| Since 1974, countries all over the world have adopted constitutional environmental rights. Yet, these states exhibit important differences in geography, history, and resources. How can social scientists explain the remarkable degree of similarity in the face of such considerable variation? It is this research question which motivates the present dissertation.;I seek to answer this question by drawing on work from political science, sociology, and legal studies. In particular, I examine international relations theory, world society theory, and constitutional design theory. I discuss how studying environmental rights can contribute to central debates within international relations regarding international norms and the state. Drawing from these theoretical perspectives, I propose a "world cultural framework of constitutional environmental rights." I argue that normative factors are more central to explaining the expansion of environmental rights than rationalist-materialist factors.;I conduct an empirical analysis of the expansion of constitutional environmental rights using mixed methods. First, I conduct survival analysis using a Cox regression model on UN-recognized countries over the time period 1983-2010 to test the explanatory value of six independent variables. I find that domestic politics and normative considerations are more relevant than rationalist-materialist factors in explaining the outcome observed.;Second, I use the results of the quantitative analysis to identify a pair of plausibility probes which fit a most similar systems design---Nepal and Sri Lanka. Then I engage in qualitative content analyses of interviews conducted in these countries. The results from these analyses suggest that the likelihood a country will adopt a constitutional environmental right is associated with its domestic political conditions and the historical period in which its constitution is written. I describe how the results offer new insights into major questions in international relations and theories discussed earlier, and demonstrate that the world cultural framework of constitutional environmental rights adequately explains the outcomes observed in Nepal and Sri Lanka.;Third, I show how the findings from the comparative study can be integrated into the statistical model to test for generalizability, highlight major findings of the study, and suggest areas for future research. |
