Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article distinguishes between states acting as environmental leaders or pioneers. While leaders usually actively seek to attract followers, this is not normally the case for pioneers. Dependent on their internal and external ambitions, states may take on the position of a laggard, pioneer, pusher or symbolic leader. When doing so, states employ various combinations of types and styles of leadership or pioneership. Four types of leadership/pioneership – structural, entrepreneurial, cognitive and exemplary – and two styles of leadership/pioneership – transactional/humdrum and transformational/heroic – are used to assess leaders and pioneers. The novel analytical framework put forward is intended to generate greater conceptual clarity, which is urgently needed for more meaningful theory-guided cumulative empirical research on leaders and pioneers.
Highlights
Studies of Comparative Politics (CP) and International Relations (IR) have seen a proliferation of analytical terms such as leader, pioneer, pusher state, pioneer, first mover, and pace setter to describe putative agents of change in domestic and European Union (EU) policy-making and in international regime creation
The proliferation of competing analytical terms has led to analytical confusion making difficult the emergence of theory-guided cumulative empirical research on the actions and impact of leaders and pioneers which are widely perceived as important agents of change
There has long been a wide use of the terms leaders and, though to a lesser degree, pioneers in CP and IR studies focusing on environmental issues including: (1) international environmental regimes in general (e.g. Young 1991; Underdal 1994) and climate change regimes in particular (e.g. Gupta and Grubb 2000; Schreurs and Tiberghien 2007; Wurzel and Connelly 2011); (2) EU environmental policy (e.g. Héritier 1996; Andersen and Liefferink 1997; Liefferink and Andersen 1998; Jordan et al 2010); and (3) national environmental policy capacity (e.g. Jänicke and Weidner 1997; Liefferink et al 2009)
Summary
Studies of Comparative Politics (CP) and International Relations (IR) have seen a proliferation of analytical terms such as leader, pioneer, pusher state, pioneer, first mover, and pace setter to describe putative agents of change in domestic and European Union (EU) policy-making and in international regime creation. There has long been a wide use of the terms leaders and, though to a lesser degree, pioneers in CP and IR studies focusing on environmental issues including: (1) international environmental regimes in general The lack of conceptual clarity comes at a price which can be seen, for example, in the inflationary use of the terms environmental pioneers and leaders (as well as related terms) for an ever wider range of actors (e.g. states, the EU, international organisations, cities, businesses, NGOs and individuals) and their wide-ranging leadership and/or pioneering activities (cf Liefferink and Wurzel, 2013)
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