| This dissertation argues that certain features of a country's system of environmental regulation make it more inclined to accept environmental risk by engaging in the hazardous waste trade. The waste trade is commonly associated with the illegal dumping of wastes from the wealthy to the poorer nations of the world; what is less well known is that the majority of wastes--eighty per cent--are actually traded among the OECD nations, and that these transactions are legal, according to both domestic laws and international conventions. These countries, however, differ significantly in their propensities to engage in the waste trade. While some are net importers of wastes, others are net exporters, and yet others occupy intermediate places on this continuum. I examine in depth how domestic institutional structures shape the behavior of the main actors participating in the hazardous waste trade: government actors (policy makers), societal actors, and waste disposal firms, especially those engaged in the trade. The two main cases chosen are Great Britain and Germany; secondary cases examined are France, Australia and Japan. I test hypotheses based on the structure of environmental regulation--or, the allocation of regulatory responsibilities among different agencies, and on regulatory style, divided into access to the policy process and the mode of policy application against two alternative explanations for waste importation propensities: an economic nationalist, or state centric explanation, and a comparative advantage explanation, finding in favor of the institutionalist explanation. The arguments presented in the dissertation speak to the fields of international and comparative environmental politics, and to the literature on the effects of globalization of economic activity, and regulatory convergence, or harmonization, suggesting that the key differences between countries lie in procedural issues, such as regulatory style and structure, rather than simply the goals and substantive content of regulations. |
