The Narrow Conception of Responsibility in Environmental Governance

Abstract

This chapter introduces current research on the concept of responsibility in terms of predominant conceptualizations and attempts to measure responsibility empirically. Looking at the dominant use of the concept in global governance research and specifically in the field of environmental governance, the chapter diagnoses a relatively narrow understanding of responsibility as accountability, and to a lesser extent, an understanding as liability that dominates the academic discourse. Methodologically, most studies are primarily concerned with measuring environmental impacts, establishing a causal link between individual actions and measured impacts, and with how such a link is perceived by other actors. Taken together, both foci not only severely narrow the potential applications of responsibility analyses, but this restricted view has, so the argument, also social and political consequences.KeywordsResponsibilityAccountabilityLiabilityGovernanceEnvironmental impact assessmentCarbon footprint