International Affairs (Balsillie School of)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/9886

This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Balsillie School of International Affairs.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

Waterloo faculty, students, and staff can contact us or visit the UWSpace guide to learn more about depositing their research.

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 25

Planet Finance: The Governance of Climate Change Risks in Financial Markets
(University of Waterloo, 2011-08-29T14:37:54Z) Thistlethwaite, Jason
This thesis asked two research questions: 1) how are the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and ClimateWise designed to achieve their objectives and 2) what explains the emergence of these unique initiatives? In answer to the first question, the thesis argues that the CDSB and ClimateWise adopt an “unconventional” approach to environmental co-regulation that embraces what I call “cognitive governance” within accounting (CDSB) and insurance (ClimateWise) markets. Many scholars describe environmental co-regulation as a voluntary agreement between transnational corporations (TNCs) and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to enforce best practice standards that improve corporate environmental performance without the use of state authority. Cognitive governance employs a more unconventional approach to co-regulation by trying to embed financial knowledge that links a firm’s environmental performance to financial risks throughout the global economy vis-à-vis an expansion of state authority. More specifically, the CDSB and ClimateWise use best practice standards to leverage accounting and insurance knowledge in generating a technical and political consensus that supports expanding public regulation to govern financial risks related to climate change. In answer the second question, the thesis argues that this unconventional co-regulatory strategy adopted by the CDSB and ClimateWise emerged in response to three factors. First, financial firms (in addition to corporate emitters in the case of the CDSB) had material interests in using public regulation to govern climate change risks. Second, these actors realized that collaboration was needed to generate a technical and political consensus among constituencies willing to support public regulation governing climate change risks. Third, ENGOs existed that had interests in using their technical expertise and political capacity to help generate this needed consensus through co-regulation. The thesis makes three contributions to the advancement of scholarly knowledge in the fields of international political economy (IPE) and global environmental politics (GEP). First, IPE and GEP scholars have have largely overlooked the emergence of environmental co-regulation in financial markets, and in particular, have yet to analyze the CDSB and ClimateWise. This study addresses this gap by revealing an effort to mobilize the accounting and insurance industry in strengthening global climate governance. Second, scholars have also tended to view co-regulation through a “post-Westphalian” lens that sees co-regulation as designed to pre-empt or generate an alternative to public regulation. The CDSB and ClimateWise’s strategy, and the factors that explain the creation of these initiatives, challenge this perspective. Third, analysis of this strategy also contributes to emerging scholarship on the influence of “cognition” in shaping market actors’ behavior in conditions of uncertainty.
Networked governance and summit diplomacy: shaping the maternal, newborn and child health agenda
(University of Waterloo, 2013-01-08T18:41:28Z) Abbott, Clint L.
Diplomatic summits serve as critical opportunities for national leaders to interact and mobilize the political will needed to address the world’s greatest challenges. Yet, summits have a checkered past with both successes and failures. Consequently, summit diplomacy has been equated with highly publicized photo opportunities for heads of government and grandiose communiqués with vague commitments that are never fully realized. Due to concerns about their effectiveness, legitimacy, and representation, summits are in a period of transition. These trends and challenges are especially evident in the G8, and scholars have recognized that the G8 summit has evolved to include more actors than the past. Although acknowledged as a potential site of networked governance, empirical evidence of such activity is limited. Research has yet to identify the actors involved, the structures of the relationships, and the impact of networked approaches on the preparatory process. This research specifically explores the question of how a global level network affects the priorities adopted by the G8. Using the 2010 G8 Summit as a case to examine the increased prevalence of networked activity, this study focuses on the Summit’s signature initiative: maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH). MNCH is a longstanding global problem and despite efforts such as the Millennium Development Goals, poor health outcomes persist in regions throughout the world. But to understand the selection and shaping of MNCH as the signature initiative of the 2010 G8 Summit, a mixed method approach is used. Social network analysis provides a detailed description of the actors involved in networked governance in summit diplomacy for the G8, and the structure of their relationships with one another. Qualitative data analysis of 63 in depth interviews of network members illuminates the rich and varied perspectives of the participants, which yields insight about why and how actors engage each other in order to achieve individual and collective goals. The study demonstrated that networked governance contributed to the political prioritization and substantive policy content of summit agenda items, determined during the 2010 G8 Summit preparatory process. In the case of MNCH, while the network was found to include of a diverse range of state and non-state actors, a core group of bureaucratic, political, and NGO actors played a prominent role in the selection and shaping of the MNCH initiative. Yet, the role, values and contributions of actors within the network were contested by network members during the preparatory process, demonstrating that shared goals and norms were not a dominant feature of the network. Moreover, the networked governance process has not entirely escaped the confines of geographical boundaries, given the most central actors in the network met face-to-face on a regular basis and were located in close geographical proximity. Actors from regions where MNCH problems persist most severely remained marginalized in the networked approach. While financial capital is an essential ingredient for the MNCH programs and interventions proposed for the G8 initiative, social capital was a neglected factor that is critical for building the capacity to generate new ideas and solutions. Actors within the 2010 G8 preparatory network for MNCH adopted various strategies to build and mobilize social capital. Specifically, a group of Canadian-based NGOs and an international organization formed a coalition in order to strategically advance the MNCH issue on the summit agenda. Conversely, government actors did not invest in developing and mobilizing social capital. Ultimately, informal strategies proved more valuable for breaking down hierarchical barriers and exerting influence than formal processes designed by government. Networked governance was a key factor that contributed to the political prioritization and shaping of the MNCH signature initiative for the 2010 G8 Summit and increased the inclusiveness of the summit’s preparatory process. However, while important, networked governance was not sufficient to fully explain the final outcomes – other factors such as domestic and global political contexts and the characteristics of the MNCH issue influenced the process and outcomes. Moreover, G8 summit diplomacy moved beyond being solely a state-based process in the case of MNCH, but the presence of a network of interconnected actors did not equate to better problem-solving. Although scholars and practitioners agree that integrated horizontal and vertical approaches are required for addressing the complexity of MNCH challenges, the networked approach failed to enable a move beyond conventional solutions to address the systemic nature of MNCH challenges. The findings of the study have important implications for policy and governance processes, where widespread cooperation among a network of state and non-state actors will be required for resolving intractable global problems.
Public Salience and International Financial Regulation. Explaining the International Regulation of OTC Derivatives, Rating Agencies, and Hedge Funds
(University of Waterloo, 2013-02-21T14:16:26Z) Pagliari, Stefano
What explains the shift towards greater direct public oversight of financial markets in international financial regulation that has characterized the response to the global financial crisis of 2007-2010? Over this period, the main international financial regulatory bodies have abandoned the market-based mechanisms that had informed their approach towards the regulation of different financial domains in the years before the crisis and significantly expanded the perimeter of state-based regulation. However, the extent and the timing of this shift cannot be regarded only as the by-product of the crisis, nor they can be explained by the existing interpretations of the political determinants of international regulatory policies. This study builds upon existing state-centric explanations of international regulatory policies, but it goes beyond these works by exploring how the preferences of the most influential countries in response to the crisis have been influenced by variations in the degree of public salience of different financial domains. More specifically, this study argues that the lasting increase in the public salience of financial regulatory policies in the US and different European countries since the last quarter of 2008 has created strong incentives for elected officials in these countries to challenge the market-based approach that had emerged in the decade and half before the crisis and to directly interfere in the international regulatory agenda. In order to explain this shift, this study will analyse the evolution in the international governance of three sets of markets and institutions that have occupied an important position in the international regulatory agenda in recent years: 1) OTC derivatives; 2) rating agencies; 3) hedge funds. Besides making an empirical contribution to the literature on the politics of international financial regulation, this study also contributes theoretically to this literature by deepening our understanding of the nexus between international regulatory coordination and domestic public opinion.
Mindmade Politics - The Role of Cognition in Global Climate Change Governance
(University of Waterloo, 2013-08-20T18:42:07Z) Milkoreit, Manjana
This dissertation explores the role of cognition—the elements, structures and processes of individual and collective thought—in finding effective, cooperative solutions to climate change. It makes three contributions—theoretical, empirical, and methodological—to international relations scholarship. First, it explores cognition as a significant variable in international political life, developing an analytical framework that not only links a cognitive framework of analysis to major IR theories but bridges current theoretical divides between rationalism and constructivism. Second, by identifying and visualizing current belief systems of participants in global climate negotiations, the thesis offers insights regarding cognitive obstacles to multilateral cooperation. The most important obstacle is a clash of substantively and emotionally different belief systems. Depending on the specific constellation of a person’s beliefs about collective identity, perceptions of climate-change threat, and associated emotions, some belief systems contain normative beliefs about justice (i.e., a dominant logic of appropriateness), while others do not. The latter belief systems reflect the national-interest logic of consequences. Focusing in particular on the “wicked” characteristics of climate change, the analysis further reveals a neglect of scientific knowledge (in particular knowledge of the possibility of climate tipping points), a serious under-valuation of the distant future, and perceptions of a number of constraints on agency, some of which cannot be resolved within the negotiations. The study also identifies six distinct belief systems among climate negotiators, which I label The International Community, A Minilateral Club, The Market, Individuals, The Developed World, and The Irresponsible West. The key element distinguishing these belief systems is actor type, which affects problem definitions, proposed solutions, political strategies, and more generally an actor’s role in global climate governance. Third, this dissertation expands the methodological toolbox available to IR scholars by demonstrating the value and synergistic power of cognitive-affective mapping and Q Method. These are powerful tools to reveal individual and collective belief systems respectively.
Rentier 2.0: Entrepreneurship Promotion and the (Re)Imagination of Political Economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
(University of Waterloo, 2013-09-03T15:37:31Z) Ennis, Crystal
This dissertation provides an examination of the recent phenomenon of entrepreneurship and innovation promotion in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Through the use of the structured, focused comparison method, this research examines two cases, Oman and Qatar, to provide a deep analysis of the policy and practice of entrepreneurship promotion in the region. Despite a claim of responding to regional challenges of economic diversification and the weak participation of nationals in the private sector, entrepreneurship as a key component of each country’s quest for a knowledge economy seems paradoxical in its ostensible inconsistency with the Gulf rentier state status quo. Path dependencies from oil-led development and the concomitant labour market bifurcation have perpetuated incentive structures which obstruct innovation and entrepreneurialism. Responding to this puzzle, this research answers two questions. The first is concerned with the character and motivation of these strategies in the Gulf, and what that reveals about the evolution of policy making practices. The second assesses the role of the millennial generation and regional transformation. Through interrogating the entrepreneurship policy experience in the case studies, this research extends beyond the often perfunctory assumptions of rentier state literature to investigate the unfolding of development policies in the current milieu. This research finds that entrepreneurship promotion risks only becoming a new way of recasting rentier tools: rentierism 2.0. The study argues that governance in the Gulf is best understood as a contestation between reforms and rentier patterns. Being cognizant of this tension provides a venue for understanding how some policies contravene classic rentier expectations while others appear hypocritical as the implementation of policy announcements become obstructed by structural contradictions. This dissertation makes an empirical contribution on a prominent policy shift in the Gulf that has been largely ignored in social sciences. As well, it provides a theoretical contribution by integrating literature on development and innovation which is generally disconnected from scholarly work on Gulf political economy to deepen understandings of development and transition in the region. Overall, this project provides a window into transition and transformation, demonstrating the way rentier patterns and a combination of novel pressures interact and affect the practices of development policy making and the Gulf ruling bargain.
Agency Through Adaptation: Explaining The Rockefeller and Gates Foundation’s Influence in the Governance of Global Health and Agricultural Development
(University of Waterloo, 2014-01-28) Stevenson, Michael
The central argument that I advance in this dissertation is that the influence of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in the governance of global health and agricultural development has been derived from their ability to advance knowledge structures crafted to accommodate the preferences of the dominant states operating within the contexts where they have sought to catalyze change. Consequently, this dissertation provides a new way of conceptualizing knowledge power broadly conceived as well as private governance as it relates to the provision of public goods. In the first half of the twentieth-century, RF funds drove scientific research that produced tangible solutions, such as vaccines and high-yielding seed varieties, to longstanding problems undermining the health and wealth of developing countries emerging from the clutches of colonialism. At the country-level, the Foundation provided advanced training to a generation of agricultural scientists and health practitioners, and RF expertise was also pivotal to the creation of specialized International Organizations (IOs) for health (e.g. the League of Nations Health Organization) and agriculture (e.g. the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) as well as many informal international networks of experts working to solve common problems. Finally in the neo-liberal era, RF effectively demonstrated how the public-private partnership paradigm could provide public goods in the face of externally imposed austerity constraining public sector capacity and the failure of the free-market to meet the needs of populations with limited purchasing power. Since its inception, the BMGF has demonstrated a similar commitment to underwriting innovation through science oriented towards reducing global health disparities and increasing agricultural productivity in poor countries, and has greatly expanded the application of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) approach in both health and agriculture. Unlike its intellectual forebear, BMGF has been far more focused on end-points and silver bullets than investing directly in the training of human resources. Moreover whereas RF has for most of its history decentralized its staff, those of BMGF have been concentrated mainly at its headquarters in Seattle. With no operational programs of its own, BMGF has instead relied heavily on external consultants to inform its programs and remains dependent on intermediary organizations to implement its grants. Despite these and other differences, both RF and BMGF have exhibited a common capacity to catalyse institutional innovation that has benefited historically marginalized populations in the absence of structural changes to the dominant global power structure. A preference for compromise over contestation, coupled with a capacity for enabling innovation in science and governance, has resulted in broad acceptance for RF and BMGF knowledge structures within both state and international policy arenas. This acceptance has translated into both Foundations having direct influence over (i) how major challenges related to disease and agriculture facing the global south are understood (i.e. the determinants and viable solutions); (ii) what types of knowledge matters for solving said problems (i.e. who leads); and (iii) how collective action focused on addressing these problems is structured (i.e. the institutional frameworks).
Scripting Resistance: Governance through Theatre of the Oppressed
(University of Waterloo, 2016-01-21) Malloy, Adam
Theatre of the oppressed (TO) emerged out of a rights-repressive context to challenge the way cultural institutions are created and reproduced, and to enact alternative social and political relationships. More than a form of art, it is an interactive medium of communication, used by communities to engage in critical analysis of social, political, economic and ecological relationships. Rooted in the foundational principles of Paulo Freire’s (2005 [1970]) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, its purpose is to “humanize” relationships by identifying and deconstructing the many and complex ways in which some people are subordinated to others. Its theatrical mechanisms (improvised role play, for example) turn contextual analysis into praxis, recreating oppressive scenarios, and enacting alternative outcomes. As such it becomes a “rehearsal for reality,” generating the critical knowledge needed for oppressed people to confront their subordination, backed by the solidarity of their community. This research is an examination of the ways in which TO practitioners and communities envision and enact alternative social relationships, thereby embodying the emancipatory potential of human rights theory. I caution that not all theatre of the oppressed is equally emancipatory, but where it meets its liberatory potential, participants manifest an empowering embodiment of cultural resistance in four ways: 1. Theatre of the oppressed practitioners engage with communities in processes of intentional praxis, equipping participants with the skills for critical social analysis. 2. Practitioners are developing a provocative meshwork of solidarity to collectively resist the subordinating effects of disparate cultural power. 3. Theatre of the oppressed communities construct an emancipatory discourse which resonates among socially diverse and politically disparate groups around the world. I propose that theirs is a manifestation of counterhegemonic globalization. 4. Theatre of the oppressed participants reorient their ontologies, and decolonize their epistemologies. By negotiating the terms of co-existence in innovative ways, they bridge the gap between human rights theory and practice. Participants in theatre of the oppressed activities collectively challenge and redefine the norms which dominate cultural and political institutions. As such, their work embodies a promising demonstration of how those who are oppressed can change the way they understand and enact their political actions.
Storage Matters: Managing Grain, Securing Finance, and Building Markets
(University of Waterloo, 2016-06-15) Martin, Sarah
This dissertation analyzes the nexus of agriculture and finance, specifically the mediating role of grain storage. How grain markets are organized and governed is foundational to food security. Hundreds of millions of metric tonnes of grain are traded and moved around the world, and hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in grain commodities via global commodity exchanges. During the late 20th century, agricultural commodity exchanges (ACEs) usurped other marketing models such as state marketing boards, and now play an increasingly influential role in global agricultural commodities. The development of ACEs and changes in grain storage over the twentieth century had implications for how financial actors could or could not access grain as a financial asset. To understand grain storage in relation to finance, I examine the governance of storage by developing a political history of storage through the three processes of stabilization – ideational, regulatory and physical. The thesis is guided by a question: How does the examination of twentieth century US grain storage stabilization – the ideas, regulations and physical infrastructures – help us to understand the financialization of agriculture? To answer this question, I draw from international political economy (IPE) scholars and actor-network theory (ANT) to show how the stabilization of grain requires an assemblage of regulations, technologies and economic ideas that make up the politics of grain storage, and how a close examination of grain-storage governance helps to explain the financialization of agricultural commodities. Financialization of agricultural commodities is the work of assembling and turning a bushel of corn, or any other agricultural good – primarily grain – into a financial asset stream. This definition highlights the role that grain storage plays in commodity speculation, and encompasses the mundane practices of collecting and managing amassed grain in containers. This dissertation shows how ideas, regulations, and industrial projects to stabilize and store grain for collateral contribute to the emergence of ACEs as a model of global grain marketing. By looking beyond corner offices, commodity exchanges and other institutions, the theoretical framework brings non-human storage actors into view by drawing attention to the assemblages of grain bins, fumigants, dryers, documents and regulations that attempt to stabilize unruly grains, and to leverage stored grain for credit and asset streams. The research shows a model of agricultural finance that is reliant on grain-storage governance, a constellation of mid-century economic ideas, agro-chemical technologies, and state regulation, and how they are applied to twenty-first century market “problems” in new frontier sites. The research has applications to contemporary global financial inclusion projects that aim to build new agricultural markets and connect small producers to global markets.
Just and Unjust Sanctions: The Case Study of Iran
(University of Waterloo, 2016-09-28) Hormozi, Shani
This dissertation aims to accomplish two major goals: 1. To provide a theoretical framework for studying and evaluating justice in sanctions by modifying and expanding the Just War Tradition (JWT); 2. To apply this theoretical framework, Just Sanctions theory (JST), in order to study justice in sanctions on Iran. Accordingly, first I introduce a new theoretical framework: Just Sanctions Theory (JST), and then I use the theory to explore the degree to which the authorization and implementation of sanctions against Iran have been just. In this analysis, it is important to distinguish, compare and contrast the sanctions authorized by the United Nations (UN) from those authorized by the US and the EU. I carry out this analysis realizing fully that the contexts of UN and non-UN sanctions on Iran are deeply intertwined. The findings of this research substantiate my hypothesis that the authorization of non-UN sanctions against Iran has not been just and that non-UN sanctions have not been implemented justly. In contrast, I argue that both the authorization and implementation of UN sanctions on Iran were less unjust. At the same time, however, I show that the impacts of sanctions against Iran from all three sources, in general, have been overarching and indiscriminate. Furthermore, I examine the degree to which the rapid globalization of transnational economic connections facilitates to this day the deep and destructive living conditions of the citizens of Iran. Such conditions have emerged as a consequence of the sweeping and crunching impositions of sanctions. Lastly, given the recent developments in Iran’s nuclear case and the partial sanctions relief Iran has received, I briefly analyze “Just Post Sanctions” in the case of Iran. In carrying out the necessary research, I have conducted both field research (in Iran) and library research (primary and secondary sources); in addition, I have devoted a portion of my research to the content analysis of statements by both sides (sanctioner(s) and target) as well as content analysis of sanctions-related documents.
Experiments in governance and citizenship in Kenya’s resource frontier
(University of Waterloo, 2016-11-29) Enns, Charis
Over the past four years, natural resource exploration and development have rapidly expanded across northern Kenya and, as a result, the region is in the midst of a frontier-making project that may have seemed unimaginable a few years ago. In this dissertation, I use the concept of frontier as an analytical framework to examine processes that are transforming society, the economy, and landscape in northern Kenya. This dissertation contributes to scholarship on resource frontiers by analysing the specific governmental technologies used by both powerful and less powerful actors to produce, negotiate and contest the rules that govern landscapes and people in frontiers. In Article #1, I examine the use of novel technologies of governance in frontier spaces. I show how transnational corporations use voluntary standards — designed to regulate their social and environmental conduct — to legitimize and consolidate control over land and resources. In constructing my argument, I engage with two examples from Kenya’s northern resource frontier. I trace the specific technologies used by two corporations to secure access to land for the purpose of resource development, focusing specifically on their use of voluntary standards. I frame my analysis using Hall et al.’s (2011) ‘powers of exclusion,’ arguing that voluntary standards serve as one legitimising discourse that corporations can deploy to justify excluding other land users. In Article #2, I shift my focus to how frontiers are governed ‘from below’. This article focuses on the spectrum of different, sometimes competing, reactions to mega-infrastructure development in northern Kenya among rural land users. The central aim of this article is to examine how rural groups draw upon different forms of expertise — ranging from ecological science to international legal frameworks — to frame and legitimize their reactions to frontier-making projects. The analysis in this article contributes to wider debates about rural agency in frontier spaces, by demonstrating how rural land users can strategically deploy different forms of expertise to negotiate the rules that govern access to land and resources. In Article #3, my co-author and I analyse changing social and political relationships in northern Kenya in light of oil exploration and development. This article demonstrates how some northern Kenyans are seeking protection of their rights from oil companies, in light of the Kenyan government’s hands-off approach to governing northwestern Kenya. We argue that new expectations around corporate social responsibility are drawing oil companies and rural communities into an uneasy citizen-state-like relationship, altering the experiences and practices of citizenship in the region. This article contributes to discussions about new political spaces and new forms of political subjectivity in frontier spaces. Combined, these articles use northern Kenya as a case study to illustrate how the rules that govern access to land in resource frontiers are shaped through experiments in governance and innovative acts of citizenship. I frame my conclusions using recent literature on post-frontiers.
Seats of corporate convenience and international investment law
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-19) Patil Woolhouse, Sarita
Seats of corporate convenience (SCCs) include tax havens, offshore finance centres and other locations frequently used by transnational corporations to channel their investments around the world. They form some of the important structural elements of the global economy. This thesis examines the role of SCCs in the evolution and growth of investor-state arbitration (ISA). By analysing 463 ISA cases through the lens of SCCs, it highlights how bilateral investment treaties (BITs) came to be used in the context of investments that were not bilateral, being routed via one or more SCCs. The Research Question in this thesis was: If the provision of Investor-State Arbitration (ISA) in Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) was intended to promote flows of investments between the signatories to such treaties, how did it come to apply to indirect investments channelled through one or more seats of corporate convenience (SCCs)? There are two aspects to this question, namely: (a) What crucial changes took place in the global economy after the 1950s to enable ISA to be used in the context of indirect investments? (b) What was the input of key actors such as states (particularly, the US and the developing countries), transnational corporations (TNCs), international organisations (IOs), and professionals (mainly, lawyers) in this process? ISA was first proposed in the context of a treaty and an investor-state agreement. The idea was then promoted in the form of a multilateral convention by Shell and a few individuals led by Herman Abs, a banker, and a British attorney general, Lord Shawcross. It did not culminate into a treaty despite the support of the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other international organisations. Germany and Switzerland then used the draft to enter into BITs, not all of which embraced investor-state arbitration. Around the 1950s and the 1960s, foreign investment in a host state tended to be made by a multinational with a clearly defined home state. The usual mode was the setting up of a subsidiary or a branch office. Foreign direct investment (FDI) was associated with an investor’s control and a 10-25% ownership over the investment vehicle. FDI was distinguishable from portfolio investments and debts. It tended to be in the sectors of extraction, production, or manufacturing. The developing countries tended to borrow money for their development objectives. States’ right to regulate investments in their territories was generally accepted albeit that the compensation payable tended to be disputed. Indeed, the OECD countries themselves used this right when necessary. BITs surged in numbers in the 1990s. The oft-cited justification for burgeoning numbers of BITs was that they would help the developing countries to attract FDI, a source of non-debt financing. However, in a globalised and highly financialised economy, the concept of FDI itself transformed to drop its association with control or a minimum ownership. In the context of ISA, it also ceased to be distinguished from loans, portfolio investments, and indeed, from a need to bring in new capital to a host state. The investors’ character was no longer that of a multinational with a clearly defined home state. The major investors were TNCs who can claim allegiance with a home state, if they need to, but whose businesses were increasingly mobile and financialised. BITs clearly contained the expectation that their signatory states would promote and protect investments from one state into the other, for their mutual benefit. Investments, however, tend to be made via SCCs thus rendering the bilateral focus on their promotion inapposite. Each investment can potentially have several investors and home states, even if they may be under the control of one ultimate investor. Expensive jurisdiction battles waged between the investors and states are indicative of the difficulty of applying BITs to the conditions they were not designed for. The mismatch between the design and function of BITs was not aleatory, but was brought about by landmark ISA awards, and it was facilitated by the actions of key actors (both state and non-state), and by the radical changes in the global economy. FDI statistics are, therefore, difficult to correlate to home or host states, and their BITs. The first twenty years of ISA appear to have been based on express agreements for such arbitrations between investors and home states. This would change to the consent to ISA being derived from BITs and investment laws, without the need for an express agreement between investors and states. Application of ISA to the radically transformed actors and situations has come about with the input of states (particularly, the US and the developing countries), TNCs, international organisations (IOs), and professionals (lawyers). There was no urgent demand in the 1980s-90s to protect investors against expropriation (the incidence of which had peaked in the mid-1970s, and declined). There was no reasonable justification for states to have privatised and outsourced their disputes in BITs, particularly commercial disputes. Yet, developing countries signed BITs, perhaps reluctantly due to their debt-vulnerability; the BITs did not clearly indicate how ISA would work, if indeed, the developing countries understood it at the time. The BITs that appear to have been against the developing countries’ interests were probably signed for the potential (not a promise) of increased investments. The US, an SCC, legitimised the use of other SCCs and offshore entities. It promoted and encouraged indirect investments. The US legal framework endorses the use, by the US investors, of BITs negotiated by other states. The US used both its aid programme and its influence in the IMF and the World Bank to promote various measures of deregulation, privatisation, and liberalisation of the developing countries. Various IOs promoted BITs and other liberalisation measures, without a focus on their effect on the developing countries’ ability to service, much less reduce, their overall debt. Their emphasis was on the improvement of the investment climate; the World Bank set up a specialist advisory agency for foreign investment. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) actively encouraged conferences and workshops to bring countries together to draft BITs. IOs’ thus played an important part in encouraging the developing countries to enter into BITs as a tool to attract FDI. No IO appears to have drawn to the attention of the developing countries to the possibility of BITs, without further agreement, leading to potential ISA with any investor who could fulfil their expansive eligibility criteria. The US also created and nurtured the conditions that allowed oligopolistic TNCs to emerge, expand and thrive. This involves allowing TNCs a substantial say in the US policy-making and implementation. TNCs made a big contribution to the US drafting of its model BIT. Some of the corporations had the early movers’ advantage because they had also contributed to the early drafts at the time of the involvement of Abs and Shawcross; that involvement in international norm-making was spearheaded by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The ICC also led the making of the operative norms that make international arbitration a powerful, effective, and largely self-regulating tool. Various lawyers, accountancy and consultancy firms helped in the convergence of practices of TNCs whether it was in relation to stabilisation clauses, tax-arrangements via SCCs, transfer pricing, or the use of offshore special purpose entities. Arbitration lawyers were mainly responsible for expanding the scope of ISA to the point that an express consent to arbitration was no longer the cornerstone of this institution that was founded on party autonomy. States’ authority to regulate the investments in their territories was transferred to private arbitration tribunals in a continuum; the original idea for such a transfer was promoted by the close association of the banker Abs, the British lawyers Shawcross and Lauterpacht, and the Anglo-Dutch TNC, Shell; this was followed by a wider, looser coordination involving the ICC, the United Nations, International Bar Association, the OECD, and so on. The World Bank set up the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 1964, but it was slow off the mark. Another period of close association of a few arbitration lawyers gave it the boost it needed by (a) dispensing with express consent to arbitration, and (b) deriving a consent to arbitration from states’ BITs or investment legislations. A small pool of arbitrators ensured that the early ICSID cases promoted this interpretation. The scope of ISA expanded by treating BITs as, a) open offers of arbitration for all and sundry investments, and b) the last hoops through which the investment had to pass cursorily, even if it did so in a restructuring carried out after its initial entry in the host state. The extensive use of SCCs meant that the ISA-eligible investors were an expanding and moveable class in respect of any investment. With the feedback loops provided by the long-term BITs and persuasive awards, the path-dependent ISA got increasingly away from its original justification, while undermining the political bargains underpinning any bilateral commitment to promote investments from a home state to a host state. This analysis demonstrates the need to re-think the whole concept and the framework of investment protection. The framework needs to be aligned with (a) the realities of the 21st century investments routinely channelled through SCCs, and (b) the balance between states’ and private actors’ powers and interests. Arbitration awards have interpreted BITs to include within the scope of ISA, not just FDI, but also, portfolio investments and loans. This expansion coupled with the effective operative norms for the enforcement of ISA awards, effectively make BITs work as a regime for the enforcement of sovereign debt. BITs also provide an additional tool to enforce investors’ commercial contractual rights. BITs’ role in promoting developmental objectives (e.g. by reducing debt) have been all but abandoned along with any need for investors to negotiate express investor-state arbitration agreements with their host states. BITs were primarily drafted in the days of regulated economies, i.e. pre-1990. It is uncertain, however, whether, and to what extent, they remain relevant within a deregulated, neoliberal and laissez faire environment. The failure to ask this question indicates how significant an advantage the ISA option is to the interests of TNCs, the main beneficiaries of ISA. In carrying out the necessary research, I have conducted library research (primary and secondary sources) and devoted a large part of my research to the content analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties and 463 Investor-State Arbitration Awards.
Modeling climate change impacts at the science-policy boundary
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-20) Beck, Marisa
Climate change is a daunting policy challenge, where decision-makers must respond to a high-uncertainty and high-risk problem in an environment with a diverse multitude of stakeholders and unresolved ethical questions. For the past 25 years, integrated assessment models (IAMs) of global climate change have become standard tools for informing climate policy. IAMs are computer models that combine representations of biophysical systems and socioeconomic systems; they are used to simulate the causes, dynamics, and impacts of climate change. While IAMs are typically developed by scientists, their explicit purpose is to generate policy-relevant information. In this paper-based dissertation, I use a pragmatic model of science-policy relations as a theoretical and normative framework to examine the production and application of IAMs. My research contributes conceptually and empirically to the existing scholarship on the role of scientific models in policymaking. Together, the three articles included in this dissertation advance our understanding of the various inputs and outputs of policy-relevant scientific models, using climate change IAMs as a case study. In Article #1, my co-author and I investigate the sources and consequences of the numerous difficult modeling choices that IAM developers are required to make as a result of the pervasive uncertainty—both scientific and ethical—surrounding this topic. We argue that these choices are made in particular epistemic, ethical, and social contexts. Correspondingly, we illuminate the epistemic, ethical, and political consequences of these choices. Finally, adopting a co-productionist approach, we suggest that past modeling choices may constrain future model development by setting epistemic benchmarks, establishing ethical norms, and creating biases in academic publishing and policy application. We review and build on findings from various literatures to unpack the complex intersection of science, ethics, and politics that IAMs occupy. This leads us to suggest avenues for future empirical and theoretical research that may enable an integrated epistemic-ethical-political understanding of IAMs. Such transparency is necessary to judge the usefulness of IAMs in supporting climate change policymaking that is scientifically sound, ethically fair, and politically acceptable. Articles #2 and #3 extrapolate practical consequences from the conceptual groundwork established in Article #1. In Article #2, I apply a narrative research approach to examine how values and beliefs embedded in modeling choices may influence policy. I draw on research on the role of storytelling in scientific modeling, as well as a growing literature in policy studies investigating the influence of stories on policy outcomes. These two streams of research have yet to be connected in an investigation of how scientific models, in addition to delivering numerical results, also influence policy through the stories that are told with them. In this paper, I present a framework for analyzing the composition and content of policy-relevant stories produced with scientific models. I argue that an appreciation of these modeled stories is essential for a full understanding how models are used in policymaking—whether they are models of climate change, public health, or the economy. For illustration, I apply the framework to the analysis of stories produced with the DICE model, arguably the most prominent IAM of global climate change. In Article #3, I provide a normative, empirically grounded analysis of two of the major critiques of IAMs: that they are a) arbitrary and b) value-laden, and therefore unfit for policy use. Interviews and participant observations with IAM developers reveal that, indeed, many factors other than scientific theory and empirical observations influence modeling choices. The modelers also recognize that some of their choices in the modeling process do have a partially normative character. So, do these findings validate the above critiques and disqualify IAMs from policy use? Not necessarily. Current work in philosophy of science demonstrates the need for a more nuanced approach to this question, revealing that the ideal of objectively true and value-free models is unattainable—indeed, in some aspects, perhaps even undesirable. Instead, models should be evaluated with respect to their `fit for purpose.' Uncertain and value-laden assumptions should be addressed with transparency and conditionality. Adopting such a pragmatist perspective on IAMs, this paper concludes that IAMs are a useful, albeit imperfect, tool for assessing climate policy. Practical recommendations for how to enhance the usefulness of IAMs for policy are provided.
Stringent, open and hybrid state treatment of foreign investment: three eras of the oil industry in Venezuela and Ecuador
(University of Waterloo, 2017-04-28) Rosales Nieves, Antulio
This thesis explains the development of three distinctive forms of engagement between the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian states and foreign investment since the 1970s until 2014 in their oil sectors. State treatment of foreign investment ranged from stringent in the 1970s, to open in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, to a hybrid model in the 2000s. The broad changes that occurred in the three periods responded to factors conceptualized herein as the conditions of state-company bargaining, and the role of dominant and contested ideas. This study is accomplished through a detailed historical analysis and in-depth case studies. The dissertation incorporates and modifies insights from longstanding traditions in political science that deal with the politics of bargaining between states and transnational corporations: the Obsolescing Bargaining Models (OBM). It highlights the strategic view of states in their treatment of foreign investment through time, emphasizing states’ agency, by combining insights from the politics of bargaining, while also integrating ideational motivations, based on constructivist scholarship, in the shifts of state treatment of foreign investment historically. This perspective allows a shift in gaze from the apparent novelty of new left governments to comprehending longer-term linkages, ruptures and continuities.
Constructing China’s National Food Security: Power, Grain Seed Markets, and the Global Political Economy
(University of Waterloo, 2019-07-19) Gaudreau, Matthew
What is China’s place in the global food system? This thesis provides an analytical lens to explain the factors behind the structure of China’s national seed industry and recent global agribusiness expansion. Scholars of Global Political Economy and critical food studies have begun to assess the (re)emergence of actors from China in global markets replete with powerful agribusiness from the global North. However, these scholars have thus far paid less attention to the domestic, normative origins and dynamics that explain China’s place in the global food system. For example, though the global grain seed industry is highly concentrated, China’s domestic grain seed market does not share the same characteristics. To explain this discrepancy and shed light on the place of China in the global food system, I develop the concept of securitized foodways. Securitized foodways is built on a power framework that incorporates both positive and negative forms of power. Three dimensions of power (ideational, material, and autonomy) correspond to three factors that have shaped China’s grain seed industry, its place in the global food system, and its broader economy. The first factor is the Party-state’s ideational priority of self-reliance, particularly in the context of grain security. In contrast to other large Southern countries (e.g., India and the Philippines), the historical priority for China to be self-reliant has led to a distinct conception of national food security focused on national ownership over each segment of the grain supply chain and particularly seed resources. The second factor is the Party-state’s control over its domestic agrifood system through law and regulation limiting the participation of foreign seed companies. More recently, the Party-state’s power over its domestic grain seed markets has shifted into nascent material power in the global food system. This expansion of Chinese agribusiness in the name of national food security occurs through a combination of overseas seed extension projects as well as through the acquisition of foreign agribusinesses including Syngenta, Noble, and Nidera. The third factor is China’s historical autonomy from the U.S. food regime (1950s to 1970s). China remained independent of the agrifood networks developed under the U.S.-led green revolution and food aid architecture, instead establishing its own domestic research networks and extension system. This autonomy provided the Party-state with the power necessary to retain domestic policy space, develop a home-grown seed industry, and challenge the dominance of Northern agribusiness firms in the global food system. Combined, the three factors explain China’s domestic grain seed market structure (ideational priority of self-reliant national food security, material power over the domestic food system, and historical autonomy from the U.S. food regime). Further, these factors serve to explain and interpret the recently expanded presence of actors from the PRC in global grain and grain seed markets. Despite pressure from MNCs and other states, national agribusinesses continue to hold market share in China’s domestic grain seed market demonstrating both the continued normative commitment of Party-state actors to support national industry and the material power to maintain control over national markets in the context of economic globalization. These national Chinese agribusinesses (with the help of financial actors) have also rapidly increased their presence abroad to compete in both domestic and global markets. However, despite the exercise of material power in the global food system, actors from China have not yet displaced the incumbent agribusiness power of MNCs headquartered in the global North. Further, there are challenges and impacts related to the pursuit of national food security through domestically owned industrial agriculture. Given MNC ownership of patents, the potential introduction of genetically modified (GM) grain seeds to the domestic Chinese market presents a challenge to the Party-state’s continued control over the PRC’s seed industry. Further, the growing commercial seed system and discourse of national food security has placed pressure on, but also provided limited space for, alternative food movements within China. These food movements share similar ideational concerns to the Party-state vis-à-vis global agribusiness concentration, but promote a path to food security rooted in local food systems. As agribusinesses from China, with strong connections to the Party-state, expand their global grain and seed networks, both GM seeds and food alternatives are domestic sources of contention for the Party-state’s emerging agrifood power.
Governing Sovereign Bankruptcy: Writing International Rules for Rewriting National Debts
(University of Waterloo, 2019-08-09) Brooks, Skylar
This thesis examines three sets of recent initiatives aimed at reforming the international regime for sovereign debt restructuring. The first involved changes to the rules governing IMF lending and their role in triggering debt restructurings. The second entailed reforms to sovereign bond contracts in order to facilitate smoother restructuring processes. The third took place within the UN, where states advanced the idea of an international hard-law approach to debt restructuring but settled for a set of soft-law principles. Taken together, these initiatives had a mixed impact on the regime. Contract reforms strengthened bond restructuring processes; IMF reforms weakened the mechanism designed to trigger necessary restructurings; and UN reform efforts had little concrete impact in either direction. What explains the variation in these recent regulatory outcomes? I argue that this variation can be understood according to two dimensions: the process-trigger distinction and the legal-institutional design of process-oriented mechanisms. A trigger mechanism is hard to institutionalize because of the time-inconsistent preferences of powerful states and their more general desire—supported by sovereign debtors and private creditors and amplified by recent experiences—for case-by-case decision-making when it comes to if and when to trigger a debt restructuring. Compared to the trigger, some but not all process mechanisms have greater odds of success, depending on their design. Hard-law designs face huge political opposition, whereas soft-law tools can encounter political challenges but are also of limited effectiveness in this issue area. By contrast, private-law contracts provide useful mechanisms for navigating the trade-offs of regulating debt restructuring processes, especially for dominant states. I also argue that historical legacies and processes have influenced recent reform outcomes, but mainly through their ability to further enhance or diminish the prospects of mechanisms whose political utility had already been determined by the process-trigger distinction and/or their legal-institutional design. This thesis makes an empirical contribution to IPE and global governance literatures by providing the first comprehensive analysis of recent sovereign debt restructuring reforms. It makes important theoretical contributions to these literatures by developing an analytical framework for understanding the politics of regulatory reform within the sovereign debt restructuring regime. It also offers insights that contribute to wider debates about institutional design and development, including those related to the choice of international hard-law or soft-law governance instruments, the use of contracts in global governance, and the role of historical legacies and processes in shaping regulatory outcomes.
Violence, Conflict, and World Order: Rethinking War with a Complex Systems Approach
(University of Waterloo, 2020-01-23) Lawrence, Michael, 1984-
This thesis employs a complex systems approach to argue that the nature of violent conflict coevolves with broader features of world order. The first chapter demonstrates that International Relations and Comparative Politics – the predominant fields in the study of violent conflict – are insufficiently systemic to elucidate recent events. International Relations theories do not endogenize the formation of actors, struggle with systemic change, and remain unproductively fixated on anarchy. Comparative Politics focuses inordinately on ‘domestic’ causes of violent conflict and retains the baggage of modernization thinking. At the same time, the very concept of ‘war’ unproductively narrows the study of violent conflict. After identifying several key ‘macrotrends’ in warfare, the chapter proposes conceptual distinctions between violence, conflict, and order to better understand long-term variations. Chapter Two develops an ontology of world order based in complex systems thinking. After defining world order and exploring the nature of systems, the account conceives system structure as an emergent phenomenon in three senses. First, it draws upon structuration theory and complex adaptive systems thinking to explain the internal organization of collective social agents. It then draws upon political economy and constructivist thought to argue that agents form emergent relational structures by which they constitute, reproduce, and transform each other. Finally, this chapter argues that worldviews, institutions, and technologies constitute ‘emergent schematic assemblages’ as diffuse social entities in themselves. This ontology ultimately highlights actor differentiation, interaction capacity, and emergent schematic assemblages as core features of world order. The third chapter applies this ontology to argue that there are three broad sets of conflicts embedded in the system structure of world order which each evolve, erupt into violence of a particular character, and differentiate social actors in ways shaped by the broader features of world order (particularly its worldviews, institutions, technologies, and interaction capacity). World order shapes the consequent violent conflicts, but those violent conflicts also reshape world order, generating a co-evolutionary relationship. This framework helps explain several major trends in the nature of violent conflict by highlighting systemic influences on the formation of units and their vertical differentiation. Chapter Four further develops the links between globalization and violence by examining the rise of organized crime and of reactionary fundamentalist identity movements. It argues that these examples suggest possible future trajectories in the co-evolution of world order and violent conflict by challenging statehood as a basic organizing logic and by producing violence that is ill captured by basic notions of war, yet rivals its lethality.
The Fox Building the Henhouse: Corporate influence on global health governance and the risks to the World Health Organization
(University of Waterloo, 2020-08-10) Wagner-Rizvi, Tracey
Like global governance more generally, global health governance and the global health architecture are changing and, in the process, creating new kinds of openings for non-state actors (NSAs) such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and philanthropic organizations. This growing role for NSAs in global health governance has occurred at the same time as the World Health Organization (WHO) has turned to the private sector and philanthropic organizations for multistakeholder partnerships and voluntary contributions to bridge its budgetary gap due to some states capping their annual contributions. But without adequate safeguards, there is a risk that the increased influence of the private sector on global health policy-making, norm-setting and governance at the WHO can result in substantive policy shaped to prioritize profits over public interest and health outcomes. There are also risks for the WHO, as the global lead body on health, including the potential for conflicts of interest, damage to institutional reputation, and deeper reliance on private funding in ways that undermine the WHO’s mandate. This dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: 1) In what ways have profit-oriented NSAs engaged with the WHO as a site of global health governance on substantive policies and paradigms that shape policy-making? 2) What are the implications for the WHO of the agency’s enhanced engagement with the private sector? This dissertation examines these questions broadly as well as through in-depth analyses of the specific cases of the baby food and soda industries. The analysis in this dissertation finds that, despite their self-representation as trustworthy partners in addressing health issues, private sector actors have worked to influence substantive initiatives by the WHO related to the sale and consumption of their products. Private sector actors have also engaged in a long-game to shape paradigms that determine which policies are pursued and what role private actors are able to play in developing them. These paradigms create an environment conducive to companies and their associations, for example, arguing against regulation and in favour of voluntary measures and representing themselves as legitimate partners in developing health-related policy. Like other industries, the baby food and soda industries have pursued their substantive and long-term interests by drawing on a so-called “corporate playbook” of strategies and tactics to access and impact upon global health policy-making at the WHO. These strategies and tactics are iterative and mutually reinforcing. Furthermore, in its efforts to bridge its budgetary gap, the WHO has potentially set itself up for even more in-depth influence by opening itself to fuller engagement through multistakeholder arrangements and PPPs. This fuller engagement has been formalized by the WHO’s Framework of engagement with non-state actors (FENSA). Analysis of the contested development of FENSA serves to highlight the types of issues against which the WHO must guard itself if it is not to undermine the agency’s independence, integrity, credibility and mandate. Although FENSA is ostensibly intended to safeguard against potential conflicts of interest, conflating “conflict of interest” with the different but related notion of “conflicting interests” leaves the WHO vulnerable to those very conflicts of interest and can lead the agency to greater, not less, influence from profit-based actor. As it continues to adopt a multistakeholder approach and widen its engagement with NSAs in order to address its financial challenges, the WHO is potentially setting itself up for greater dependence on for-profit entities, which can lead to further conflicts of interest and erosion of the WHO’s role as lead global health body.
Taking Complexity Seriously in International Law: A View from the Arctic
(University of Waterloo, 2021-01-21) Prior, Tahnee Lisa
Over the past three decades, the Arctic system has undergone significant, large-scale transformational change – a shift which has profoundly altered human-environment interactions and feedbacks within the system. What was once described as a relatively closed area, both in terms of its material and social reality, has become increasingly open and complex. I am interested in the capacity of international law, as an instrument of governance, to manage this rapidly changing Arctic system. More specifically, this project seeks to answer a central research question: Is the emerging material reality of the Arctic system fundamentally incommensurable with the functional requirements of the law that seeks to govern it? I conclude that that is the case, and, in the conclusion of this dissertation, I argue that a complex systems ontology might be able to help us identify how to build a better governance structure for the Arctic. Contrary to existing scholarship, which often defines the Arctic based on geography or issue area, I begin by drawing on a complex systems ontology to introduce what we seek to manage: an increasingly open and tightly coupled Arctic system. This is followed by an overview of current governance approaches and their response to the nature of change in the Arctic system, where I draw on three case studies to point to a disjuncture between the emerging material and social reality of the Arctic system and current governance responses, which can give rise to governance failure. I argue that a significant part of the problem is an insistence on law and formality as one of the primary responses. Then, I highlight how the theoretical underpinnings of current approaches, specifically legal positivism, make it difficult for us to envision alternative methods of Arctic environmental governance which can account for complexity and change. I argue that there is a fundamental incommensurability between the demands of legal positivism – defined by characteristics like predictability, closed boundaries, and formal legal rationality – and the demands of the complex systems it seeks to govern – defined by characteristics like thermodynamic openness, heightened non-linearity, and connectivity. In search of an alternative theoretical underpinning, I turn to non-positivist legal theories including research on Transnational Legal Process and Interactional Legal Theory and find that both theories are insufficient because they give little focus to the co-evolution of various systems including the human-environment nexus. Recognizing a shortfall between the rapidly rising need for legal innovation and its inadequate supply in both current Arctic environmental governance and Arctic scholarship alike, I point to research in Earth systems science, on social-ecological systems, and Earth system governance which increasingly draws on a complex systems ontology to think about the ways in which different components of a system fit together, interact with one another, and respond to change. More precisely, I make note of a call to action for the juridical sciences to embrace a complex system ontology and vice versa. Finally, having diagnosed the problem and seeking to respond to this call to action, I outline a prospective research agenda for a complex systems ontology and Arctic environmental governance. Specifically, I propose a set of three complexity tools – the WIT framework, the energy landscape metaphor, and the law of requisite variety – which can help us re-imagine the Arctic system and explore the role of international law in anticipating and responding to critical transitions therein.
Supporting uncertain policy decisions for global catastrophic risks
(University of Waterloo, 2021-05-14) Janzwood, Scott
The three articles in this dissertation explore the contested, multi-dimensional concept of uncertainty and how experts and decision makers collectively grapple with it at governance organizations tasked with addressing global catastrophic risks (GCRs). This project examines the foundational concept of uncertainty and then explores “decision support” dynamics at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the primary knowledge brokers in the governance regimes addressing planetary defense and climate change respectively. Article #1 begins by examining the contested, multidimensional concept of uncertainty itself. The paper presents a critical analysis of the conceptual literature on uncertainty that has become increasingly standardized behind the tripartite distinction between uncertainty location, uncertainty level, and the nature of uncertainty. I argue that the epistemological foundation on which this framework is built is both vague and inconsistent. Perhaps most surprising is its exclusion of the term “confidence” – which has become the dominant perspective for characterizing and communicating uncertainty in many disciplines and policy contexts today. This article reinterprets the tripartite framework from a Bayesian epistemological perspective, which views uncertainty as a mental phenomenon arising from “confidence deficits” as opposed to the ill-defined notion of “knowledge deficits” that dominates the literature. I propose a more consistent set of rules for determining when uncertainty may or may not be quantified, a clarification of the terms “ignorance” and “recognized ignorance,” and an expansion of the “level” dimension to include levels of uncertainty reducibility. Lastly, I challenge the usefulness of the conventional distinction made between aleatory and epistemic uncertainty and propose a more useful distinction based on developments in the field of complexity science that highlights the unique properties of complex reflexive (i.e. human) systems. Article #2 explores the decision support process of uncertainty reduction. “Mission-oriented” public research organizations like NASA invest in R&D to improve decision-making around complex policy problems, thus producing “public value.” However, the estimation of benefits produced by such R&D projects is notoriously difficult to predict and measure – a challenge that is magnified for GCRs. This article explores how public research organizations systematically reduce key uncertainties associated with GCRs. Building off of recent literature highlighting the organizational and political factors that influence R&D priority-setting at public research organizations, this article develops an analytical framework for explaining R&D priority-setting outcomes that integrates the key stages of decision analysis with organizational and political dynamics identified in the literature. This framework is then illustrated with a case study of the NASA planetary defense mission, which addresses the GCR of near-Earth object (asteroid and comet) impacts. The case study reveals how organizational and political factors interact with every stage in the R&D priority-setting process – from initial problem definition to project selection. Lastly, the article discusses the extent to which the case study can inform R&D priority-setting at other mission-oriented organizations, particularly those addressing GCRs. Article #3 investigates the decision support process of uncertainty communication. The uncertainty language framework used by the IPCC is designed to encourage the consistent characterization and communication of uncertainty between chapters, working groups, and reports. However, the framework has not been updated since 2010, despite criticism that it was applied inconsistently in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and that the distinctions between the framework’s three language scales remain unclear. This article presents a mixed methods analysis of the application – and underlying interpretation – of the uncertainty language framework by IPCC authors in the three special reports published since AR5. First, I present an analysis of uncertainty language term usage in three recent special reports: Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR15), Climate Change and Land (SRCCL), and The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC). The language usage analysis highlights how many of the trends identified in previous reports – like the significant increase in the use of confidence terms – have carried forward into recent assessments. These observed trends, along with ongoing debates in the literature on how to interpret the framework’s three language scales inform an analysis of IPCC author experiences interpreting and implementing the framework. This discussion is informed by interviews with lead authors from the SRCCL and SROCC. Lastly, I propose several recommendations for clarifying the IPCC uncertainty language framework to address persistent sources of confusion highlighted by the authors.
Analyzing Major Royalty Debates in Alberta's Oil Sands: Corporate Power at Play in a Subnational Resource-Cursed Petrostate
(University of Waterloo, 2021-05-27) Salam, Justine
Canada has the third largest proven oil reserves in the world and these are predominantly located in the province of Alberta in the form of oil sands. Despite having large oil resources and the ability to profit substantially from oil royalties, Alberta levies lower royalties on oil corporations than other comparable jurisdictions. Even when oil prices were extraordinarily high in the post-2000s, over the last decade, researchers argue Alberta was inefficient in maximizing revenues from the oil industry (Campbell, 2013; Shrivastava and Stefanick, 2015). This is a critical problem given that the natural resources sector, particularly the oil sands, is a primary stream of provincial government revenue. Focusing on ideational, interest-based, and institutional factors (the three “I”s) that influenced provincial policy under both successive Progressive Conservative (PC) (2007) and New Democratic Party (NDP) (2015) governments, this study examines the underlying reasons for Alberta’s unwillingness to raise royalties and profit accordingly from oil exploitation during the two landmark royalty review processes of 2007 and 2015-16. This study also uses resource curse and petrostate theories to illuminate collections of “I”s specific to oil contexts and Doris Fuchs’ corporate power framework to map the various ways the dominant interest-group, oil corporations, exerted influence on the royalty review process and ensuing policy. I find that oil sands royalty stasis in Alberta can be explained by constellations of intertwined institutional, interest-based, and ideational factors, both general and typical of oil contexts.

Browse

Browsing International Affairs (Balsillie School of) by Issue Date