Publications
Books
Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance
Robert L. Hicks, Bradley C. Parks, J. Timmons Roberts and Michael J. Tierney
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Every year, billions of dollars of environmental aid flow from the rich governments of the North to the poor governments of the South. Why do donors provide this aid? What do they seek to achieve? How effective is the aid given? And does it always go to the places of greatest environmental need?
From the first Earth Summit in Stockholm in 1972 to the G8 Gleneagles meeting in 2005, the issue of the impact of aid on the global environment has been the subject of vigorous protest and debate. How much progress has there been in improving environmental protection and clean-up in the developing world? What explains the patterns of environmental aid spending and distribution - is it designed to address real problems, achieve geopolitical or commercial gains abroad, or buy political mileage at home? And what are the consequences for the estimated 4 million people that die each year from air pollution, unsafe drinking water, and lack of sanitation?
All of these questions and many more are addressed in this groundbreaking text, which is based on the authors' work compiling the most comprehensive dataset of foreign aid ever assembled. By evaluating the likely environment impact of over 400,000 development projects by more than 50 donors to over 170 recipient nations between 1970 and 2001, Greening Aid represents a unique, state of the art picture of what is happening in foreign assistance, and its impact on the environment. Greening Aid explains major trends and shifts over the last three decades, ranks donors according to their performance, and offers case studies which compare and contrast donors and types of environmental aid.
Features
- Looks at how aid impacts the environment, what motivates donors to give aid, and evaluates its effectiveness
- Draws on the world's largest and most complete database of foreign aid--over 400,000 individual aid projects spanning 30 years
- Provides both project level data and the systematic analysis needed to inform current policy debates
- Adopts a multidisciplinary approach drawing on economics, political science, and sociology
Reviews
"Greening Aid? reveals surprising patterns in how the greening of aid took place during the last two decades of the 20th century. It is a major work of scholarship, constituting an enormous step forward in our understanding of environmental aid."--Robert O. Keohane, Professor of International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
"Do no harm. That's the minimum we should expect of development assistance. But some aid has caused harm - to the environment if not also to development. Aid policies have changed as a result, but has the 'greening' of aid been successful? The evidence previously has been anecdotal. This careful study offers the most systematic treatment of this important subject yet available - a valuable contribution to the study of aid and its environmental consequences."--Scott Barrett, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
"The authors address whether foreign assistance has over time become more friendly to environmental concerns... To With billions spent on environmental aid each year, this text examines its effectiveness and whether it is actually going to the places with the greatest environmental need classified each project...into one of five categories according to how friendly or unfriendly it was to the environment. Their major finding is that environmental friendly aid projects did indeed grow significantly both in relative terms and in dollar amounts between 1980 and 1999... The authors explore several explanations for the difference in trends, with sometimes surprising conclusions."--Foreign Affairs
A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy
J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley C. Parks
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The global debate over who should take action to address climate change is extremely precarious, as diametrically opposed perceptions of climate justice threaten the prospects for any long-term agreement. Poor nations fear limits on their efforts to grow economically and meet the needs of their own people, while powerful industrial nations, including the United States, refuse to curtail their own excesses unless developing countries make similar sacrifices. Meanwhile, although industrialized countries are responsible for 60 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, developing countries suffer the "worst and first" effects of climate-related disasters, including droughts, floods, and storms, because of their geographical locations. In A Climate of Injustice, J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley Parks analyze the role that inequality between rich and poor nations plays in the negotiation of global climate agreements.
Roberts and Parks argue that global inequality dampens cooperative efforts by reinforcing the "structuralist" worldviews and causal beliefs of many poor nations, eroding conditions of generalized trust, and promoting particularistic notions of "fair" solutions. They develop new measures of climate-related inequality, analyzing fatality and homelessness rates from hydrometeorological disasters, patterns of "emissions inequality," and participation in international environmental regimes. Until we recognize that reaching a North-South global climate pact requires addressing larger issues of inequality and striking a global bargain on environment and development, Roberts and Parks argue, the current policy gridlock will remain unresolved.
Reviews
"[A Climate of Injustice] is a remarkable book. In applying a wide variety of disciplinary approaches -- empirical and theoretical, qualitative and quantitative -- the authors provide a thorough and truly global understanding of the structural inequalities and injustice that come with contemporary climate politics and disasters. A rich, sophisticated, and balanced study that moves beyond structural explanations and opens horizons for change." -- Arthur P. J. Mol, Professor of Environmental Policy, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
"Roberts and Parks have written an outstanding book that highlights the deep structures of inequality and mistrust that pervade every aspect of the climate regime. It will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the South is increasingly reluctant to join up with the post-Kyoto process." -- Clark A. Miller, Associate Professor of Science Policy and Political Science in the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University
"[A Climate of Injustice] is a significant contribution, both in addressing questions of justice in the climate change debate and in providing new perspectives on the prospects for successful negotiation." -- Dale Jamieson, Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy, New York University
"In their superb contribution to scholarly and political debates about the future of international efforts to cope with climate change, J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley C. Parks offer a carefully developed, richly documented, and convincingly supported account of the origins, dynamics, and implications of the current North-South impasse... The theoretical breadth, systematic development, and empirical richness of A Climate of Injustice makes this book required reading for scholars, students, and practitioners alike"-- Jörg Balsiger, Max Weber Fellow, the European University Institute
"Roberts and Parks' analysis is unique and innovative as it combines a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives. They apply a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches by integrating structuralist theorization, like world-systems theory, with more mainstream theories in International Relations that have typically been used to explain international cooperation. Roberts and Parks also employ classic quantitative techniques, such as OLS regression and path analysis, along with qualitative case-study investigation. This holistic and integrative approach makes A Climate of Injustice an excellent tool in a variety of settings, including graduate and undergraduate classes."-- Kelly Austin and Christopher Dick, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University
Articles
"Has Foreign Aid Been Greened?"
Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Jan/Feb 2009
J. Timmons Roberts, Bradley C. Parks, Michael J. Tierney, and Robert L. Hicks
Full Text at EnvironmentMagazine.org
"Since the first major international conference on environment and development in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, environmentalists, voters, and policymakers in the developed world have faced a vexing dilemma: with some of the richest stores of biodiversity, natural resources, and carbon located in developing countries, the greatest potential for damage to the global environment resides in places outside the sovereign control of the countries most able, financially speaking, to prevent it..." -- Read all
"Climate Change, Social Theory, and Justice."
Theory, Culture, Society, 27(2-3) 2009
Bradley C. Parks, J. Timmons Roberts
More information at Theory, Culture,Society
This article seeks to answer why North-South climate negotiations have gone on for decades without producing any substantial results. To address this question, we revisit and seek to integrate insights from several disparate theories, including structuralism (new and old), world systems theory, rational choice institutionalism, and social constructivism. We argue that the lack of convergence on climate grew almost inevitably from our starkly unequal world, which has created and perpetuated highly divergent ways of thinking (worldviews and causal beliefs) and promoted particularistic notions of fairness (principled beliefs). We attempt to integrate structural insights about global inequality with the micro-motives of rational choice institutionalism. The structuralist insight that 'unchecked inequality undermines cooperation' suggests climate negotiations must be broadened to include a range of seemingly unrelated development issues such as trade, investment, debt, and intellectual property rights agreements. We conclude by reviewing the work of some 'norm entrepreneurs' bringing justice issues into climate negotiations and explore how these insights might influence 'burden sharing' discussions in the post-Kyoto world, where development is constrained by climate change.
"Inequality and the Global Climate Regime: Breaking the North-South Impasse"
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 21(4) 2008
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts
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This article explores the hypothesis that global inequality may be a central impediment to interstate cooperation on climate change policy. Conventional wisdom suggests that outcomes in international environmental politics are primarily attributable to material self-interest, bargaining power, coercion, domestic environmental values, exogenous shocks and crises, the existence of salient policy solutions, the strength of political leadership and the influence of nonstate actors. Yet none of these approaches offers a completely satisfactory explanation for the long-standing north-south divide on climate change. Drawing on social inequality literature and international relations theory, we argue that inequality dampens cooperative efforts by reinforcing 'structuralist' worldviews and causal beliefs, polarizing policy preferences, promoting particularistic notions of fairness, generating divergent and unstable expectations about future behaviour, eroding conditions of mutual trust and creating incentives for zero-sum and negative-sumbehaviour. In effect, inequality undermines the establishment of mutually acceptable 'rules of the game' which could mitigate these obstacles.
"Fueling Injustice: Globalization, Ecologically Unequal Exchange, and Climate Change"
Globalizations 4(3) 2007
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts
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The globalization of economic production fundamentally reshapes how a 'fair' solution to the climate change problem must be forged. Emissions are increasing sharply in developing countries as wealthy nations 'offshore' the energy- and natural resource-intensive stages of production. We review a new and relatively under-utilized theory of 'ecologically unequal exchange' and apply it to the case of climate change. We describe four distinct principles that have been proposed to assign responsibility for carbon emissions, discuss their inadequacies, and briefly lay out some 'hybrid' proposals currently under consideration. We suggest combining hybrid proposals with environmental aid packages that help poorer nations transition from carbon-intensive pathways of development to more climate-friendly development trajectories, using remuneration from the so-called 'ecological debt'. In the context of deadlock over a completely inadequate Kyoto Protocol, we argue that fairness principles, climate science, and an understanding of globalization and development must be integrated.
"Globalization, Vulnerability to Climate Change and Perceived Injustice"
Society and Natural Resources 19(4) 2006
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts
As the earth's climate begins to shift into a hotter and less predictable period, there is a basic injustice in who will suffer worst and first. Nations facing rising oceans and drought are those least responsible for the problem, and they have the least resources to cope with them. To evaluate claims of environmental injustice, we examine three cases where the first signs of climate change are being felt worst and first: murderous flooding from Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, rising sea levels swamping entire Pacific Island atoll nations, and devastation from flooding among squatter settlements in Mozambique. In each case these nations are suffering not only because of bad geography or management. Rather, because of their colonial past and current positions in the world economy, they are brutally vulnerable to forces outside their control. We conclude by offering an explanation for generalized mistrust among Southern nations vis-à-vis Northern nations and the Kyoto treaty.
"Environment and Vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean: Our Shared Responsibility in a Globalized World"
Progressio, 2004
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts
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"Picture a rowboat with two passengers in a storm, attempting to reach a distant shore. One passenger holds a broken, short oar, the other a long, gilded one. Wind and waves shake the boat; leaks half-fill the hull even with constant bailing. Jealously guarding what is his with a pistol, the passenger holding the gilded oar will not assist with rowing or bailing. It is dark, so the direction to the shore is uncertain, and the passengers argue bitterly.
"With only slight exaggeration, this is the situation in much of Latin America today. Moving their societies to the utopian shores of 'development' and 'democracy' requires cooperation and a functioning social vessel. But savage inequality has created two groups of such unequal means that they move in separate worlds, and rarely in the same direction. Economic globalisation that first brought winds of growth now brings tidal waves which threaten to swamp the boat as prices for key export products often plummet and markets abroad evaporate. The water filling the hull is the accumulated weight of foreign debt, interference from overseas, endemic corruption, entrenched interests and inefficient bureaucracies, which slow the ship and hinder its manoeuvrings..."
Note: Reprinted in Spanish as "Pueblos y medio ambiente en peligro: Vulnerabilidad ambiental en América Latina y el Caribe"
Who Ratifies Environmental Treaties and Why? Institutionalism, Structuralism and Participation by 192 Nations in 22 Treaties"
Global Environmental Politics 4(3) 2004
Bradley C. Parks, J. Timmons Roberts and Alexis Vásquez.
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International environmental accords have become important mechanisms by which nations make promises to administer natural resources and manage the global environment. Previous studies, relying mainly on single cases or small-n data sets, have shed light on the proximate political causes of participation in these agreements. However, no study has yet systematically explained the deeper social determinants of why nations sign, ignore or resist environmental treaties. We offer a theoretically-sequenced model that exploits complementarities between rational choice institutionalism and world-systems theory. Key variables posited by realists and constructivists are also examined, using a new environmental treaty participation index based on ratifications of 22 major environmental agreements by 192 nations. Cross-sectional OLS regression and path analysis strongly supports the institutionalist claim that credibility -- the willingness and ability to honor one's international environmental commitments -- "matters." But these measures also lend considerable support to the world-systems hypothesis that state credibility is strongly influenced by a legacy of colonial incorporation into the world economy. Narrow export base -- our proxy for disadvantaged position in the world-economy -- directly and indirectly (through institutions and civil society strength) explains nearly six-tenths of national propensity to sign environmental treaties. A nation's natural capital, its ecological vulnerability, and international environmental NGO memberships had no explanatory power in the path analysis. Our results indicate that new theoretical, methodological and policy approaches are needed to address structural barriers to international cooperation.
Book Chapters
"Has Foreign Aid Been Greened?"
Bradley C. Parks, J. Timmons Roberts, Roberts Hicks, and Michael Tierney (2010)
Printed in Green Planet Blues: Four Decades of Global Environmental Politics (4th Edition), edited by Ken Conca and Geoff Dabelko. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Buy from Amazon.com | Buy from Westview Press
"Structural Obstacles to an Effective Post-2012 Global Climate Agreement"
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts (2010)
Printed in International Handbook of Environmental Sociology (2nd Edition), edited by Michael Redclift and Graham Woodgate. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Buy from Amazon.com | Buy from Edward Elgar Publishing
"A 'Shared Vision' of Global Climate Policy: Why Inequality Should Worry Us"
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts (2010)
Printed in Climate Change, Ethics and Human Security, edited by Karen O.Brien, Asuncion Lera St. Clair, and Berit Kristoffersen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Buy from Amazon.com | Buy from Cambridge Univ. Press
"Grandfathering, Carbon Intensity, Historical Responsibility, or Contract/Converge?"
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts (2008)
Printed in A Globally Integrated Climate Policy for Canada, edited by Steven Bernstein, Jutta Brunée, David G. Duff, and Andrew Green. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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"Fueling Injustice: Globalization, Ecologically Unequal Exchange, and Climate Change."
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts (2007)
Printed in The Globalization of Environmental Crisis, edited by Jan Oosthoek and Barry K. Gills. London: Routledge.
Buy from Amazon.com | Buy from Routledge
"Environmental and Ecological Justice."
Bradley C. Parks and J. Timmons Roberts (2005)
Printed in Palgrave Advances in International Environmental Politics, edited by Michele Merrill Betsill, Kathryn Hochstetler, and Dimitris Stevis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Buy from Amazon.com | Buy from Macmillan
Articles under Review
"When Do Environmentally-Focused Aid Projects Achieve their Objectives? Evidence from World Bank Post-Project Evaluations"
Under review at Global Environmental Politics
Bradley C. Parks and Mark Buntaine
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Scholars and practitioners alike have paid a great deal of attention to the factors that lead to successful outcomes in environmentally-focused aid projects. Previous attempts to explain the success of these projects have identified a number of potentially important factors, including host country commitment, capacity and institutional quality, the severity of environmental pressures, contracting dynamics with donors, project characteristics, and civic participation in the environment sector. While theoretical development regarding environmental aid effectiveness is well-advanced, previous studies have not leveraged the large number of standardized post-project evaluations that have been produced by development banks. We compile World Bank evaluations and use the resulting dataset to test several prominent hypotheses about the factors that promote successful environmental aid outcomes. This study represents one of the first attempts to subject theories of environmental aid effectiveness to a general empirical test, with results that should be instructive to donor organizations that design and implement environmental aid projects. We find that the two most important factors predicting the successful implementation of environmental projects are good governance in the borrowing country and less focus on achieving global targets.
"More Dollars than Sense: Refining Our Knowledge of Development Finance Using AidData"
Under review at World Development
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Works in Progress
"Understanding Vulnerability to Disasters: A Cross-National Analysis of 4,000 Climate-Related Disasters." With J. Timmons Roberts.
"Assessing the Effectiveness of Reform Promotion Tools in an Increasingly Complex Global Development Finance Architecture."
"Using Social Network Analysis to Explain Cross-Country Reform Patterns"
"In-And-Outers and Moonlighters: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of the Impact of Policymaking Exposure on IR Scholarship" With Alena Stern.
-- More info -- Download PDF version
"Network Brokerage: A Theory of Exceptional Agency to Explain Reform Outcomes in Developing Countries"
