Managing Institutional Externalities through Intertwined Design: Dual Governance of Emissions Mitigation and Solar Geoengineering
About this event
Pressing policy challenges such as climate change and cybersecurity are characterized by multiple dimensions; more important, in such complex situations, the governance of one dimension likely imposes externalities on the other. Consider two potential means to address climate change: solar geoengineering and emission mitigation. Solar geoengineering technology is likely to impose negative externalities on international efforts to curb emissions because the perception of an easy, inexpensive solution to climate change would likely undermine costly action on mitigation, particularly among those with vested interests in greenhouse gas emissions. Solar geoengineering, however, does not “cure” climate change; it only masks its symptoms to buy time for mitigation. Moreover, solar geoengineering introduces its own set of risks, including dramatic rebound warming if it were halted without a dramatic reduction in emissions. Hence solar geoengineering governance must be linked to emissions governance. The precise nature of that linkage is the subject of a new research program on complex institutional design challenges at the international level. I introduce intertwined institutions as a means to manage such institutional externalities. In an intertwined institution, some subset of the design provisions (e.g., voting rules; dispute resolution) of the governance structures must be either shared or, if separate, contingent on one another in order to manage the externalities successfully. The two institutional endpoints of a single, comprehensive agreement versus entirely separate institutions will be brought together in one unified theory. My theory building will focus on how the various institutional mechanisms necessary for two governance structures each of which address one dimension of a common problem might complement, substitute for, or conflict with one another and how synergies can be promoted to increase positive externalities and tradeoffs managed to discourage negative externalities.
Barbara Koremenos is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Her award-winning book, The Continent of International Law: Explaining Agreement Design (Cambridge University Press 2016), focuses on how international law can be structured to make international cooperation most successful. She is also the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her research. Her works are published in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Legal Studies, Law and Contemporary Problems, and Review of International Organizations. She has served on two National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees and one American Academy of Arts and Sciences panel on the issues of international law and norms frameworks, medicine regulation, and international health cooperation for future pandemics.
*Please note that this is a hybrid-format meeting. In-person meeting will take place in Leacock Building #429, McGill University and will be broadcast on Zoom. Please register if you wish to attend the talk in either of these formats.