POLA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Multilateral Treaty, Collective Action, Freeriding
10 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
The international politics of climate change and why it went wrong. Seeing international climate politics like a political scientist. Collective action problem is a paradox: everyone benefits from stable climate but, no one is willing to pay to provide a stable climate. In a collective action problem everybody wants to join in but, only if others pay for it. Non-rivalrous- the consumption of the good by one population does not effect the consumption of another population. Non-excludable- you cannot exclude anyone from enjoying stable climate. Notoriously difficult to generate problem with free riding. Examples: health care, public school, transportation and infrastructure, libraries. A tool to solve paradox and to generate a consensus to provide a public. There is no government authority that will step in. Hurdles: (1) agree to provide public good (2) solve the paradox, free riding, make people to pay by coercing. The goal was to negotiate treaties to solve the problem, put a solution in place.
