Book Review: Kathryn Harrison and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom (eds), Global Commons, Domestic Decisions: The Comparative Politics of Climate Change (London: MIT Press, 2010, 312 pp., £18.95 pbk)
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298110400011220 |
| Author | Charles Roger |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews 219
product of ‘any grand constitutional design’ (p. 31), and, consequently, it is difficult to
overturn or replace. The ‘project of institutional reform must therefore confront and
accommodate existing realities’ (p. 32) by seeking adjustments that can democratise
global power structures. Again in Chapter Eight, this realist approach is highlighted as
Macdonald notes that despite optimism for the successful implementation of democratic
processes, this may not be feasible in all cases. Using the example of humanitarian aid in
crisis situations, Macdonald argues that there are some political contexts where NGOs
exercise public power in which an inclusive form of stakeholder consultation would not
be possible. Stakeholder consultation should, however, remain the ideal to be pursued
once a crisis situation stabilises, thereby reflecting a more pragmatic approach to demo-
cratic reforms. This realist agenda is reinforced throughout the volume, as the viability
of every measure that is proposed is systematically evaluated in the context of existing
institutions and circumstances.
In the end, the book does invite more questions than it answers. Macdonald frequently
acknowledges that the limits of this project are to ‘articulate the broad conceptual frame-
work of Global Stakeholder Democracy’ (p. 87). The practical challenges of implement-
ing democratisation processes are recognised but not resolved, given the need for much
further case-specific knowledge and space. This does not, however, detract from what is
a systematic and thorough examination of normative issues in democratising global decision-
making so that it more accurately reflects the existing complexity of global power poli-
tics, and the numerous questions it poses should provide valuable starting points for
other theorists.
Kelly Gerard
Kelly Gerard is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Western Australia,
Perth, Australia.
Kathryn Harrison and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom (eds), Global Commons, Domestic
Decisions: The Comparative Politics of Climate Change (London: MIT Press, 2010, 312 pp., £18.95 pbk).
Against great odds, and despite the obstinacy of China and the United States (US), the Kyoto
Protocol came into effect in 2005, obliging a group of 37 states that had ratified the agree-
ment to collectively reduce their emissions to five percent below 1990 levels by 2008–12.
To date, Kyoto remains the most significant legally binding effort to govern climate change
by parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
But, without the cooperation of the two largest emitters, why did countries commit to such
a costly and seemingly futile undertaking? Moreover, what explains the varying extents to
which its signatories have actually tried to meet their targets in the years since 2005?
According to Harrison and Sundstrom, the Editors of this volume, most efforts to
answer these questions have done so using the tools of International Relations (IR), under-
standing states as unitary actors and explaining outcomes in terms of national interests or
the ideologies of states. But, they argue, IR theories can only take us so far because,
‘When meetings conclude, actors return to their domestic constituencies’, and decisions
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