How different International Relations perspectives analyse environmental problems

What is it about?

How has the rise of environmentalism and environmental problems changed the way the international system works? And in what ways has the international system been a part of the problems and solutions to global environmental challenges? This book looks at the discipline of International Relations and 'the Earth' surveying how IR has provided a large variety of interpretations of the global environmental crisis. This covers state-based approaches that view global environmental problems as collective action problems.or as environmental security dilemmas; approaches that view the global economic system as the decisive factor,; ones that understand the role of norms or science as critical; and global justice approaches that emphasize the unevenness of the world (in terms of wealth, power and status) as important for global environmental politics. They vary in perspective and in terms of the solutions they each suggest, but all consider how a divided world can co-exist with and on a single planet.

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Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This book shows how and why the problem of the international (that the world is divided up into multiple societies) matters hugely to the global environmental crisis. This avoids 'internalist' views of global environmental problems that assume they exist within one single society, by showing how environment interacts with international politics in multiple ways. Its breadth of approaches also demonstrates how varied responses can be depending on perspective and outlook.

Perspectives