Environmental Politics and Foreign Policy Decision Making in Latin America

Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol

Amy Below

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415703307
• eBook ISBN: 9781134475049
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Although the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to address global climate change, has been regarded by many as an unsuccessful treaty both politically and environmentally, it stands as one of the world's few truly global agreements. Why did such a diverse group of countries decide to sign and/or ratify the treaty? Why did they choose to do so at different times and in different ways? What explains their foreign policy behavior? Amy Below's book builds off the increasing significance of climate change and uses the Kyoto Protocol as a case study to analyze foreign policy decision making in Latin America.

Below's study takes a regional perspective in order to examine why countries in Latin America made disparate foreign policy choices when they were faced with the same decision. The book looks at the decisions in Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela via a process-tracing method. Below uses information obtained from primary and secondary documents and elite interviews to help reconstruct the processes, and augments her reconstruction with a content analysis of Conference of the Parties speeches by presidents and country delegates. The book complies with convention in the field by arguing that systemic, national and individual-level factors simultaneously impact foreign policy decisions, but makes the additional claim that role theory most accurately accounts for relationships between variables.

Environmental Politics and Foreign Policy Decision Making in Latin America considers a variety of factors on individual, national, and international levels of analysis, and show that the foreign policy decisions are best viewed through the prism of role theory. The book also draws conclusions about the value of role theory in general and about environmental foreign policy decisions in developing countries, which will be of value to both policy-makers and academics.

Part I

1
Role Theory and the Kyoto Protocol

Issues related to climate change, be they political, economic, ecological, or ethical, sustain considerable interest worldwide. From rising waters around the small Pacific island nation of Kiribati to increased water stress in already famine-stricken regions in Africa and Asia to the listing of the polar bear in the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the present and potential future impacts of climate change have garnered increasing levels of policy relevance, academic intrigue, and popular appeal. Although climate change, in general, and the Kyoto Protocol, specifically, have been analyzed in numerous books and journal articles, one area where they have yet to be adequately represented is in the field of foreign policy analysis (FPA—a principal subfield of international relations). This book builds off the increasing significance of the topic and utilizes the Kyoto Protocol as a case study to analyze foreign policy decision making in Latin America.

Although the Kyoto Protocol (the Protocol), an international agreement to address global climate change, has been regarded by many as an unsuccessful treaty both politically and environmentally, it stands as one of the world’s few truly global agreements and is, thus, a case study worthy of attention and in-depth analysis. Why did such a diverse group of countries decide to sign and/or ratify the treaty? Why did they choose to do so at different times and in different ways? Essentially, what explains their foreign policy behavior? This book takes a regional perspective and asks a basic question that both academics and policy makers should find interesting to answer: Why did countries in Latin America make such disparate foreign policy choices when they were faced with the same decision?

What makes this question particularly interesting is a vote in the U.S. Senate five months prior to the Kyoto conference. July 25, 1997 was an important day in U.S. and international history. No costly war started. No important summit was held. No treaty was signed. On this day a prominent international treaty was effectually “unsigned.” This was the day the U.S. Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, notifying President Bill Clinton that it would not ratify the upcoming Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This was the day the global hegemon began isolating itself from the international environmental community. The vocal champion of the historically successful Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer had, on this day, functionally transformed from an environmental leader to a laggard.¹ The nation that, since 1945, had been a staunch advocate of international cooperation and institutions (although largely when it served national interests) refused the UN-led process—a process most of its traditional allies supported.

This day in 1997 is significant for another reason. It marked the day the principal actor stepped aside and made way for its understudy—or understudies—to take the stage. The United States’ refusal to take a leadership role in the UN process created opportunities for others to assume their place in the spotlight. While the European Union and its member states accepted the lead role early on, a lesser-known chapter of the U.S.-Kyoto Protocol saga placed new emphasis on the role Latin America would play in the global climate change regime. Knowing the obstacles he faced in getting the Protocol ratified back home, Clinton began looking abroad for assistance. The president, and representatives on his behalf, began asking developing nations to contribute more to the cause of reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One specific turn he took was toward Latin America. He asked developing nations in the region to voluntarily reduce their GHG emissions. The varying responses he received are the focus of this book.

Although the United States was both the global and regional hegemon, it was not able to pressure all of Latin America’s leaders into compliance. President Carlos Saúl Menem of Argentina was the most responsive. He committed his nation to not only sign and ratify the Protocol but to agree to voluntarily reduce emissions. Although this was an unpopular move among developing countries, Menem persevered in his commitment to the superpower. President Ernesto Zedillo, on the behalf of Mexico, ultimately decided to sign and ratify the Protocol, but he did not commit his nation to reductions beyond its perceived capabilities. President Hugo Chávez chose to delay signing the Protocol on the behalf of his nation, Venezuela. That was until 2004, when he took a more definitive stance and became a proponent of the Protocol but not of reductions for developing countries. What explains the variation in foreign policy responses? When posed with the same decision point under the same international conditions, why did each country make such disparate foreign policy choices?

This book argues that role theory successfully explains each country’s behavior and also helps us understand that behavior. On the one hand, knowing each country’s national role conception helps explain each country’s decision. Knowing the international role that leaders intended for their country helps us deduce specific policy behavior commensurate with that role. It thereby suggests that national role conceptions have the potential to assist in predicting foreign policy behavior. On the other hand, uncovering what factors were crucial in the creation of national role conceptions helps us gain a more thorough understanding of why the foreign policy decisions were made. This level of detail and comprehension can, in turn, shed greater light on foreign policy decision-making processes and what drives them.

More specifically, this book is driven by three sets of research questions, the answers to which contribute to existing literature on role theory and foreign policy decision making more generally. First, given the successful application of role theory to many foreign policy behaviors, although primarily “high politics” areas (such as those related to wars, peace negotiations, invasions, joining military alliances, etc.), the analysis asks, does role theory show promise in its ability to explain successfully “low politics” areas such as environmental foreign policy? Similarly, is role able to explain the foreign policy behavior of countries in Latin America? In other words, are environmental foreign policy decisions in Latin American qualitatively different enough such that role theory is not applicable? The answers will shed light on the theory’s overall generalizability.

If the answers are negative, role theory might best be considered a midrange theory that is valuable but whose explanatory value is limited to certain, albeit relatively large, classes of cases. Based on growing exposure and application of role theory in recent years, however, preliminary hypothesizing suggests that role will be a useful concept. In addition, the three cases selected represent “most likely” cases as role theory prioritizes the agency of decision makers and Latin American political culture emphasizes a strong executive and authoritative decision making. During the time periods considered, international climate policy was also not a high priority in the public sphere, further locating decision-making power within individual leaders and predisposing the decisions to role theory.

Presupposing an affirmative response to the first set of questions, the second set contributes to literature on the formation of national role conceptions. These questions include: “What are the origins of each leader’s role conception?” “Are they similar to those identified in existing studies?” Thus, these questions test generalizability and contribute to theory development but focus on our ability to understand role conceptions as dependent variables. In essence, they address where roles come from. Role theory’s overall utility is advanced if we can in some way systematize existing conditions (domestic and international) and combine those with characteristics of individual decision makers to arrive at accurate assessments of role construction.

The third set of questions asks if decision making in “low politics” foreign policy is more likely to exhibit characteristics of role taking or role making. More specifically, did the presidents adopt a role conception largely prescribed to them by other actors, or did they initiate a new conception? Or, do their roles fall somewhere in between, wherein decision makers adopted a modified version of an existing role conception? Given that “low politics” areas have a corresponding low profile, it is plausible that decision makers utilize such decision points strategically and test out new roles before adopting them on a larger scale. In this way, “low politics” policy equates to “low stakes” policy.

The fact that climate policy in the 1990s and early 2000s had not garnered much domestic attention in Latin America but was internationally prominent lends further credibility to this hypothesis. Presidents could test their new role in front of a large audience but not risk domestic backlash. In addition, the decision to ratify the Protocol gave policy makers the luxury of time. Although the Protocol was officially open for signatures for a limited period of time, countries could sign and ratify after that date. In other words, it was the opposite of a crisis situation that would narrow the scope of individual agency.

The third set of questions brings to the fore issues of risk and change in the adoption and enactment of role conceptions. If the presidents analyzed in this study are found to be role makers, it suggests that decision makers are willing to make riskier choices when it comes to environmental foreign policy or “low politics” issue areas in general. The answer could lead to a better understanding of the conditions under which changes in role conception are likely. Risk and change in foreign policy have already been the subject of study in international relations and foreign policy analysis literature, but role theory has much to offer this discussion. Its contribution can be found in the concept of audience. Given its origin in the theater, roles are thought to be performed for others. In the cases analyzed, presidents selected strategic “others” and performed role conceptions accordingly. The importance awarded the “others” factors into the amount of risk presidents are willing to accept.

To address this set of questions, the book adopts a multi-method approach. The first step is to conduct a content analysis of United Nations (UN) General Assembly speeches by presidents and their foreign ministers. The data (role articulations) are used to determine role conceptions, which are then compared to foreign policy behavior (role enactment) to assess role theory’s ability to explain each decision. In this first phase, role conceptions are explanatory variables and decisions on the Protocol are the dependent variables. The next phase includes case studies of each of the three decisions utilizing both process-tracing and structured-focused comparison methodologies. Data are collected from primary and secondary documents and in-country elite interviews. In this phase, role conceptions become dependent variables and individual-, domestic-, and international-level factors are the explanatory variables. Considered together, results from all three case studies inform conclusions about which variables, or combination of variables, had the most influence in the formation of role conceptions and how risk and audience affected those formulations.

Results of these analyses suggest that role theory is applicable to a wide array of foreign policy decisions, including “low politics” decisions and those made in Latin America. Results from the case studies suggest that role conceptions were most influenced by economic conditions, concern for international reputation, and national identity. Their impact was determined by how decision makers interpreted these conditions. Audience was also highly influential in role formation. Finally, questions from the structured-focused comparison furthered our understanding of role change and risk in these cases. The relationship between the two helps determine whether presidents were role makers or role takers. Menem and Chávez were found to be role makers, whereas Zedillo’s conception and behavior more resembled that of a role taker.

This introductory chapter also introduces the climate change regime and provides some international context. Chapters 2 and 3 in Part I situate the forthcoming analyses within the broader framework of international relations (IR) by discussing briefly some key debates in IR theory and how theories of FPA can successfully contribute to theory development. Key topics include the value of explaining versus understanding, holism versus individualism, and the agent-structure debate. The discussion helps situate this project within the broader scope of scholarship that argues for a greater synthesis between IR and FPA theories.² Rather than contending theories, Chapter 2 argues that IR and FPA theories should be thought of as complementary. The next chapter then introduces role theory and highlights some of the ways the theory contributes to a better understanding of behavior in the international system. This chapter concludes with a discussion of methodologies applied in the study.

Chapter 4 contains the results of a content analysis of presidential and ministerial speeches from all three countries given at the UN General Assembly. The analysis determined that Argentina and Mexico each had two primary and two secondary conceptions, whereas Venezuela articulated just one of each. The combination of primary and secondary roles constitutes each country’s role set. The chapter then assesses role theory’s ability to explain and predict behavior based on the established r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• PART I
• PART II Argentina
• PART III Mexico
• PART IV Venezuela
• PART V
• Appendix: Methodological and Theoretical Considerations
• Bibliography
• Index