Reseñas de libros
Bartley, Tim. 2018. Rules without Rights: Land, Labor, and Private Authority in the Global
Economy. Oxford, Reino Unido: prensa de la Universidad de Oxford.
Reviewed by Graham Bullock
Davidson College
How effective have transnational standards been in catalyzing improvements in
labor and environmental conditions? This is the core question of Tim Bartley’s
libro, Rules without Rights, which engages in an in-depth examination of four
cases across two countries—Indonesia and China—and two sectors—forestry
and apparel/footwear. His research is based on an impressive range of both
qualitative and quantitative sources, incluido 145 interviews with practi-
tioners, audit reports, observations of audits as they were carried out, and sev-
eral factory-level surveys and datasets.
Bartley concludes that transnational standards such as the Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC) and SA8000 (social accountability) certifications have had only
limited success in transforming labor and environmental practices. His primary ex-
planation for this outcome relates to the broader theoretical message of the book,
which is that both scholars and practitioners need to stop treating the countries in
which these transnational standards are being implemented as “empty spaces,"
“regulatory voids,” and “areas of limited statehood” (páginas. 37–39). En cambio, he con-
tends they should be viewed as sites that “are crowded with actors, agendas, y
normas,” including local firms competing for contracts, international and domestic
non-governmental organizations (ONG) pushing for reforms, and government
agencies enforcing domestic laws and norms.
In Bartley’s view, such a recognition enables a more fruitful focus on the
intersections between transnational standards and the contexts in which they
are being applied. As Bartley convincingly argues, this approach reveals that
transnational private regulation “ignores the domestic political economy in
which factories and forests are embedded, and it pretends to bypass the state
rather than grappling with the messy but essential character of state-based gov-
ernance” (pag. 32). This dynamic is clearly demonstrated in each of the book’s
four cases, although in different ways.
The two cases in China demonstrate the effects that an authoritarian state
can have on the effectiveness of transnational standards. Bartley explores how
the “dormitory labor regime” and resistance to allowing freedom of association
for workers by the Chinese state have undermined the ability of global brands
and their auditors to push factories to meet the standards propagated by the Fair
Labor Association and Social Accountability International.
Global Environmental Politics 19:3, Agosto 2019
© 2019 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
139
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140 (cid:129) Reseñas de libros
The same dynamic is apparent in the context of FSC forest certification,
which requires workers to be able to “join organizations of their choosing”
(pag. 129). This is “nearly impossible,” however, given the primacy of the state-
backed trade union federation in China (pag. 130). Compliance with FSC’s re-
quirements regarding land-use rights is also constrained due to the top-down
privatization of forests, government repression of villager resistance, y el
lack of NGOs allowed to represent those villagers’ interests. Because of the will-
ingness of auditors to overlook these issues, FSC certification at first grew rapidly
in China, but has more recently declined due the government’s support for its
own alternative certification regime—another example of how the local context
is not an “empty space.”
The Indonesian cases further demonstrate this point by paradoxically
showing how not only a dearth but also a plethora of local voices and NGOs
has limited the implementation of transnational standards. Bartley explains that
“democratization in Indonesia allowed civil society actors to push “for ‘maxi-
malist’ constructions of compliance with private rules” (pag. 32), which ultimately
have constrained their broader implementation. This is particularly apparent
with FSC certification, which has stagnated in the country amid widespread
contestation over indigenous and customary land rights.
The labor rights case in Indonesia reveals an additional disconnect between
transnational standards and their domestic contexts. While multinational firms and
auditors have focused on labor reforms within particular factories, the Indonesian
labor movement’s strength lies outside factory walls, in collective action through
protests and legislation. It also highlights differences between the labor and forestry
casos, which include the greater mobility of apparel/footwear production and the
pressures of rapidly changing fashions. Bartley concludes that these factors
have contributed to transnational forestry standards being relatively more rigor-
ous than transnational labor standards.
His main conclusion, sin embargo, is that despite some successes in both the
authoritarian and newly democratic contexts of his cases, private regulation has
faced inherent limitations. He ends with an optimistic discussion of the new
transnational timber legality regime, which he views as appropriately building
on rather than ignoring domestic governance contexts. While well taken, este
emphasis points to a weakness of Bartley’s overall analysis, which tends to
underemphasize the normative effects of transnational standards. He persua-
sively shows that their independent and tangible impacts have indeed been
limitado, but he does not acknowledge or explore the more subtle and indirect
effects they may have had on local and national discourses about labor and en-
vironmental issues. How have discussions of timber legality been influenced by
transnational standards? The book also has more of a focus on the social criteria
of these standards and does not attend to their environmental criteria in much
detail. Arguably the story would be less pessimistic if it had done so.
Sin embargo, the strengths of the analysis—its theoretical contributions, usar
of mixed methods, and detailed case studies—far outweigh these weaknesses.
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Swapna Pathak
(cid:129) 141
Bartley’s overarching message of the need to pay more attention to the inter-
section between domestic governance and transnational standards is unassailable.
Future research can build on this important work by analyzing these intersections
in other countries and sectors, and by further developing a systematic way to
comprehensively assess the effects of transnational standards—not only on spe-
cific factories, forests, and supply chains, but also on the domestic contexts in
which they are embedded.
Kaiser, Wolfram, and Jan-Henrik Meyer, editores. 2014. International Organizations and
Environmental Protection: Conservation and Globalization in the Twentieth Century. Nueva York:
Berghahn Books.
Reviewed by Swapna Pathak
Oberlin College
Kaiser and Meyer approach their edited book with an idea rooted in liberal
institutionalism: “IOs mattered for environmental protection in the global
twentieth century” (pag 7). They primarily use archival research. Different contri-
butions in the book discuss how IOs in modern history have played the crucial
role of policy entrepreneurs by developing the international environmental
agenda, bringing various stakeholders together, and providing science-based
policy solutions. The book traces the origins of international environmental in-
stitutions and initiatives such as the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and sustainable development goals against the backdrop of the United
Nation’s Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Conference) en
1972. The book also focuses on how other international organizations like
the European Union and the OECD institutionally and normatively trans-
formed themselves to address environmental concerns during that era.
Several chapters in the book reference each other to give this collection a
sense of cohesion. It is also refreshing to note that the book eschews focusing on
the formal structure of the environmental IOs, instead focusing on different as-
pects of global environmental governance such as individual treaties, environ-
mental organizations, and economic intergovernmental organizations.
In all of these arenas, a few common themes of discussion emerge: the role
of scientific information and elite networks, the shaping of international envi-
ronmental discourse, the role played by key individuals, and a constant tussle
between IOs and national political agenda.
The chapters by Meyer, Enora Javaudin, and Michael Manulak analyze the
temporal changes in concepts of “environment” and “objective scientist” during
the second half of the twentieth century. Until the 1950s, the predominant un-
derstanding of “environment” was limited to nature conservation. The scope of
“environment” expanded with the release of seminal works such as Silent Spring
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142 (cid:129) Reseñas de libros
(carson 1962), Population Bomb (Ehrlich 1968), and Limits to Growth (Meadows
et al. 1972) that highlighted unprecedented levels of human impact on the
“natural” environment. This new generation of scientists such as Rachel Carson
and Paul Ehrlich transformed the role of scientific experts from apolitical “techno-
cratic internationalists” (pag. 319) to significant political actors in international
environmentalism, and the IOs offered them extensive fora for political engage-
mento. The Declaration on the Human Environment released after the Stockholm
Conference solidified the role of scientific knowledge in identifying and addressing
environmental problems and created a space for the “environment expert” (pag. 91).
In their chapters, Manulak, Iris Borowy, and Stephen Macekura explore the
role of IOs like the OECD and UNEP in bridging the ideas of environment and
economic growth. Around the time of the Stockholm Conference, enterrar-
ventionist economists like Gamani Corea and Mahbub ul Haq argued against
any constraints on the economic development of the Global South. Their claim
that poor countries’ environmental problems were developmental problems
informed the position of the Global South and led to a serious rift between
North and South at the Conference. In order to reconcile the idea of environ-
mental protection and economic growth, the OECD’s environmental committee
en 1979 and later the Brudtland Commision (1987) laid out the notion of “sus-
tainable development” make one word: wherein environmental protection and
economic development could complement each other. These early discussions
over differentiated treatment for the Global North and the Global South, y
co-benefits from environmental protection and economic growth, are embedded
in the current international environmental discourse and have actively influenced
negotiations on international environmental agreements.
Several chapters in the book underline the role of individuals within IOs
in globalizing environmental concerns. Maurice Strong, who led the Stockholm
Conference and later became the first executive director of UNEP, played a crit-
ical role in encouraging scientific and political communities’ interface with IOs.
Similarmente, Barbara Ward, an economist by training, was instrumental in shaping
the discourse around sustainable development and, as Luigi Piccioni’s chapter
outlines, was responsible for bringing the Catholic Church to the table at the
UN to discuss environmental and developmental issues.
In their introductory chapter, Kaiser and Meyer explain that the findings of
the book in general “demonstrate the limited usefulness of notions of inter-
national politics as a ‘two-level game’ of interaction”(pag. 9) between domestic
politics and international negotiations. En cambio, they claim that global environ-
mental politics in different issue areas have been driven by normative contesta-
tions within the epistemic community. While this may have been true in the
1960s and ‘70s, it is a tough case to make in present times, when domestic pop-
ulist movements in many countries like the United States, the United Kingdom,
Brasil, and Poland have gained support by destabilizing international institu-
ciones. The book’s chapters on the Antarctic Treaty and the IPCC outline the
eventual supremacy of narrow political concerns in IOs.
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Adriana Gama (cid:129) 143
The book weaves a positive narrative on the role of IOs in promoting the
international environmental agenda exclusively from a western perspective.
The editors recognize this bias and blame it on practical impediments such as
“segmented nature of research” and limited access to archival materials (pag. 326).
Sin embargo, given the available research on the Non-Aligned Movement (a sig-
nificant bloc in the ‘70s) and the western ideological hegemony of the IOs,
the absence of any substantial discussion of IOs’ role in advancing international
environmental politics with respect to the Global South is glaring.
En general, the book makes an important contribution to the literature on
transnational environmental history and global history. Además, it offers a
detailed account of informal processes and networks within international or-
ganizations, which should be valuable for other scholars and students in the
field IR.
Referencias
Brundtland, GRAMO. h., METRO. Khalid, S. Agnelli, and S. Al-Athel. 1987. Our Common Future.
Nueva York.
carson, Rachel. 1962. Silent Spring. Penguin Books.
Ehrlich, Paul R. 1968. Population Bomb. Sierra Club and Ballantine Books.
Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III.
1972. The Limits to Growth. A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predic-
ament of Mankind.
Ovodenko, Alexander. 2017. Regulating the Polluters: Markets and Strategies for Protecting
the Global Environment. Nueva York, Nueva York: prensa de la Universidad de Oxford.
Reviewed by Adriana Gama
El Colegio de México
In Regulating the Polluters, Alexander Ovodenko analyzes why and how local gov-
ernments have relied on international rules and institutions to mitigate envi-
ronmental problems. One of his main findings is that, in order to improve
the environment, regulators should pay special attention to oligopolistic mar-
kets. En otras palabras, regulating oligopolies results in better outcomes for the
environment than regulating competitive markets. Although this argument
may sound counterintuitive, Ovodenko provides a thorough empirical analysis
of environmental policies around the world supporting his hypothesis.
Because of their market power, oligopolies generally have a high influence
on political decisions. One may thus think that regulators would have problems
holding industries to environmental rules and would rather focus on regulating
competitive markets. Todavía, in various sectors, providing the right incentives to
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144 (cid:129) Reseñas de libros
oligopolies has helped governments achieve their goals. It is thus preferable to
focus on the regulation of oligopolistic markets rather than competitive ones.
The positive effects of regulating oligopolistic markets comes from the flexibility
that oligopolies have to adjust their behavior, including their production
procesos. Por ejemplo, they have more resources to invest in research and de-
velopment to adopt cleaner technologies. Por un lado, oligopolies gener-
ate large amounts of pollution, but on the other hand, their characteristics make
them more able to comply with integrated, standardized, and legally binding
agreements.
Regulating the Polluters contributes to the growing and ever more relevant
literature that evaluates different approaches to environmental regulation. Él
highlights the importance of studying the regulation of oligopolistic markets,
which has been left aside by the vast studies on environmental regulation of
competitive industries. Ovedenko provides moderate (in the case of the legally
binding agreements) to strong empirical evidence of the positive effects that
regulating oligopolies has had on improving the environment. Para tal fin, él
carefully analyzes institutional responses to pollution in oligopolistic industries,
and compares them to those in competitive industries. The oligopolies are classified
as oligopolistic discrete markets (producers with considerable capital resources that sell
to consumers with low price-sensitiveness and few substitutes) and oligopolistic mass
markets (a combination of oligopolistic and competitive markets; eso es, few firms
with abundant capital resources, and consumers with high price-sensitiveness and
more substitutes). Competitive markets are referred to as competitive mass markets. A
analyze oligopolistic discrete markets, he examines commercial shipping and
industrial chemicals and products. For oligopolistic mass markets, he looks at
civil aviation and agricultural pesticides. Finalmente, for the study of competitive
mass markets, he considers farming (alimento), energía, and gold mining.
Regulating the Polluters is an important contribution comparing the effects of
environmental regulation across different market structures. The empirical analy-
sis is deep and exhaustive, providing policy makers with an in-depth analysis full
of tools and arguments to design and implement effective environmental policies.
Although the book provides cases of successful regulation of oligopolies, its coun-
terpart for competitive industries is missing. A natural question to ask is whether
this evidence from particular industries is enough to obtain general conclusions.
It is important to analyze whether there are cases where competition has resulted
in smoother and better (from the environmental authority perspective) implementar-
mentation of regulations, and whether oligopolies have made this task harder.
Even though the empirical evidence provides moderate to strong support to the
book’s hypotheses, theoretical models (with mathematical foundations) that al-
so support them would be an important addition to the analysis.
También, the regulator should take into account harmful secondary effects that
may arise by regulating oligopolies. As suggested by many authors (see Heyes
2009 for a survey), environmental regulation may result in less competitive
markets. The reason is that entry becomes harder for potential competitors.
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Adriana Gama (cid:129) 145
Primero, environmental regulations naturally impose additional costs to entry, en
monetary and speed terms (por ejemplo, if the firms need to acquire a cleaner
tecnología, or pay/wait for a license or certification). Además, since large
firms have better resources to comply with regulation, it may be in their interest
to intentionally discourage entry (which Ovodenko discusses briefly). Environ-
mental policies may trigger predatory behaviors by the incumbents that increase
market concentration, with its corresponding negative effects on social welfare.
It is also important to keep in mind that stringent regulations may deter inno-
vation instead of incentivizing it (por ejemplo, see Perino and Requate 2012),
which would be self-defeating. The environmental authority should thus take
into account the potential consequences of policies.
En general, the book offers important guidelines for environmental authori-
corbatas. An essential lesson from it is that such authorities should carefully observe
the market that will be regulated. Regulating the Polluters raises important
questions that establish new research directions to complement its analysis
and provide a more comprehensive guide to governments.
Referencias
Heyes, Antonio. 2009. Is Environmental Regulation Bad for Competition? Una encuesta.
Journal of Regulatory Economics 36 (1): 1–28.
Perino, Grischa, and Till Requate. 2012. Does More Stringent Environmental Regulation
Induce or Reduce Technology Adoption? When the Rate of Technology Adoption
is Inverted U-Shaped. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 64 (3):
456–467.
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