Environmental Regionalism and International Organizations: Implications for Post-Communism

Abstract

Regional international organizations (IOs) are considered to be among the most efficient platforms in promoting an environmental agenda at global, regional, and national levels. Yet, the dialogue between studies of global environmental politics and comparative regionalism is quite recent. The emergence of non-democratic regional organizations (NDROs) is among the most recent discoveries in comparative regionalism and their implications for environmental politics are to be considered. How do NDROs matter in promoting an environmental agenda? How do IOs advance the environmental agenda across the post-Communist region? This Special Issue aspires us to answer these questions through establishing a deeper dialogue between studies of environmental regionalism and authoritarian regionalism. This introduction lays out the theoretical ground for the collection of articles in this Special Issue. It proposes a definition and typology of environmental regionalism (ER) that distinguishes between democratic and autocratic ER. It then analyzes the contributions to the Special Issue within this new theoretical framework.