Political Regimes and Climate Change: Learning from Past Civilisations

IF 0.3 Q4 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Global Environment Pub Date : 2024-06-07 DOI:10.3828/whpge.63837646622499

Brian Grodsky

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Abstract

As the world is threatened by new and powerful climate-driven hazards, how are states and societies likely to react? In this paper, I explore the role of regime type in determining the likelihood of state survival under extreme environmental conditions. I begin with a theoretical and empirical analysis of public goods provision under different regime types, finding no evidence for the contention that any one particular regime is superior to others. Following from this, I argue that the survival of the state under increased hazard conditions will at least partly be a function of political flexibility, with more democratic regimes better able to weather crisis than non-democratic ones. I explore this argument by analysing two historical cases of climate change: the non-democratic Maya civilisation in the first millennium and the quasi-democratic Icelandic state at the start of the second millennium. These historical cases highlight potential advantages to the democratic system in allowing states to survive a world with increased hazards but also underscore how rising competition and political instability can negatively impact those same democratic institutions. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .

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政治制度与气候变化：向过去的文明学习

当世界受到新的、强大的气候灾害威胁时，国家和社会可能会做出怎样的反应？在本文中，我探讨了政权类型在决定极端环境条件下国家生存可能性方面的作用。我首先从理论和实证角度分析了不同政体类型下的公共产品供给，结果发现没有证据证明任何一种特定政体优于其他政体。在此基础上，我认为国家在危害加剧条件下的生存至少部分取决于政治灵活性，民主政权比非民主政权更有能力渡过危机。我通过分析两个气候变化的历史案例来探讨这一论点：第一个千年的非民主玛雅文明和第二个千年初的准民主冰岛国家。这些历史案例凸显了民主制度的潜在优势，使国家能够在危险增加的世界中生存下来，但同时也强调了日益激烈的竞争和政治不稳定会如何对这些民主制度产生负面影响。本文以 CC BY 许可的开放获取方式发表：https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Global Environment ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES-

CiteScore

0.50

自引率

25.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The half-yearly journal Global Environment: A Journal of History and Natural and Social Sciences acts as a forum and echo chamber for ongoing studies on the environment and world history, with special focus on modern and contemporary topics. Our intent is to gather and stimulate scholarship that, despite a diversity of approaches and themes, shares an environmental perspective on world history in its various facets, including economic development, social relations, production government, and international relations. One of the journal’s main commitments is to bring together different areas of expertise in both the natural and the social sciences to facilitate a common language and a common perspective in the study of history. This commitment is fulfilled by way of peer-reviewed research articles and also by interviews and other special features. Global Environment strives to transcend the western-centric and ‘developist’ bias that has dominated international environmental historiography so far and to favour the emergence of spatially and culturally diversified points of view. It seeks to replace the notion of ‘hierarchy’ with those of ‘relationship’ and ‘exchange’ – between continents, states, regions, cities, central zones and peripheral areas – in studying the construction or destruction of environments and ecosystems.