| Abstract [eng] |
While the United States of America, one of the world‘s largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions and the most powerful economy in the world, is actively involved in the development of international environmental treaties, its position in prolonged international climate change negotiations is volatile, which weakens and destabilises effectiveness of not only the U.S. but also global combat with climate change. Therefore, this Master thesis aims to analyse negotiating position of the United States in prolonged climate change negotiations while highlighting the underlying causes and factors behind it. United States‘ negotiating position in this study is being analysed in the context of negotiations of currently the most important legally binding Paris climate change agreement. In this thesis R. D. Putnam two-level game theory and Ch. Downie theoretical assumptions were used to form a causal mechanism which emphasised influence of interest groups, political institutions and chief of government in forming the international U.S. negotiating position. The study found that the interplay between domestic and international factors in the United States had a complex impact on international climate negotiations and the volatility of the United States position in it. Strategies in international negotiations of the White House delegation were influenced not only by the win-sets of other states involved in the negotiations, but also by the mobilization of U.S. domestic actors supporting and contradicting the agreement and thus shaping the U.S. win-set in international negotiations. Due to a polarized domestic environment U.S. representatives in international negotiations were unable to take rigorous and ambitious commitments in international combat with climate change, while the opposing preferences of interest groups, clearly reflected in the Congress, did not allow to ensure a consistent and successful implementation of the commitments. However, the U.S. presidential institution was not only limited by internal groups, but could also autonomously adopt and modify decisions based on personal preferences which provided some freedom of act in international negotiations. Due to an internal polarization, US President Obama’s strategy to adopt an agreement as an executive decree allowed him to remove an obstacle of a hostile Senate and to ultimately accept an agreement, albeit with a smaller win-set. However, because of this reason a rather weak global agreement without significant control mechanisms was reached. Moreover, executive powers allowed the newly elected president to take a unilateral decision in 2017 to initiate a withdrawal from the Paris Accord. The interaction of afore mentioned causal factors allows to explain the change in the U.S. negotiating position in the context of the Paris Accord negotiations. The causal mechanism revealed that the change in the U.S. position was driven by a number of related factors: (1) party fragmentation in the Congress where preferences of non-governmental actors were clearly reflected; (2) U.S. President’s willingness and ability to avoid bipartisan Congressional assessment and influence over the international agreement; (3) the unsustainable mechanism of shaping the negotiating position in the White House and Congress, especially at the stage of ratification of the agreement. As this thesis was seeking a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the prolonged international climate change negotiations, the results of this work has enriched the academic discussion of this study field and provided an analysis of the negotiating position evolution of one of the biggest polluters in the world. However, the prospects of opportunities and decision-making process of the U.S. in the future provide the space for new research that could complement this academic field, taking into account not only alternative theoretical perspectives but also new empirical circumstances that may arise. |
