Download Mapping institutional fragmentation in the climate governance

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The degree of fragmentation in global climate
governance architecture
BY: Oscar Widerberg & Marija Isailovic, VU Amsterdam, Institute for Environmental Studies
Global climate governance has become a complex web of actors and institutions, norms and discourses.
Where once the UNFCCC took an uncontested center stage, there has been a veritable explosion of
international and transnational institutions demanding attention. This has led to various levels of interplay
between issue areas such as climate change, biodiversity and trade, and a growing complexity within issue areas,
with new actors, norms and discourses reconfiguring power-relations, interests and management options
(Oberthür and Gehring 2006; Fariborz Zelli and van Asselt 2012; Alter and Meunier 2009; R. Keohane and
Victor 2011; F. Biermann, Pattberg, and Zelli 2010). As a result, the architecture of climate change
governance can be characterized as “fragmented” (Raustiala and Victor 2004; F. Biermann et al. 2009; F. Zelli
2011; International Law Commission 2006). While fragmentation has been identified to have various effects
on the effectiveness of institutions to address problems, ranging from conflicting to cooperative and
synergistic (F. Biermann et al. 2009), assessing the degree of fragmentation in the climate change field remains
a challenge. In addition, comparisons are currently not available. For instance, can we measure if global
climate governance is more or less fragmented than global biodiversity governance? The answer would help us
understand the implications of structure in an increasingly complex and fragmented global climate
governance architecture. In this article we address this knowledge gap by proposing a framework to
determine the degree of fragmentation and apply it to the global climate change governance architecture.
Fragmentation in global governance architectures: An emerging field of research
Following Biermann and colleagues, who claim that fragmentation is an “ubiquitous structural characteristic
of global governance architectures today” (2009), we also start from the observation that “Many policy
domains are...marked by a patchwork of international institutions that are different in character
(organizations, regimes, and implicit norms), their constituencies (public and private), their spatial scope
(from bilateral to global), and their subject matter (from specific policy fields to universal concerns)” (p.16).
However, while Biermann and colleagues have suggested ways to measure the degree of fragmentation, their
framework leaves substantial discrepancy for individual researchers to operationalize variables and determine
degrees of fragmentation. This inhibits comparability between studies and statements such as “issue area x is
more fragmented than issue area y”. In this sense, we do not discard the Biermann framework, in contrast, we
also use some of their variables to determine the degree of fragmentation, namely norms and actorconstellations. However, we upgrade and amend it, to enable a more rigorous analysis.
Before outlining our framework and case-study, a few key assumptions must be clarified. First, fragmentation
is a matter of degree and essentially and empirical question. Consequently, the degree of fragmentation within
an issue area can be placed on a continuum, ranging from fully integrated to fully disintegrated. Second, we
do not take a normative stance on fragmentation. It is a value-neutral concept where much more research is
needed to understand the real implications of fragmentation.1 Finally, we acknowledge that there is an
ongoing vivid discussion whether to frame governance of an issue areas in terms of “regime complexes” or
“governance architectures”, and whether to analyze broader institutions or regimes (F. Biermann et al. 2009;
Fariborz Zelli and van Asselt 2013; Orsini, Morin, and Young 2013). This is a valid and important discussion,
nevertheless it is essentially a different description of the same phenomenon. We apply the term “governance
architectures” to describe “the overarching system of public and private institutions that are valid and active
in a given issue area of world politics.” (p.15). Compared to “complexes”, “architectures” might insinuate that
there is an “architect” behind the structure of a issue area, which is not the case. Nevertheless, it highlights
the strategizing behavior of actors to create a structure that fits their interest, i.e. increasing complexity might
be an intentional strategy. In the next section we outline the analytical framework for measuring the degree of
fragmentation across different governance architectures within the environmental field.
Towards an analytical framework
Fragmentation of governance architectures is fraught with analytical challenges. Three questions stand out.
First, how do we decide on where the borders of the issue area end? Degree of fragmentation is surely
dependent on how one defines the issue area and size of the issue area must therefore be controlled for.
Second, what indicators should be used to measure degree of fragmentation? To date there has been a strong
focus on international and transnational institutions, legal norms and decision-making procedures. While
these indicators are important, they needed to be complemented with other aspects such as actorconstellations and discourses to reflect less formal aspects governance fragmentation. Third and finally, how
do you operationalize each indicator in a clear way that allows for comparison and reproduction? These three
questions are the topic for the next sections.
1
A few notable exceptions exists, such as Raustila and Kal (2004) and Van Asselt (2013).
Where to draw the borders of governance architectures
What constitutes a “governance architecture”, i.e. how wide should one cast the net? In regime literature, the
concept of “issue area” is frequently used to define the net-size. In his early writing, Keohane described an
issue area as “sets of issues that are in fact dealt with in common negotiations and by the same and closely
coordinated bureaucracies’, as opposed to issues that are dealt with separately and in uncoordinated fashion”
(R. O. Keohane 1984, 61). He also takes a constructivist perspective by arguing that the borders of issue areas
is an artifact that depend on actor’ perceptions and behavior rather than an objectively observable and
definable object by, for example, natural scientists. Borders of issue areas are therefore fluid and change over
time. In addition, the definition of issue areas seems to have changed since Keohane’s 1984 definition. The
borders of climate change as an issue area, for example, have gone from being defined by countries in the
UNFCCC and assisted by its secretariat, to being negotiated by a plethora of actors and institutions forming a
regime complex. Borders, however, remain defined by actors’ perceptions and understanding of where the
boundaries should be drawn.
An attempt to delineate the new fluid situation was made by Raustila and Victor who defined a regime
complex as “an array of partially overlapping and non-hierarchical institutions governing a particular issuearea that are marked by the existence of several partly overlapping and non-hierarchical agreements created
and maintained in distinct fora with participation of different actors” (2004, 274). The operationalization
discards Keohane’s focus on “common negotiations and closely coordinated bureaucracies” however,
remains too narrow. When applied to the regime complex for plant genetic resources, it shows a clear focus
on formal agreements and rules discussed between countries only, but omits a vast range transnational
institutions. A similar shortcoming is found in Keohane and Victor’s (2011) mapping of the regime complex
for climate change which depicts a coarse overview of institutions part of the governance architecture. The
authors focus on UN legal agreements but also include, for example, expert assessments (IPCC), clubs (e.g
Major Economies Forum, G8), Bilateral Initiatives and Geoengineering Governance (2011) in their
governance architecture. An even wider net is cast by Biermann and colleagues who want to include all
institutions that are “valid or active” in an issue area (2009). When putting their definition into practice, they
return with an “onion model” for global climate governance with the UN climate regime at its core followed
by three layers of multilateral climate and energy institutions, other international environmental institutions,
and international non-environmental institutions (2009). The authors thereby manage to include a wide range
of state and non-state institutions however, there is little guidance where to stop or what actually constitutes
valid or active. For a more detailed definition, Orsini, Morin and Young (2013) argue that a regime complex is
“a network of three or more international regimes that relate to a common subject matter; exhibit overlapping
membership; and, generate substantive, normative, or operative interactions recognized as potentially
problematic whether or not they are managed effectively” (p.29). The definition is appealing since it clearly
spells out what to look for, however, their focus on regimes instead of institutions is problematic since in
particular in scholarship on transnational arrangements, the broader concept of institutions is favored above
regimes. Nevertheless, Orsini et al also echoes Keohane by arguing that a regime complex is defined by
practitioners and stakeholders: “Perceptions” argue the authors “draw the boundaries of the complex,
indicating which regimes are recognized - or not - as elements of a complex (2013, 13)”. Yet the authors fail
to elaborate on which stakeholders and practitioners that should be given the right to define the boundaries.
All-in-all, current operationalizations of what a governance architecture comprise are either too narrow or too
vague. The aforementioned definitions allows us to establish that governance architectures at least include
both state and non-state institutions and actors, active in a distinct issue area, as well as, the norms they abide
to and produce. We also expand the notion of architecture to include the discourses underlying and
reproducing global norms, which have been shown to play an important role in forming regime complexes
(Fariborz Zelli and van Asselt 2013). Finally, we interpret the criterion of “perception” and “valid and active”
as a matter of intention. Only when institutions, actors, norms and discourses have an intention to take part
in global climate governance, are they part of the governance architecture. In conclusion, we argue that a
governance architecture comprises state and non-state institutions along with actors, norms and discourses
that have the intention to produce substantive, normative or operative interactions in a specific issue area of
world politics.
Indicators for measuring degree of fragmentation in a governance architecture
Indicators are needed to measure the degree of fragmentation in governance architectures. A central challenge
is to make these simple and clear enough for researchers to apply them to different issue areas to create a
broader set of comparable case studies. Previous studies have focused heavily on intervening legal norms in
an issue areas. A more integrated and comprehensive tool is needed to measure the degree of fragmentation.
We suggest four clusters of indicators: institutions, actor constellations, norms and discourses. Together they
form four perspectives on fragmentation and provide a more holistic analysis than literature hitherto
provides. The next coming paragraphs elaborate on each indicator.
Institutions
Fragmentation of institutions occurs when the components of institutions interact in uncoordinated ways, in
particular when different institutions attempt to govern the same issue area. Institutions are understood as
constrains individual behavior by humanly devised rules and comprise multiple components such as regimes,
organizations, decision-making procedures, norms, and principles (North 1990; Robert O. Keohane 1989).
For instance, the UNFCCC is an institution. We are interested in the structural relations between institutions
and how they relate to each other, both explicitly and implicitly.
We prefer to use “institutions” above “regimes” even if they can be considered interchangeable concepts.
This is not trivial since to some authors, institutions should be a prefix to fragmentation and the appropriate
terminology should be “institutional fragmentation” (Fariborz Zelli and van Asselt 2013). Others argue that
using “institutions” risks making the issue area too large given the vague definition of the concept. Instead,
“regimes“ is more appropriate where a regime is defined as “sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms,
rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of
international relations” (Orsini, Morin, and Young 2013). Using institutions may indeed cause an information
overload, however, there is a larger risk of excluding transnational institutions which currently are appears to
be treated as intervening variables in regime research. In the end, the choice of terminology becomes up to
the author since the problem of scale and what to include/exclude is present in both institutions and regimes.
To measure the degree of institutional fragmentation, we suggest to rely on the extensive research on
institutional interaction carried out by international relations scholars. While several authors have suggested
different typologies for institutional interaction (Aggarwal 2005; Oberthür and Stokke 2011; Selin and
VanDeveer 2003; F. Biermann et al. 2009) we turn to Young’s (1996) four levels of institutional interaction,
namely: embedded, nested, overlapping, and clustered.2 Issue-specific regimes are often embedded in
overarching institutional arrangements with exclusive authority and sovereignty over decision making and
membership. Nesting occurs when institutions are nested into broader institutional frameworks dealing with
the same issue area but are narrower and more specific in scope. Clustering denotes a situation when several
specific arrangements form more generic framework based on a common concern for a problem issue (e.g.
the Law of the Sea). Finally, overlap happens where individual institutions formed independently of each
other intersect on a de facto basis thus having a significant and often but not always unintended impact on
each other (Young 1996). Consequently, we are looking at both horizontal and vertical links between
institutions. Intuitively, embedded nested and clustered, all denotes somewhat coherent institutional
interaction whereas overlap is a case of fragmentation. Moreover, the definition of institutions, i.e. that state
and non-state institutions need to have the intention to interactions to be included in the analysis, implies at
that policy gaps will be omitted from the analysis.
For an extended discussion, please see: Isailovic, M., Widerberg, O., and P. Pattberg (2013) Fragmentation of Global
Environmental Governance Architectures: A Literature Review. IVM Report W-13/09, 1 July 2013
2
Actor constellations
A defining feature of global governance architectures is the proliferation of number and type of actors active
in different issue areas. While states remain the locus of attention for most scholars, an emerging trend is to
look at non-state actors such as NGOs, companies, cities, and international organizations, and in what way
they form transnational relationships and institutions to further their interests. A single actor cannot be
fragmented, instead fragmentation occurs in the interplay between actors hence we talk about actor
constellations. Moreover, it is important to understand what makes an actor. The single most important
qualifier inclusion in the analysis is the participation of actors in the decision-making processes (Dellas,
Pattberg, and Betsill 2011; Pattberg and Stripple 2008).
It is possible to think of actor constellations in terms of networks. Applying terminology and methodologies
for gathering data and calculate qualities in actor networks is increasingly recognized within the international
relation community and among scholars working on global environmental governance (Hafner-Burton,
Kahler, and Montgomery 2009; Green 2013; Alter and Meunier 2009; Orsini, Morin, and Young 2013).
Network analysis is in line with two of the most important premises for our analytical framework: first,
network analysis focuses on the structural qualities, and second, it allows for comparison across cases.
Social network analysis (SNA) and in particular sociologists have looked at what intuitively can be considered
the antonym to fragmentation, namely cohesion. Measuring cohesion requires us to look at how large a
network is (i.e. number of links) and how connected is it. To measure cohesion we therefore concentrate on
two network measures: density and centralization. First, density is a measure to see how many of all possible
links in a network are filled. It gives us insight to what extent the actors are tightly or sparsely connected.
Density is, however, vulnerable for scale: large networks have a bias to exhibit lower density than small
networks. Nevertheless, low density networks can be said to be more fragmented than high density networks.
Second, real world networks have a tendency to form communities and groups, which has implications for
the analysis. Suppose that a network displays high density, i.e. many of the potential links are present, but they
are concentrated to a few strong actors and the links are not equally distributed across the network. This
measure of equality of link distribution in the network is called “centralization”. Centralization is expressed in
a percentage between 0 and 100 where 100 % means that all edges are centralized to a single node. This
means that networks with a high percentage of centralization can therefore be said to be more fragmented
than those with lower numbers. To summarize, a network with high density and low centralization is more
cohesive and less fragmented than a network with low or high density and high centralization.
Centrality
Degree
High
Low
Many connections concentrated to a few actors =
Few connections concentrated to a few actors =
High Medium degree of fragmentation
Many connections spread equally among actors =
Low Low degree of fragmentation
High degree of fragmentation
Few connections spread equally among actors
actors = Medium degree of fragmentation
Figure 1 Overview table on establishing degree of fragmentation in actor constellations
Norms
The concept of fragmentation was originally developed by legal scholars discussing legal norms. They
observed a proliferation in number and types of international treaties during the 1990s, which led to talk
about “treaty congestion” and the “fragmentation of international law” (Brown Weiss 1993). The legal
scholars framed fragmentation as characterized by the rise of specialized rules and rule-systems that have no
clear relationship to each other and legal questions become dependent on who you ask and under what rulesystem they fall (International Law Commission 2006, 245). When discussing fragmentation in norms we
generally talk about legal norms and they can be defines as a category of provisions with prescriptive content
– whereas rules and principles relates to the specificity in the prescriptions) (Yamin and Depledge 2004, 7).
However, we understand legal norms in a quite broad way including both soft and hard law.
Once we have clarified how we understand norms, the next challenge is to conceptualize degree of
fragmentation. Merely a proliferation and increase in number of rules in a governance architecture does not
necessarily lead to higher degree of fragmentation. Hasenclever et al. notes; “a host of specific rules converts
[the regime] norms into concrete proscriptions and prescriptions by regime norms, whereby the rule-density
(i.e. the number of rules that concretized a given norm) varies considerably by regime norms” (Hasenclever,
Mayer, and Rittberger 1997, 9–10). Consequently, several rules can converge to support one norm and
therefore form a coherent norm structure of the governance architecture. On the other hand, only a couple
of agreements governing the same issue area but creating diverging norms, can lead to high level of
fragmentation. Finally, the existence of numerous possible sources of norms, including transnational
institutions, creates further analytical challenges. The norms propagated outside the traditional multilateral
forums may have large impacts on an issue area. Consider for example the increased of use of certified wood
under the transnational rule-setting by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) which have had an enormous
spread both in public and private procurement.
It is when there is overlap and even conflict among norms that fragmentation occurs, yet one could imagine
that some norms weigh heavier than others. A common way to classify the importance of different norms has
been to separate between constitutive and regulative norms. In short, constitutive norms are those that
constitute the very the game, and create new actors, interests or categories of action, whereas regulative
norms make up the way the game is played, orders and constrain behavior (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). In
this set-up constitutive rules should be given higher weight in our analysis and an overlap of conflict lead to
higher degree of fragmentation. A conflict occurs when there is a situation where two rules or principles
suggest different ways of dealing with a problem (International Law Commission 2006, 19). In sum, to
measure the degree of fragmentation in norms, one can make use of the different weights or levels of
importance that the division into constitutive and regulative offers. Clearly, a case where the constitutive
norms of two institutions are in conflict there is more fragmentation then in a situation when the regulative
norms merely overlap.
Norm type
Norm interaction
Overlap
Conflict
Co-existence or overlap among constitutive
Conflict among constitutive norms = High
Constitutive norms = Medium degree of fragmentation
Co-existence or overlap among regulative norms
Regulative = Low degree of fragmentation
degree of fragmentation
Conflict among regulative norms = Medium
degree of fragmentation
Figure 2 Overview table on establishing degree of fragmentation in norms
Discourses
Climate change is often interpreted differently by different actors. Whether it is an environmental, security,
migration or economic problem, depends on who one talks to and scholars have identified competing and
overlapping discourses in media, science, policy makers and advocacy groups (Lövbrand and Bäckstrand 2006;
Boykoff 2008; Weingart, Engels, and Pansegrau 2000; Carvalho 2007; Vlassopoulos 2012). The problems dealt
with in global governance architectures often exhibit high degree of uncertainty and lacks readily observable
objective solutions. Such problems have been called “wicked” and even “super wicked” meaning that besides
the ambiguity of the problem derived exclusively from the underlying scientific uncertainty, others are derived
more immediately from human nature and the nature of decision-making institutions (Lazarus 2008).
Accordingly, one can conclude the definition of a problem and its recognition by policymakers are intrinsically
political actions (Vlassopoulos 2012, Hajer 2006). Environmental politics thus becomes an argumentative
struggle in discursive landscape in which actors not only try to make others see the problems according to their
views but also seek to position other actors in a specific way (M. A. Hajer 1997).
Emerging from critical theory, an increased understanding of the significance of language and its capacity to
make politics has contributed to a “discursive turn” in some social sciences meaning that particular concepts,
such as sustainable development or precautionary principle, are continuously contested in a struggle over
overlapping discourses about their meaning, interpretation and implementation (Schmidt 2009, Alvesson and
Karreman 2000, Hajer and Versteeg 2005). An often cited example is the struggle between competing
discourses in the acid rain debate during 1980’s where Maarten Hajer convincingly showed how policy was
shaped rather by narratives created by strategizing actors than the “objective” facts produced by hard science
(M. Hajer 1993). More recent and highly public debates on for example the validity of the Planetary Boundaries
and the Anthroposcene concepts (Rockström et al. 2009; Crutzen and Schwägerl 2011) or the use of GMOs in
food production, are examples of wicked problems where scientific expertise used in large scale environmental
problems is negotiated rather than accepted (Maarten Hajer 2003; M. E. Pettenger 2007; Rayner 2013; Storr
2013).
In other words, one should recognize how one makes sense of, or interpret a particular problem, and how
narratives constructs a particular problem. Problems can be framed according to a certain narrative and the
new understanding of the problem can be facilitated by particular metaphor. However, the fact that different
discourses share a set of the same narratives does not imply that they frame an issue in the same way, share
common goals, or form a strategic alliance. Different discourse formations mobilize the same narratives, but
this same narratives assume divergent meanings in conflictive discourses (Laclau 2005). For example, Bettini
(2013) shows that conflictive discourses on climate change employed the same apocalyptic narrative on climate
refuges however with substantially different meanings. Therefore, discourses may converge into a set of
narratives, forming a discourse coalition around the same narratives. Accordingly, we may say that a particular
discursive landscape on an issue is more fragmented if it experiences a higher number of discourse coalitions.
To examine a degree of fragmentation in discursive landscape and to portray the whole debate on the
convergence of discourses onto the set of narratives by different set of actors, we use Argumentative Discourse
Analysis (ADA) developed by Maarten Hajer (1997). Here the discourse is situated in the local context and
language is considered as embedded in the specific process/interaction and social context (complex social
practices) in which discourse is produced (Alvesson and Karreman 2000, Phillips, Lawrence, and Hardy 2004).
ADA provides tools for the analysis of the “micro-interactions” of the narratives and is thus limited to the
argumentative dimension. Here discourse analysis refers to examination of argumentative structure in
documents and other written and spoken statements as well as the practices through which these utterances are
made. Discourse is defined as ”a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorizations that are produced,
and transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to physical and social
realities” (M. A. Hajer 1997, 45). ‘Storylines’ are generative sort of narratives that allow actors to draw upon
various discursive categories to give meaning to specific physical and social phenomena on social reality (M. A.
Hajer 1997, 57–63). ‘Discursive practices’ are practices in which a problem is discussed and in which a discourse
gets reproduced by certain set of actors. In the struggle for discursive hegemony, coalitions are formed among
actors that are for various reasons attracted to a specific set of story-lines. Discourse coalitions are defined as
the ensemble of 1) a set of story-lines; 2) the actors who utter these storylines, and 3) the practices in which
that discursive activity is based (M. A. Hajer 1997, 65). Storylines thus keep the actors together and not the
share set of beliefs and are essential political devices that allow the overcoming of fragmentation and the
achievement of discursive closure. Discursive closure is the interpretive process in the course of which complex
research work is often reduced to a visual representation or a catchy one-liner (M. A. Hajer 1997, 57). Therefore,
doing discourse analysis is to look for the activity of the actors who produce story-lines (i.e. scientists, activists,
but also mediators like journalists) and the practices with which this takes place, for example by investigating
the role of a particular scientific magazine in the construction or proliferation of a story-line.
Summary
The integrated framework to map and establish the degree fragmentation in global environmental governance
architectures proposes four clusters of indicators. They are part of the institutions active in an issue area such
as biodiversity, climate change, or marine governance. The following table provides an overview of the key
concepts and expected directions of fragmentation in our research framework:
Expected direction of
fragmentation
Indicator
Explanation
Method for inquiry
Institutions
A catch-all word for clusters or collection of
rights, rules and, decision-making procedures
that give rise to social practices, assign roles to
the participants in these practices, and guide
interaction among the participants. They are
part of a global governance architecture of an
issue area.
The more overlaps there are in the
governance architecture, the more
fragmentation there is in the regime.
Institutional analysis
Norms
Norms cover normative frameworks including
legal norms and rules. They can be separated
into constitutive and regulative where
constitutive bears more weight than regulative.
When constitutive norms and rule
overlap or collide, there is more
fragmentation than if regulative
norms overlap or collide.
Institutional analysis. Literature
review of legal texts, policy
statements, strategies, opinions.
Actor-constellations
Governance architectures consist of a myriad
of actors and their relations forming actor
constellations. These constellations can be
international and transnational.
High centrality and low level of
degree indicates more fragmentation
than low centrality and high level of
degree.
Social Network Analysis
Discourses
Governance architectures can be considered as
discursive landscape where different discourse
coalitions compete over divergent framing of
the issue by drawing to the same set of
narratives that keep them together.
When discourses converge onto the
same set of narratives thus forming
discourse coalitions, we say the
discursive landscape is more
coherent. On the other hand, if
there are more discourse coalitions
forming around different set of
narratives, we say that the discursive
Semantic network analysis
Graph analysis
Discourse analysis
landscape experiences higher degree
of fragmentation.
Figure 3 Overview table on establishing degree of fragmentation
The degree of fragmentation in global climate governance
Global climate governance is perhaps the most well-researched case of all issue areas when it comes to
fragmentation (c.f. F. Biermann et al. 2009; Fariborz Zelli and van Asselt 2012; Bulkeley et al. 2012;
Andonova, Betsill, and Bulkeley 2009; Abbott 2011; R. Keohane and Victor 2011; Van Asselt and Zelli 2012).
The result is a rich account of how complex global climate governance has become when multilateral efforts
by nation-states to curb GHG emissions are joined by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of transnational actors
and initiatives. At all levels, there are leaders and laggards, lobbyists for and against ambitious policy on
climate change. What is still missing is a comprehensive map of the landscape that makes up global climate
governance. In the next coming sections we illustrate our framework by applying it to the fragmented
architecture if climate change.
Mapping institutions in global climate governance
Institutions has been the main target in the gun sight of scholars working on fragmentation in global climate
governance. The key observation is that while the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol remain the core of the
climate regime, a number of intervening institutions have emerged. Some unintentionally, such as the trade
regime, where decision in one institution affects the other, and some intentionally such as the plethora of
transnational climate institutions with their own agendas and goals. Two levels of mapping in particular have
gained resonance: the international and the transnational. The international institutions perspective has been
advocated by Keohane and Victor (2011), who map state –driven action on climate change. Their main result
is an overview of what they call the “institutional elements and initiatives” that are part of the global climate
change regime complex.
Inside the oval are main institutional elements where substantial rule-making efforts have happened, and the
outside boxes is where additional and supporting rules happen (R. Keohane and Victor 2011). The UNFCCC
remains the central node in the overview but how other institutions have been created or incorporated in the
climate regime complex for functional or strategic reasons. While the authors provide a first account of what
they consider the global regime complex, the total picture has expanded considerably by the work of, among
others, Abbott (2011) who focuses on the increasing amount of transnational institutions active globally,
forming a “transnational regime complex”. Abbott lists 67 transnational organizations active in global climate
governance and place them schematically into a “governance triangle” based on their composition of
members:
Abbott’s work complements Keohane and Victor’s mapping by adding the new transnational institutions
dimension that increasingly take up space in global climate governance. The mapping attempts by Keohane
and Victors, and Abbott, have received wide-spread attention among scholars working on fragmentation in
global climate governance, however, their models suffer from a couple of weaknesses. First, as mentioned by
Abbott, there is no reflection on the strength of the rules and principles created by each institution which
weakens the prospect of connecting effectiveness and level of fragmentation. Second, there is little
understanding of the connection between the international and the transnational. They are currently seen as
parallel rather than integrated. When the international and transnational levels are combined, do we get a case
of embedded, nested, clustered or overlapping institutions?
There is little known about the relationship between the international and the transnational levels,
but most indications point toward a rather cooperative relationship where the UNFCCC and the Kyoto
Protocol sets general standards, rules and goals, and other institutions at least acknowledge them (F.
Biermann et al. 2009). In an interesting study, Green (2013) shows how multiple rules for carbon standards
created by transnational private actors converged in their affirmation of the CDM rules, which could be
interpreted as an indication for the centrality of the Kyoto Protocol, also for the transnational level.
Moreover, since the fading of institutions such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and
Climate (APP) and the Major Emitters Meeting (MEM), which could be understood a contenders to the
UNFCCC and leading to “conflictive fragmentation” (F. Biermann et al. 2009; Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and Van
Asselt 2009), the role of the core institution has become more certain. In the same sense, while climate
change has been discussed in other inter-governmental forums such as G20, G8 and the Security Council,
there is little evidence for a competitive relation between the institutions. For instance, after the G20 meeting
in Russia in September 2013, leaders stated that “We are committed to support the full implementation of the
agreed outcomes under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
and its ongoing negotiations.”, and additional work on, e.g. climate finance, would be done keeping the
“objectives, provisions and principles” of the UNFCCC in mind (G20 2013).
Based on the evidence available, the institutional set-up of the global climate governance architecture
can be characterized as nested with the UNFCCC at its core and other institutional arrangements spread
around it. Some institutions are closer than others. Negotiations under the Montreal Protocol, for example,
has a clear impact on the release of GHGs but is not conflicting or overlapping with competence area of the
UNFCCC. Similarly, the G20 is merely reaffirming their commitment to the UNFCCC instead of suggesting
any alternative routes. The UNFCCC appears to be the undisputed institution for multi-lateral negotiations
on climate change with a number of transnational and international institutions aligning to the rules and
norms prescribed in the core institution. Consequently, the level of institutional fragmentation in global
climate governance appears to be on the low side of the continuum, with a core instution surrounded by a
large number of non-hierarchically arranged international and transnational institutions at acting at different
levels of scale.
Mapping actor-constellations in global climate governance
The global climate change complex comprise multinational institutions such as the UNFCCC, international
organizations such as the World Bank and UNEP, transnational institutions such as the Major Economies
Forum (MEF), C40 and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) as well as, bilateral, sub-national and local climate change initiatives. While all these initiatives have their own
memberships, interests and strategies, global multilateral efforts to address climate change centers around the
UNFCCC which in turn has become a honey-pot for lobbying activities by stakeholders with an interest in
climate change such as green NGOs, companies, sub-national authorities, and other private interests. With
nearly 195 parties to the convention, 192 parties to the Kyoto Protocol, 1600 NGOs and 99 International
Organizations (IGOs) registered as observers3, the UNFCCC enjoys near universal membership. Compared
to other multilateral forums on climate change, the participation of civil society through NGOs has been
promoted by the UNFCCC, leading to for example a large presence of non-state actors during the COPs
(Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and McGee 2013). The large attention given to the COPs and vast resources spent by
non-state actors to attend the COPs is evidence for, at least the idea, that the UNFCCC remains the most
important forum to discuss climate change on a global level. Nevertheless, an increasing number of observers
note that the complex character of the climate problems makes the UNFCCC unable to solve it alone under
its current format and mandate (Michonski and Levi 2010). Decisions taken in a range of international
forums have implications for climate change mitigation efforts. For instance, the Council on Foreign
Relations surveyed existing multilateral institutions with relevance for climate change and found about twenty
institutions divided into; environment-focused institutions (e.g. UNEP and GEF), informal leader-forums
(e.g. G8 and MEF), sectorally focused institutions (e.g. ICAO and IMO), energy-related institutions (e.g.
IEA), non-bank development-focused institutions (e.g. FAO and WFP), multilateral development banks (e.g.
WB), and other institutions (e.g. WTO) (Michonski and Levi, 2010). On top of that, several authors have
gone to great length to list the transnational institutions dealing with climate change. Abbott (2011) for
example reaches a list of 67 such institutions, all with various memberships, roles and types.
The actors present and relevant in the current global climate architecture is insufficiently understood.
Researchers have relied on heuristic methods such as expert-surveys and interviews to list as many actors and
institutions as possible which leads to sweeping claims such as there is an ”increasingly complex institutional
landscape, with hundreds (if not thousands) of institutions at global, national, and local levels that seek to
address various facets of the climate change problem” (Green 2013).
3
See http://unfccc.int/parties_and_observers/items/2704.php (data retrieved 15 August 2013)
To address the problem more systematically, we propose an experimental approach called Hyperlink
Analysis (HLA) which is used to establish the boundaries of a linked community in cyberspace. The
proponents argue that by collecting hyperlinks on the World Wide Web that connect different pages together
to say something about relationships in the physical world is possible and a rather new method in the social
sciences (Park 2003; Rogers 2004; McNutt 2010). The idea is that placing hyperlinks on a homepage is a
conscious and purposely made choice by an actor indicating a (preferred) relation to the object referred to by
the hyperlink. HLA starts with the identification of a number of homepages that have particular importance
for the research. Then a script, also called a “crawler”, starts from each of the homepages identified by the
researcher (called “seeds”), and harvest each of the out-going links from the seeds.
For our mapping-experiment we used a list of 67 transnational institutions gathered by Abbott (2011)
as seeds.4 The crawler was prompted to create an edge if two of the seeds pointed to the same webpage, also
called co-link analysis. Setting the crawling depth at two5, the result is a complex and large network of 1037
nodes connected by 9278 edges6. It comprise everything from large international organizations and
institutions to national advocacy groups. While it is difficult to assert that the crawler has caught all relevant
actors, the table below show the 10 largest nodes in terms of in-degree (rank), which indicates the most
attractive web-pages.
The list seems to fit intuitively well with the real-
Webpage
Rank
1
unep.org
121
world. Moreover, from the Council on Foreign
2
usa.gov
106
Relations’ list of about 20 organizations that have
3
unfccc.org
105
4
worldbank.org
100
importance for global climate governance; only G8,
5
epa.gov
97
6
un.org
92
All specialized UN agencies such as ICAO, IMO,
7
ipcc.ch
83
FAO and WFP are for example represented in results
8
wri.org
73
of the HLA.
9
ec.europa.org
68
undp.org
68
10
G20, the Montreal Protocol and APEC are missing.
Table 1 The 10 most linked actors in the analysis
Moreover, the average degree, which tells us the how many links the average node has, is 8,947. The
network’s density (meaning how many of the possible edges that are filled) is merely 1,6 %, and the network
4
A small number was left due to either termination of the initiative or the absence of a homepage, these included: Chicago Climate
Exchange, Climate Rationing Action Groups, and Community Carbon Reduction Programme. The authors would gladly share the list
of homepages used.
5 Meaning that the crawler goes to a webpage, renders all the links and iterate this once with the rendered links in the first iteration.
6 The data has been cleaned from irrelevant web-pages such as Twitters, Facebook, Adobe and all edges weights have been put to 1.
centralization is 11,71 %.7 These figures indicate that the network density is extremely low and the edges in
the network are relatively well spread across the actors. According to our model this would indicate that
actors in global climate governance reaches a level of medium fragmentation.
To measure fragmentation in actor-constellations by using HLA and SNA has both strengths and
weaknesses. Once the seeds for the crawler have been identified, the HLA allows for an natural selection of
organizations based on who they themselves would prefer to be linked to. One might detect a bias towards
more technology savvy and often “northern” organizations, however one might ask: does organizations
without online presence have much capacity to act globally on environmental issues (Carpenter 2007)?
Moreover, once the researchers masters the techniques and software, the method is easy to replicate and
generate comparable results. It therefore speaks in favor of using it to compare fragmentation across different
regimes. However, the HLA and SNA also struggles with mainly three problems. First, it is easy to read too
much into the large amount of data that the HLA generates. Low density for example, could perhaps be
explained by the vastness of the network it tries to catch. Second, the analysis hinges on the initial seeds
chosen by the researcher and to what extent organizations are caught in the web. One example is the near
absence of nation-states in the data-set. Third, we have no method to know whether the data-set is complete
or even representative. Nevertheless, it may be more effective in mapping the universe of actors than, for
example, expert or stakeholder interviews used in previous mapping attempt. Finally, to ensure the robustness
of the results, one need to expand the research with qualitative data such as interviews and surveys.
The fragmentation of norms
Harro van Asselt notes that, in his research on fragmentation in global climate governance: “One of the most
striking findings is that despite the concerns raised in the debate on fragmentation, no normative conflict
could be identified.” (2013, p.328). And indeed, norms on the imperative for stopping dangerous climate
change, the use of bottom-up processes, or the UNFCCC as a central hub for global climate negotiations
have remained unchallenged (F. Biermann et al. 2009).8 There is, however, still a high degree of fragmentation
among the prescriptions emerging from the operationalization of the constitutive norms, i.e. the ‘regulative
norms’ are fragmented. To illustrate the case we look at two aspects, first, while neoliberal norms underlying
the solutions for GHG-mitigation in global climate governance favoring such things as carbon trading and
finance have been cemented, there is a range of competing norms trying to operationalize it. Second, the
7
The network was analysed using UCInet and Gephi.
With the clear exception of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Energy (APP) which favored
‘carbon intensities’ instead of emission ceilings, and lacked an outspoken vision on how to truly deliver what is
needed to hinder dangerous levels of climate change (McGee and Taplin 2008). With the demise of conservative
cabinets in USA and Australia in 2009 and 2007, however, the APP died a quite death in 2011, burying the UNFCCC
challenger.
8
overwhelming support for the norm on “common but differentiated responsibility” has become clear in the
2009 Copenhagen Accord’s paragraphs on climate finance, yet there are strongly conflicting views in how to
operationalize the pledges.
The market-based approach
Since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, global climate governance has been driven by an
increasingly coherent neoliberal discourse of ‘ecological modernization’ marked by narratives on marketbased solutions and cost-effectiveness (Mary E. Pettenger 2007). For instance, despite 18 COPs and
numerous parallel processes to the UNFCCC (e.g. APP and MEM), there is little talk about diverging from
the neoliberal governance norms guiding discussions on mitigation-solutions featuring carbon markets
including the flexible mechanisms including CDM and JI. These market-based instruments are believed to use
the power of markets to entice the most cost-effective solutions for climate change issues mainly by
incentivizing investments in technological innovation and modernization (Yamin 2005). Also the legal
embodiment of the market-based norm, the Kyoto Protocol, has proven resilient. Even when the US decided
to drop out in 2001, the Protocol remained intact with even growing support from the international
community (Yamin and Depledge 2004). Moreover, as Bernstein and his colleagues note “there is a strong
normative consensus about such [carbon] markets, and a deepening set of transnational governance
practices” (2010).
While the constitutive norms on using market-based instruments as central mechanisms for global
mitigation efforts are cemented in the climate governance, the regulative norms featuring implementation of
carbon markets has become fragmented, with numerous public and private trading schemes, MeasurementReporting-Verification (MRV) approaches and geographically separated trading areas running in parallel (c.f.
Green 2013; Bernstein et al. 2010). This is perhaps not surprising given that markets are supposed to be selforganizing. It is the rational of market-based solutions to be adopted by market forces and allow for
competing systems to eventually converge into the most cost-effective system. If a carbon-trading system is
highly planned, coordinated and regulated from the very beginning: is it then market-based? Green makes this
point when arguing that “complexity is not the same as chaos” and how 79 % of the private GHG standards
in her analysis have converged around the Kyoto rules (Green 2013). Clearly there are different perceptions
on how to design and govern carbon markets yet there is no real opposition for abandoning them.
Common but differentiated responsibilities and climate finance
The second example is the evidence of climate finance supporting the norm of “common but differentiated
responsibilities” codified in Article 3 in the UNFCCC. During COP15 in Copenhagen 2009, the parties to the
convention took three ambitious decision: first, to allocate USD100 billion per year by 2020 to support
mitigation and adaptation activities in developing countries; second, a ‘Fast-start finance’ pledge to gather
almost USD30 billion for 2010 – 2012; and third, a ‘Green Climate Fund’ meant to administer a significant
part of the climate funding.9 The actions are fully in line with the principle of “common but differentiated
principles” where resources flow from developed nations to developing nations to support them in
implementing the UNFCCC. For instance, the Fast-start finance measures were explicitly mainly meant to
benefit the most vulnerable countries such as Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small-Island Developing
States (SIDS) and Africa.10 The commitment to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”
is also shown in the sheer magnitude of the climate finance pledges which are supposed to be additional to
traditional development aid, which currently amounts to $ 135 billion annually (OECD, 2012).
So far so good, the constitutive norm of is supported by financial commitments. However, the
growing multi-lateral effort promising to “assist the developing countries to implement the Convention”11 is
littered with uncertainties, such as: who should contribute with how much; how to guarantee the provision of
finance (liability); to what extent should carbon markets be used; who should control the flow of the money;
and finally, a plethora of MRV related issues (Skovgaard 2012). The current climate finance architecture has
already become a complex web of international, national, and transnational institutions. The Climate Funds
Update for example, an initiative run by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Heinrich Böll
Stiftung, maps no less than 21 government agencies, development banks, and programmes; 5 bilateral
initiatives; 12 multi-lateral funds; and, 10 UN and regional agencies, involved in delivering global climate
finance.12 Moreover, further downstream there is a growing number of private companies, NGOs and
philanthropic organizations engaged in climate finance. Pickering et al (2013) finds that the climate financing
delivery systems is fragmented to an intermediate level due to; vague conceptual, and sometimes contested,
definitions of climate finance; diversity of interests among actors; and, since climate finance is generally
funneled via aid agencies, climate finance has mimicked the fragmentation of aid institutions.
Both governance of carbon-markets and climate finance are examples of high fragmentation of the regulative
norms in climate change governance. Constitutive norms, however, appears to have remain stable within global
climate governance. This leads us to believe that the fragmentation of norms exhibits a medium level.
The fragmentation of Discourses
To analyze degree of fragmentation discourses, we operationalized discourses accordingly: The first step was
to map narratives in the discursive landscape on climate change by combining computerized network analysis
with discourse analysis. The actors considered for the first mapping and testing of the framework are media,
9
FCCC/CP/2009/11/Add.1 “the Copenhagen Accord”
FCCC/CP/2009/11/Add.1 “the Copenhagen Accord”
11
http://unfccc.int/cooperation_and_support/financial_mechanism/items/2807.php
12
See: http://www.climatefundsupdate.org/global-trends/global-finance-architecture
10
companies and industries. A variety of primary and secondary sources were used: Annual reports by the
companies and industries submitted to Security and Exchange Commission (SEC); Scholarly articles from
environmental studies, policy studies and law from the past year; Finally, news articles from the New York
Times and the Guardian with large readership and broad coverage of events associated with climate change
governance (Papacharissi and de Fatima Oliveira 2008; Fiss and Hirsch 2005; Roberts and McCombs 1994).
The sample was assembled by using the Westlaw International database to retrieve various official texts,
statements and news articles in the period between August 2012 and August 2013. Relevant articles were
grouped together into one single document to be jointly analyzed since we were interested in mapping
fragmentation in one single period of time. For each text the keywords climate change were used to yield the
most comprehensive sample, where all of the words must appear at least 1 time in order to omit documents
where the main topic is not related to fisheries. After the duplicate articles were excluded, the sample yielded
40 news articles for the New York Times and 37 for the Guardian, and 30 annual reports produced by the
companies and industries.
To map various narratives in the discursive landscape, Wordlink was used (Danowski 1993). It computes the
directed co-occurrences of words appearing within three word positions on either side of each word. Here,
the word-pair is treated as a unit of analysis, while words are treated as nodes and their co-occurences as links
with frequencies as link strength (Zywica and Danowski 2008). Semantic network analysis allows for the
treatment of the larger distribution of story content instead of individual story sentences. Moreover, by
preserving the meaning of the word in its use in the language it preserves and recovers the syntax. It allows to
discover and map the relationship among words within messages; interpret the underlying themes and
structures present in mediated representations of particular phenomena; discern the frequency with which
certain words, terms, concepts, attitudes, and values are associated with that phenomena. Moreover, Nodetric
(Danowski 1993) was used to do node-centric network analyses around specified frequent words, such as
“friends,” to show the network of words linked up to five steps away. Node-centric network analysis involves
creating networks based around one center location, or in this case, around the word Climate. As it maps the
actual connections among words, it allows for the use of optimal graphic layout software, such as Gephi, in
order to create the visual graphs and interpret the results. In Gephi two measurements from Social Network
Analysis were used, namely centrality and community structure, to recover syntax and extract various
narratives on the discourses of fisheries. Centrality indicates how connected a node, and in our case a word, is
in the network, assuming that a node is central if it is maximally connected to all other nodes (Wasserman and
Faust 1994). In order to measure it, we considered its two best-known values, namely degree and betweeness
centrality (Freeman 1979). The degree of a node in a network refers to the number of connections or edges
the node has to other nodes. A directed network has two types of ties directions, one with a number of ties
directed to the node (in-degree) and the number of ties that the node directs to others (out-degree). Since we
are interested to examine how the discourse on fisheries gets produced, we were only interested in in-degree,
that is in the number of ties directed to the node, and in our case to the node labeled Climate. The node is
central if it has a high degree. Betweeness centrality quantifies the number of times a node acts as a bridge
along the shortest path between two other nodes (Freeman 1979). A node is central/important if it is
involved in a large number of paths compared to the total set of paths. In our graph betweenness is indicated
with the size, meaning the bigger the size of a node, the more influential/ central it is. Secondly, we detected
and studied the Community Structure of the network since they can illuminate particular structural features a
network has and significantly contribute to the understanding regarding the dynamics of the network
(Newman 2006). Communities are defined as groups of densely interconnected nodes that are only sparsely
connected with the rest of the network. Here, we used the value of modularity in order to measure it (Blondel
et al. 2008). Communities are represented in a graph by different colors and they form narratives. Based on
centrality and community structure, narratives are mapped by interpreting words (nodes) and words-pair
(links) that experience high centrality (high degree and betweeness) within a community structure. The words
that are represented with the biggest size in a cluster are considered as the core words of the narrative, while
the importance of other words in a cluster is indicated with a size meaning that the bigger the size the more
influence they have in a cluster and the formation of a narrative. Moreover, we only considered those
communities that enjoy high in-degree and betweenness in relation to the community around our focal nodes
labeled as Climate Change, since they are the most important in building discursive landscape on climate
change.
Given the first step in our framework for measuring the degree of fragmentation in discursive landscape of
climate change, we sought to identify and map narratives produced by the each set of actors.
Media. The analysis of news articles produced by the New York Times and the Guardian revealed seven
communities of words in the network. Since the cluster around the words Climate Change is the core cluster,
we considered other clusters around it for interpretation, while we excluded those that experience very low
value of connectivity to climate change. Four communities were extracted (science, warming, carbon, energy)
around words interpreted as the keywords of narratives in discursive landscape on climate change. Next the
formation of narratives listed in the order of influence on the words climate change and their interpretation
based on the structure and dynamics of words inside of the communities themselves. A list of the recovered
syntax is presented in the Annex B.
Narrative 1. Impacts of climate change on millions of humans is real (Obama climate speech)
Narrative 2. Carbon tax as a cost-effective mean of reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced by burning
of fuels (natural gas, coal)
Narrative 3. Global warming and average global temperature increase as a cause of ice melting and sea level
rise
Narrative 4. Energy efficiency policy transitions for addressing economic and environmental issues
Companies and industries.
The analysis of annual reports produced by companies and industries revealed eight communities in the
network. After we excluded those clusters with low degree of connectivity, the results showed four
communities clustered around words emissions, environmental, costs and financial the list of narratives
ranked according to a degree of influence follows.
Narrative 5. Regulations and legislations associated with climate change can pose risk and have negative
effect on the business.
Narrative 6. Greenhouse gas and carbon emissions to be reduced based on Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) regulations, such as reporting.
Narrative 7. Industry practices to reduce fugitive methane emissions due to environmental consequences.
We found that the climate change is increasingly framed as a real treat for humans and future generations, as
well as a direct cause of global warming, ice melting and sea level rise. Moreover, antrophogenic factors are
presented as main drivers of changing climate where the main target of public policies are still industry and
companies. However, when it comes on how greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions should be
reduced, different approaches were identified, either through carbon tax or through reporting on emissions.
Accordingly, we can say that the discursive landscape on climate change is fragmented to a low extent.
Conclusions
Our analysis of the degree fragmentation of the global climate governance architecture points towards a
medium degree of fragmentation both among actor-constellations and norms, which is congruent with other
studies looking at the issue (Van Asselt 2013 and Biermann et al 2009). Nevertheless, the analysis provides a
more nuanced picture which other types of data and argumentation than previously seen. First, the actorconstellation analysis using HLA and network analysis shows that there are, at least, 1000 actors part of the
global transnational network of institutions dealing with climate change. The data shows the strong centrality
of multilateral efforts such as UNEP and the UNFCCC to climate change, also among the non-state actors.
One reading of the number could be that we can confirm the observations that these organizations remain
uncontested to any significant level by other institutions. There are several caveats in the approach, for one
that the technique is finds it difficult to assess the position of states in the web of actors. The structure of the
network with low density and low centralization leads to the conclusion that the network is medium
fragmented. For the norms and institutions part we find few examples of truly competing sections. Finally,
for discourses, a small number of narratives were identified which indicates a low degree of fragmentation.
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