Domestic Structure And System Impact: International Climate Regime In The United States (1990-2010)

The aggravating global climate crisis facilitates the emergence of international negotiations over climate governance. Cutting the Green House Gas emissions will definitely involve many countries'interest, such as the historical and intergenerational equality, the protection of development rights, the development of new energy and environment-friendly technology, and the transfer of funds. The above-mentioned concerns make the climate change issue——originally scientific problem and later political dispute——fall into a process of politicization. This study takes a dialectical approach to treat the phenomenon of politicization in the field of global public issues. As a typical global public issue, the politicization of climate change issue has both its positive and negative effects, and this cannot be completely negated.As the two biggest Green House Gas emitters in the world, China and the United States play critical roles in the global climate governance. Based on current studies, this dissertation divides countries'engagement with international institutions into two circumstances, namely active engagement and passive engagement. The former reflects active relations between the participants and international institutions. However, the latter reflects a kind of negative relations. By respectively studying the engagement of China and the United States with the international climate institutions and evaluating the effects of international climate institutions in the two countries' domestic circle, this dissertation finds that China takes an active engagement and the international climate institutions have made a positive influence and produced the internalization effects domestically. However, the United States takes a passive engagement with the international climate institutions. The international climate institutions do make an impact on the United States, but its response to the international climate institutions is generally negative. In other words, the international climate institutions do not produce apparent internalization effects in the United States.China and the United States are facing the similar climate change challenge and the pressure of reducing Green House Gas emissions. There is no doubt that the two countries'climate change policies are based on their own national interest. Besides that, the domestic structure, as an intervening variable, also plays a critical role in the process of affecting the domestic politics mad by international climate institutions. This study generally makes the domestic structure into two types, namely state-dominated and society-dominated. Typically, China maintains a state-dominated structure and the United States holds a society-dominated one. In the state-dominated structure of China, the power of state is relatively concentrated. Once the state leaders accept some international institution, it would be easier for China to take top-down implementations domestically. In the society-dominated structure of the United States, however, the effective policies always need power compromise or struggles for interest among different institutions and agencies. It is a kind of complex bargaining with great difficulty. This will undoubtedly lower the possibility for international institutions entering into the domestic circle, or let the former's effect discount. This will partly explain why the international climate institutions have made active influences and internalization effects in China, but failed in the United States. It should be stressed in particular that the types of domestic structure mentioned in this study have no commendatory or derogatory meaning. No one could make a conclusion that the state-dominated structure has advantages over society-dominated structure through this study. Finally, this study shortly discusses the policy implications for China and the issues to be further explored.