Institutions with environmental consequences: The politics of agrochemical policy-making

The question that motivates this research addresses a fundamental obstacle to pollution abatement; namely, how do governments impose concentrated costs on powerful polluters in order to protect the environment for future generations? The political problems are immediately evident. First, pollution abatement often requires the cessation or modification of some profit making economic activity. Second, the benefits derived from policies designed to protect the environment are usually distant and often uncertain, exacerbating the difficulty of imposing immediate and concentrated costs. Yet governments do enact environmental policies that impose concentrated costs on powerful groups—albeit to varying degrees.; The theory developed in this work is that states are differentially able to enact such policies in part due to differentials in power relationships between interest groups and policy-makers that emanate from institutional design. Interestingly, those decision rules that are argued to best represent the majority by fostering electoral accountability, i.e., single member district electoral systems and single party governments, are those that may be least able to protect majority interests under conditions of interest group opposition. While voters may be able to hold politicians accountable at the polls, the collective action advantages of small economic groups allow them to hold politicians accountable for policy details, making accountability a double-edged sword. Thus, institutions that empower more than one political party in government may best serve the interests of the general public because diffusing responsibility across groups insulates politicians from interest group retribution.; To test the theory I conduct a systematic examination of agrochemical policy making. Agrochemical policy is an excellent vehicle with which to test the theory because the chemicals used in agricultural are recognized pollutants worldwide, and the polluters are some of the most powerful in domestic politics. Moreover, the benefits derived are literally invisible, intensely debated, and often reaped only decades in the future. The statistical evidence from twenty industrialized countries supports my hypothesis that institutions have a significant impact on policy choice. Five case studies illustrate the dynamics of the theory on the ground, and demonstrate that institutional design does in fact have consequences for the environment.