Cities, commons, and the unilateral provision of public goods
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00471178211037089 |
| Author | Nina Kelsey |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178211037089
International Relations
2021, Vol. 35(3) 489 –509
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00471178211037089
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Cities, commons, and
the unilateral provision
of public goods
Nina Kelsey
The George Washington University
Abstract
The rise of climate-active municipalities – cities and towns voluntarily creating carbon reduction
policy substantially more stringent than their host countries or the international system as a
whole – presents a puzzle. Countries, with greater resources and the capacity to create binding
agreements to overcome public goods problems, appear to view carbon reduction as an
unappealing burden. So why are municipalities, with fewer resources and no way to guarantee
a coordinated global effort, so eager to take on the potential disadvantages of stringent carbon
reduction? Based on examination of municipal-level carbon reduction activity in Sweden and
Portugal, I argue that in fact local-level climate activity represents not a burden but a tool.
Municipal climate policy forms the basis for ‘paradiplomacy’ that captures goods for cities,
creates international linkages for municipalities, and allows direct participation in setting the
terms of global carbon commons policy. The evidence suggests that the nature of the climate
commons – incompletely structured from a legal and political perspective, and open to access
and intervention by actors at multiple levels – provides unique opportunities for actors to act as
makers rather than takers of global governance structure and diplomatic effort in a critical area
of emerging international policymaking.
Keywords
cities, climate, global commons, governance, international climate policy
Corresponding author:
Nina Kelsey, Elliott School of International Affairs and Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public
Administration, The George Washington University, 1957 E Street NW, Suite 403, Washington, DC 20052,
USA.
Email: ninakelsey@gwu.edu
1037089IRE0010.1177/00471178211037089International RelationsKelsey
research-article2021
Article
490 International Relations 35(3)
Introduction
If there is one truism in the study of international environmental politics, it is that suc-
cessful governance of a global commons in anarchic conditions is quite difficult. In the
absence of an overarching framework or higher power that can elicit cooperative behav-
ior, costly cooperation to preserve a global environmental commons like the atmosphere
is expected to be systematically underprovided by individual actors – like countries –
making decisions. Left to their own devices, individual countries are expected to fre-
quently attempt to free ride on whatever efforts their peers may make. While this
prediction springs specifically from the literature on public goods and the tragedy of the
commons (TOC), it is consonant with broader trends in international relations literature
that stress economic and security rationalism as drivers for the behavior of actors in the
international system.
Indeed, individual states’ behavior throughout the history of global attempts to man-
age climate change and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations appear to conform to
this prediction. The amount of emissions reductions states have been willing to pursue
has consistently and substantially undershot the amount that experts believe is needed to
avert catastrophic climate change. Throughout, countries have focused rhetorically on
assigning the responsibility for costly emissions reduction to someone else.
In contrast, an important emerging phenomenon in international climate politics is the
rise of climate-active municipalities: cities and towns that are voluntarily creating carbon
reduction policy substantially more stringent than that of their host countries or the inter-
national system as a whole. On the face of it, the phenomenon is an odd one. Countries
have far greater resources than cities, and the capacity to create binding agreements to
overcome public goods problems; yet, as noted, countries appear to view carbon reduc-
tion as a burden they are reluctant to assume. Why then are municipalities so eager to
step in to bear the potential disadvantages of stringent carbon reduction, even with fewer
resources and no mechanism to guarantee a coordinated, equitable global effort?
Answering the question of what drives municipalities to make voluntary cooperative
contributions to the governance of the atmosphere – or what I will refer to as the ‘carbon
commons’ – is an interesting and important question in its own right. As the introduction
to this special issue states, one noteworthy characteristic of commons spaces is that their
very lack of governance under a traditional state jurisdiction means that they are acces-
sible to intervention and management by actors other than the state actors traditionally
studied in international relations literature.1 Hence, the involvement of non-state actors
like municipalities in the international politics and policy of commons governance is
inherently worthy of study. However, it is also worthy of study to the extent that it pro-
vides an example of cooperation even under ‘hard’ conditions that should not, on the face
of it, be conducive to such cooperation. Can understanding why comparatively small
jurisdictions like municipalities, which lack sovereign power in the international system,
choose to engage in unilateral commons governance under essentially anarchic condi-
tions tell us anything about why and under what conditions larger state actors might be
induced to do so, and how collective action problems around carbon reduction could be
addressed? If so, then understanding municipal carbon reduction is truly of global
importance.
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