Leaders, pushers and laggards in the making of the climate regime

Abstract

The primary motivation for this paper is to illuminate the role of leadership exerted by individuals, institutions and nation-states at various stages of the global climate change regime. Four forms of leadership: intellectual, instrumental, power-based, and directional, are identified. Next, theoretical claims about the dominance of particular forms of leadership at particular stages of regime formation are empirically tested by examining the agenda setting and negotiation phases of the climate regime. This analysis tends to support theoretical claims that intellectual leadership is particularly prominent during agenda setting, but evidence to support the influence of entrepreneurial leaders during negotiations is mixed at best for the climate regime. Structural or power based leadership meanwhile was largely absent during agenda setting of the climate regime but has been in clear evidence through the negotiations of the Climate Convention and the Kyoto Protocol.