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The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes: Existing Knowledge, Cutting-edge Themes, and Research Strategies

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Advances in International Environmental Politics

Abstract

A common observation among those concerned with solving environmental problems and, more generally, with promoting sustainability in human-environment relations is that governance systems work relatively well at the national level but poorly or not at all in efforts to solve international, transnational, and especially global problems (Speth, 2004).1 While the state is a positive force in managing natural resources and protecting the environment in domestic settings, the anarchic character of international society treated as a society of spatially demarcated sovereign states constitutes a barrier to successful governance at the international level.2

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Young, O.R. (2014). The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes: Existing Knowledge, Cutting-edge Themes, and Research Strategies. In: Betsill, M.M., Hochstetler, K., Stevis, D. (eds) Advances in International Environmental Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137338976_11

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