The Impact of Green Shaming: Environmental Regulations and NGOs

• In Event: From Framing to Shaming: Generating Support for Environmental Policy

Abstract

As governments are often unable to agree on hard sanctions toward states, various environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) have turned to naming and shaming – a strategy of public criticism – to pressure countries to improve their environmental regulations. But is naming and shaming effective, despite lacking sanctioning mechanisms? Does naming and shaming actually lead to enhanced environmental protection? Under what conditions? Though naming and shaming by international NGOs has become an integral part of global environmental governance, its impact on national regulations and policies remains poorly understood.

This article is the first systematic and longitudinal analysis of the impact of ENGO naming and shaming on environmental regulations. Theoretically, we argue that the effects of ENGO naming and shaming varies depending on the type of environmental issue. Under the public pressure generated by ENGOs, governments are likely to prioritize regulations that directly contribute to the quality of life within a country because the marginal benefits of environmental regulations can be distributed broadly. These issues pertain to, for example, water, clean air and waste regulations. Conversely, governments will give less priority to regulations that do not have immediate and direct effects on the physical quality of life of its population – with marginal benefits that are distributed more narrowly –, such as regulations pertaining to forestry, wild species and energy. Empirically, we present a new dataset on ENGO shaming based on extensive news media. Most importantly, the new dataset disaggregates the specific shaming events by issue areas, which has not been done previously. By disaggregating the data so that naming and shaming acts are categorized within specific groups of environmental regulations, we shorten the causal link that provides an enhanced understanding of complex dynamics. In addition, for the purpose of this article, we have collected comprehensive data on national environmental regulations for the period 1970-2014 from the ECOLEX database.

We find that governments react differently to international ENGO shaming depending on the type of environmental regulations. This implies that governments are strategic and alter their behavior when the marginal benefits of behavioral change are more broadly distributed within a country. Moreover, we find that the impact of ENGO shaming is curvilinear. This suggests that the probability of improving regulations increases following initial instances of shaming but decreases after reaching a certain point.

Authors

• Faradj Koliev

• Baekkwan Park

• Andreas Duit, Stockholm University