012. Disaggregating International Regimes: A New Approach to Evaluation and Com- parison. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  8. ---. 2002. The Institutional Dimension of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay and Scale. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  9. ---. 2008: Deriving Insights from the Case of the WTO and the Cartagena Protocol. In Institutional Interplay: Biosafety and Trade, edited by Oran R. Young, W. Bradnee Chambers, Joy A. Kim, and Claudia ten Have, 131-158. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
  10. Young, Oran R., Leslie A. King, and Heike Schroeder. 2008a. Institutions and Environmen- tal Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  11. Young, Oran R., W. Bradnee Chambers, Joy A. Kim, and Claudia ten Have, eds. 2008b. In- stitutional Interplay: Biosafety and Trade. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
  12. ---. 2011b. Regime Conºicts and Their Management in Global Environmental Gover- nance. In Managing Institutional Complexity: Regime Interplay and Global Environmen- tal Change, edited by Sebastian Oberthür and Olav Schram Stokke, 199-226. Cam- bridge, MA: MIT Press.
  13. Zelli, Fariborz, Aarti Gupta, and Harro van Asselt. 2012. Horizontal Institutional Inter- linkages. In Global Environmental Governance Reconsidered, edited by Frank Bier- mann and Philipp Pattberg, 175-198. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Authors
Zelli, F., & van Asselt, H.
Affiliations
  • Lund University (SE)
  • Harro van Asselt is a research fellow and NORD-STAR post-doctoral researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in Stockholm, Sweden. He is also the editor of the Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (RECIEL), and a visiting research associate at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. He is co-editor of Climate Change Policy in the European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and has published extensively on issues related to global...
ORCID
Zelli, Fariborz
Venue
Global Environmental Politics
Publisher
MIT Press
Published
2013-08
Volume
13
Issue
3
Pages
1-13
ISSN
  • 1526-3800 (ISSN-L)
  • 1536-0091
DOI
10.1162/glep_a_00180
OpenAlex
W1968971240
Cited by
335
References
44
Citations by year
2026: 21 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 49 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 6
FWCI
53.51
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Global Environmental Politics (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Lund University Publications (Lund University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › International Environmental Law and Policies
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Keywords
institutional fragmentation, global environmental governance, polycentric governance, regime complexes, centralized governance, climate governance, biodiversity governance, renewable energy governance, forest governance, institutionalism

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