Ecosystems and Ordering: Exploring the Extent and Diversity of Ecosystem Governance
This article argues that, to grasp how global ordering will be impacted by planetary-level changes, we need to systematically attend to the question of the extent to which and how ecosystems are being governed. Our inquiry builds upon—but extends beyond—the environmental governance measures that have garnered the most scholarly attention so far. The dataset departs from the current literature on regional environmental governance by taking ecosystems themselves as the unit of analysis and then exploring whether and how they are governed, rather than taking a starting point in environmental institutions and treaties. The ecosystems researched—large-scale marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems—have been previously identified by a globe-spanning, natural science inquiry. Our findings highlight the uneven extent of ecosystem governance—both the general geographic extent and certain “types” of ecosystems seemingly lending themselves more easily to ecosystem-based cooperation. Furthermore, our data highlight that there is a wider range of governance practices anchored in ecosystems than the typical focus on environmental institutions reveals. Of particular significance is the tendency by political actors to establish multi-issue governance anchored in the ecosystems themselves and covering several different policy fields. We argue that, in light of scholarship on ecosystem-anchored cooperation and given the substantive set of cases of such cooperation identified in the dataset, these forms of ecosystem-anchored cooperation may have particularly significant ordering effects. They merit attention in the international relations scholarship that seeks to account for the diversity of global ordering practices.
Matthew Blackburn
Matthew Blackburn er seniorforsker i NUPIs forskningsgruppe for Øst-Europa og Asia. Han er også tilknyttet forsker ved Institute of Russian and Eu...
Asia-Arctic Diplomacy a Decade Later: What has changed?
Ten years ago, five Asian states – China, India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea – joined the Arctic Council as observers. This article discusses how the Asia-Arctic Five’s policies policies and priorities have evolved over the past decade and what their hopes are for the incoming Norwegian chairmanship of the Council.
Innspillsmøte om ny norsk Afrika-strategi
Regjeringen starter nå arbeidet med utviklingen av en ny norsk Afrika-strategi, og ønsker innspill fra aktører som er engasjert i Afrika. Utenriksdepartementet i samarbeid med Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt (NUPI) inviterer til et åpent innspillsmøte, der representanter for regjeringen, relevante institusjoner og nærings- og organisasjonsliv deltar.
Er Norge klar for en ny pandemi uten et EU-samarbeid?
I møte med en rekke kriser, og særlig etter erfaringene med koronapandemien, har Europa tatt flere grep for å styrke sin felles motstandsdyktighet. Hva betyr dette for Norge?
Tobias Etzold
Tobias Etzold (PhD) var seniorforsker i forskningsgruppen for sikkerhet og forsvar ved NUPI. Han jobbet hovedsakelig som prosjektleder for CLIMARC...