Does what other states do influence how much land a country protects? This paper argues that states sit in international "dependence networks"—partners with which they regularly exchange valued goods—and uses those networks to study whether increases in protected land among trade partners and international-organization partners are associated with increases in protected land at the focal state. The contribution is to show international economic and organizational ties as potential pathways of environmental policy influence, comparing their substantive effects to familiar domestic predictors.
dependence networks, trade and IO partners, effects larger than democracy
Data and methods
The abstract describes a cross-national, longitudinal analysis that operationalizes a state's "dependence network" as the other states with which it "regularly exchanges valued goods." The authors weight partners by importance and analyze changes in protected land over time; the exact data sources and statistical models are not detailed in the abstract.
Main findings
According to the abstract, the authors "find strong evidence that increases in protected lands among trade partners and international organization partners (both weighted by importance) increase a given state's protected lands." They report that these international-network effects have substantive magnitudes "larger than domestic-level variables like democracy."
Additional note
The paper frames these results as expanding understanding of how states may influence one another on environmental policy via international economic and organizational ties, while the abstract does not claim causal mechanisms beyond the network association described.
