1.    What  is  the  Tragedy  of  the  Commons?   2.    How  is  pollution  a  tragedy  of  the  commons?   3.    How  does  he  present  the  population  problem?  (in  1968)   4.    Why  is  he  critical  of  the  Universal  Declaration  of  Human  Rights?   5.    Does  he  think  an  appeal  to  conscience  will  be  useful  in  dealing  with  the  tragedy  of  the  commons?   6.    What  does  he  mean  by  “mutual  coercion”?   7.    What  is  the  necessity  that  we  need  to  recognize?   8.    How  can  humans  be  “more  free”?     The  Tragedy  of  the  Commons,    by  Garrett  Hardin,  1968,  Published  in  Science,  December  13,  1968   .  .  .   Tragedy  of  Freedom  in  a  Commons   The  rebuttal  to  the  invisible  hand  in  population  control  is  to  be  found  in  a  scenario  first  sketched  in  a   little-­‐known  pamphlet  (6)  in  1833  by  a  mathematical  amateur  named  William  Forster  Lloyd  (1794-­‐1852).   We  may  well  call  it  "the  tragedy  of  the  commons",  using  the  word  "tragedy"  as  the  philosopher   Whitehead  used  it  (7):  "The  essence  of  dramatic  tragedy  is  not  unhappiness.  It  resides  in  the  solemnity  of   the  remorseless  working  of  things."  He  then  goes  on  to  say,  "This  inevitableness  of  destiny  can  only  be   illustrated  in  terms  of  human  life  by  incidents  which  in  fact  involve  unhappiness.  For  it  is  only  by  them   that  the  futility  of  escape  can  be  made  evident  in  the  drama."       The  tragedy  of  the  commons  develops  in  this  way.  Picture  a  pasture  open  to  all.  It  is  to  be  expected  that   each  herdsman  will  try  to  keep  as  many  cattle  as  possible  on  the  commons.  Such  an  arrangement  may   work  reasonably  satisfactorily  for  centuries  because  tribal  wars,  poaching,  and  disease  keep  the  numbers   of  both  man  and  beast  well  below  the  carrying  capacity  of  the  land.  Finally,  however,  comes  the  day  of   reckoning,  that  is,  the  day  when  the  long-­‐desired  goal  of  social  stability  becomes  a  reality.  At  this  point,   the  inherent  logic  of  the  commons  remorselessly  generates  tragedy.     As  a  rational  being,  each  herdsman  seeks  to  maximize  his  gain.  Explicitly  or  implicitly,  more  or  less   consciously,  he  asks,  "What  is  the  utility  to  me  of  adding  one  more  animal  to  my  herd?"  This  utility  has   one  negative  and  one  positive  component.     1)  The  positive  component  is  a  function  of  the  increment  of  one  animal.  Since  the  herdsman  receives  all   the  proceeds  from  the  sale  of  the  additional  animal,  the  positive  utility  is  nearly  +1.     2)  The  negative  component  is  a  function  of  the  additional  overgrazing  created  by  one  more  animal.  Since,   however,  the  effects  of  overgrazing  are  shared  by  all  the  herdsmen,  the  negative  utility  for  any  particular   decision-­‐making  herdsman  is  only  a  fraction  of  -­‐1.     Adding  together  the  component  partial  utilities,  the  rational  herdsman  concludes  that  the  only  sensible   course  for  him  to  pursue  is  to  add  another  animal  to  his  herd.  And  another;  and  another....  But  this  is  the   conclusion  reached  by  each  and  every  rational  herdsman  sharing  a  commons.  Therein  is  the  tragedy.   Each  man  is  locked  into  a  system  that  compels  him  to  increase  his  herd  without  limit-­‐-­‐in  a  world  that  is   limited.  Ruin  is  the  destination  toward  which  all  men  rush,  each  pursuing  his  own  best  interest  in  a   society  that  believes  in  the  freedom  of  the  commons.  Freedom  in  a  commons  brings  ruin  to  all.     Some  would  say  that  this  is  a  platitude.  Would  that  it  were!  In  a  sense,  it  was  learned  thousands  of  years   ago,  but  natural  selection  favors  the  forces  of  psychological  denial  (8).  The  individual  benefits  as  an   individual  from  his  ability  to  deny  the  truth  even  though  society  as  a  whole,  of  which  he  is  a  part,  suffers.     Education  can  counteract  the  natural  tendency  to  do  the  wrong  thing,  but  the  inexorable  succession  of   generations  requires  that  the  basis  for  this  knowledge  be  constantly  refreshed.     A  simple  incident  that  occurred  a  few  years  ago  in  Leominster,  Massachusetts,  shows  how  perishable  the   knowledge  is.  During  the  Christmas  shopping  season  the  parking  meters  downtown  were  covered  with   red  plastic  bags  that  bore  tags  reading:  "Do  not  open  until  after  Christmas.  Free  parking  courtesy  of  the   mayor  and  city  council."  In  other  words,  facing  the  prospect  of  an  increased  demand  for  already  scarce   space,  the  city  fathers  reinstituted  the  system  of  the  commons.  (Cynically,  we  suspect  that  they  gained   more  votes  than  they  lost  by  this  retrogressive  act.)     In  an  approximate  way,  the  logic  of  commons  has  been  understood  for  a  long  time,  perhaps  since  the   discovery  of  agriculture  or  the  invention  of  private  property  in  real  estate.  But  it  is  understood  mostly   only  in  special  cases  which  are  not  sufficiently  generalized.  Even  at  this  late  date,  cattlemen  leasing   national  land  on  the  western  ranges  demonstrate  no  more  than  an  ambivalent  understanding,  in   constantly  pressuring  federal  authorities  to  increase  the  head  count  to  the  point  where  overgrazing   produces  erosion  and  weed-­‐dominance.  Likewise,  the  oceans  of  the  world  continue  to  suffer  from  the   survival  of  the  philosophy  of  the  commons.  Maritime  nations  still  respond  automatically  to  the   shibboleth  of  the  "freedom  of  the  seas."  Professing  to  believe  in  "the  inexhaustible  resources  of  the   oceans,"  they  bring  species  after  species  of  fish  and  whales  closer  to  extinction  (9).     The  National  Parks  present  another  instance  of  the  working  out  of  the  tragedy  of  the  commons.  At   present,  they  are  open  to  all,  without  limit.  The  parks  themselves  are  limited  in  extent-­‐-­‐there  is  only  one   Yosemite  Valley-­‐-­‐whereas  population  seems  to  grow  without  limit.  The  values  that  visitors  seek  the  parks   are  steadily  eroded.  Plainly,  we  must  soon  cease  to  treat  the  parks  as  commons  or  they  will  be  of  no   value  anyone.     What  shall  we  do?  We  have  several  options.  We  might  sell  them  off  as  private  property.  We  might  keep   them  as  public  property,  but  allocate  the  right  enter  them.  The  allocation  might  be  on  the  basis  of   wealth,  by  the  use  of  an  auction  system.  It  might  be  on  the  basis  merit,  as  defined  by  some  agreed-­‐upon   standards.  It  might  be  by  lottery.  Or  it  might  be  on  a  first-­‐come,  first-­‐served  basis,  administered  to  long   queues.  These,  I  think,  are  all  the  reasonable  possibilities.  They  are  all  objectionable.  But  we  must   choose-­‐-­‐or  acquiesce  in  the  destruction  of  the  commons  that  we  call  our  National  Parks.     Pollution   In  a  reverse  way,  the  tragedy  of  the  commons  reappears  in  problems  of  pollution.  Here  it  is  not  a   question  of  taking  something  out  of  the  commons,  but  of  putting  something  in-­‐-­‐sewage,  or  chemical,   radioactive,  and  heat  wastes  into  water;  noxious  and  dangerous  fumes  into  the  air,  and  distracting  and   unpleasant  advertising  signs  into  the  line  of  sight.  The  calculations  of  utility  are  much  the  same  as  before.   The  rational  man  finds  that  his  share  of  the  cost  of  the  wastes  he  discharges  into  the  commons  is  less   than  the  cost  of  purifying  his  wastes  before  releasing  them.  Since  this  is  true  for  everyone,  we  are  locked   into  a  system  of  "fouling  our  own  nest,"  so  long  as  we  behave  only  as  independent,  rational,  free-­‐ enterprises.     The  tragedy  of  the  commons  as  a  food  basket  is  averted  by  private  property,  or  something  formally  like   it.  But  the  air  and  waters  surrounding  us  cannot  readily  be  fenced,  and  so  the  tragedy  of  the  commons  as   a  cesspool  must  be  prevented  by  different  means,  by  coercive  laws  or  taxing  devices  that  make  it   cheaper  for  the  polluter  to  treat  his  pollutants  than  to  discharge  them  untreated.  We  have  not   progressed  as  far  with  the  solution  of  this  problem  as  we  have  with  the  first.  Indeed,  our  particular   concept  of  private  property,  which  deters  us  from  exhausting  the  positive  resources  of  the  earth,  favors   pollution.  The  owner  of  a  factory  on  the  bank  of  a  stream-­‐-­‐whose  property  extends  to  the  middle  of  the   stream,  often  has  difficulty  seeing  why  it  is  not  his  natural  right  to  muddy  the  waters  flowing  past  his   door.  The  law,  always  behind  the  times,  requires  elaborate  stitching  and  fitting  to  adapt  it  to  this  newly   perceived  aspect  of  the  commons.     The  pollution  problem  is  a  consequence  of  population.  It  did  not  much  matter  how  a  lonely  American   frontiersman  disposed  of  his  waste.  "Flowing  water  purifies  itself  every  10  miles,"  my  grandfather  used   to  say,  and  the  myth  was  near  enough  to  the  truth  when  he  was  a  boy,  for  there  were  not  too  many   people.  But  as  population  became  denser,  the  natural  chemical  and  biological  recycling  processes   became  overloaded,  calling  for  a  redefinition  of  property  rights.     .  .  .   Freedom  To  Breed  Is  Intolerable   The  tragedy  of  the  commons  is  involved  in  population  problems  in  another  way.  In  a  world  governed   solely  by  the  principle  of  "dog  eat  dog"-­‐-­‐if  indeed  there  ever  was  such  a  world-­‐-­‐how  many  children  a   family  had  would  not  be  a  matter  of  public  concern.  Parents  who  bred  too  exuberantly  would  leave   fewer  descendants,  not  more,  because  they  would  be  unable  to  care  adequately  for  their  children.  David   Lack  and  others  have  found  that  such  a  negative  feedback  demonstrably  controls  the  fecundity  of  birds   (11).  But  men  are  not  birds,  and  have  not  acted  like  them  for  millenniums,  at  least.     If  each  human  family  were  dependent  only  on  its  own  resources;  if  the  children  of  improvident  parents   starved  to  death;  if,  thus,  overbreeding  brought  its  own  "punishment"  to  the  germ  line-­‐-­‐then  there  would   be  no  public  interest  in  controlling  the  breeding  of  families.  But  our  society  is  deeply  committed  to  the   welfare  state  (12),  and  hence  is  confronted  with  another  aspect  of  the  tragedy  of  the  commons.     In  a  welfare  state,  how  shall  we  deal  with  the  family,  the  religion,  the  race,  or  the  class  (or  indeed  any   distinguishable  and  cohesive  group)  that  adopts  overbreeding  as  a  policy  to  secure  its  own   aggrandizement  (13)?  To  couple  the  concept  of  freedom  to  breed  with  the  belief  that  everyone  born  has   an  equal  right  to  the  commons  is  to  lock  the  world  into  a  tragic  course  of  action.     Unfortunately  this  is  just  the  course  of  action  that  is  being  pursued  by  the  United  Nations.  In  late  1967,   some  30  nations  agreed  to  the  following  (14):     The  Universal  Declaration  of  Human  Rights  describes  the  family  as  the  natural  and  fundamental  unit  of   society.  It  follows  that  any  choice  and  decision  with  regard  to  the  size  of  the  family  must  irrevocably  rest   with  the  family  itself,  and  cannot  be  made  by  anyone  else.     It  is  painful  to  have  to  deny  categorically  the  validity  of  this  right;  denying  it,  one  feels  as  uncomfortable   as  a  resident  of  Salem,  Massachusetts,  who  denied  the  reality  of  witches  in  the  17th  century.  At  the   present  time,  in  liberal  quarters,  something  like  a  taboo  acts  to  inhibit  criticism  of  the  United  Nations.   There  is  a  feeling  that  the  United  Nations  is  "our  last  and  best  hope,''  that  we  shouldn't  find  fault  with  it;   we  shouldn't  play  into  the  hands  of  the  archconservatives.  However,  let  us  not  forget  what  Robert  Louis   Stevenson  said:  "The  truth  that  is  suppressed  by  friends  is  the  readiest  weapon  of  the  enemy."  If  we  love   the  truth  we  must  openly  deny  the  validity  of  the  Universal  Declaration  of  Human  Rights,  even  though  it   is  promoted  by  the  United  Nations.  We  should  also  join  with  Kingsley  Davis  (15)  in  attempting  to  get   planned  Parenthood-­‐World  Population  to  see  the  error  of  its  ways  in  embracing  the  same  tragic  ideal.     Conscience  Is  Self-­‐Eliminating   It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  we  can  control  the  breeding  of  mankind  in  the  long  run  by  an  appeal  to   conscience.  Charles  Galton  Darwin  made  this  point  when  he  spoke  on  the  centennial  of  the  publication   of  his  grandfather's  great  book.  The  argument  is  straightforward  and  Darwinian.     People  vary.  Confronted  with  appeals  to  limit  breeding,  some  people  will  undoubtedly  respond  to  the   plea  more  than  others.  Those  who  have  more  children  will  produce  a  larger  fraction  of  the  next   generation  than  those  with  more  susceptible  consciences.  The  difference  will  be  accentuated,  generation   by  generation.  .  .  .     .  .  .   Mutual  Coercion  Mutually  Agreed  Upon   The  social  arrangements  that  produce  responsibility  are  arrangements  that  create  coercion,  of  some   sort.  Consider  bank-­‐robbing.  The  man  who  takes  money  from  a  bank  acts  as  if  the  bank  were  a   commons.  How  do  we  prevent  such  action?  Certainly  not  by  trying  to  control  his  behavior  solely  by  a   verbal  appeal  to  his  sense  of  responsibility.  Rather  than  rely  on  propaganda  we  follow  Frankel's  lead  and   insist  that  a  bank  is  not  a  commons;  we  seek  the  definite  social  arrangements  that  will  keep  it  from   becoming  a  commons.  That  we  thereby  infringe  on  the  freedom  of  would-­‐be  robbers  we  neither  deny   nor  regret.     The  morality  of  bank-­‐robbing  is  particularly  easy  to  understand  because  we  accept  complete  prohibition   of  this  activity.  We  are  willing  to  say  "Thou  shalt  not  rob  banks,"  without  providing  for  exceptions.  But   temperance  also  can  be  created  by  coercion.  Taxing  is  a  good  coercive  device.  To  keep  downtown   shoppers  temperate  in  their  use  of  parking  space  we  introduce  parking  meters  for  short  periods,  and   traffic  fines  for  longer  ones.  We  need  not  actually  forbid  a  citizen  to  park  as  long  as  he  wants  to;  we  need   merely  make  it  increasingly  expensive  for  him  to  do  so.  Not  prohibition,  but  carefully  biased  options  are   what  we  offer  him.  A  Madison  Avenue  man  might  call  this  persuasion;  I  prefer  the  greater  candor  of  the   word  coercion.     Coercion  is  a  dirty  word  to  most  liberals  now,  but  it  need  not  forever  be  so.  As  with  the  four-­‐letter  words,   its  dirtiness  can  be  cleansed  away  by  exposure  to  the  light,  by  saying  it  over  and  over  without  apology  or   embarrassment.  To  many,  the  word  coercion  implies  arbitrary  decisions  of  distant  and  irresponsible   bureaucrats;  but  this  is  not  a  necessary  part  of  its  meaning.  The  only  kind  of  coercion  I  recommend  is   mutual  coercion,  mutually  agreed  upon  by  the  majority  of  the  people  affected.     To  say  that  we  mutually  agree  to  coercion  is  not  to  say  that  we  are  required  to  enjoy  it,  or  even  to   pretend  we  enjoy  it.  Who  enjoys  taxes?  We  all  grumble  about  them.  But  we  accept  compulsory  taxes   because  we  recognize  that  voluntary  taxes  would  favor  the  conscienceless.  We  institute  and   (grumblingly)  support  taxes  and  other  coercive  devices  to  escape  the  horror  of  the  commons.  .  .  .     It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  warfare  between  reform  and  the  status  quo  that  it  is  thoughtlessly   governed  by  a  double  standard.  Whenever  a  reform  measure  is  proposed  it  is  often  defeated  when  its   opponents  triumphantly  discover  a  flaw  in  it.  As  Kingsley  Davis  has  pointed  out  (21),  worshippers  of  the   status  quo  sometimes  imply  that  no  reform  is  possible  without  unanimous  agreement,  an  implication   contrary  to  historical  fact.  As  nearly  as  I  can  make  out,  automatic  rejection  of  proposed  reforms  is  based   on  one  of  two  unconscious  assumptions:  (i)  that  the  status  quo  is  perfect;  or  (ii)  that  the  choice  we  face  is   between  reform  and  no  action;  if  the  proposed  reform  is  imperfect,  we  presumably  should  take  no   action  at  all,  while  we  wait  for  a  perfect  proposal.     But  we  can  never  do  nothing.  That  which  we  have  done  for  thousands  of  years  is  also  action.  It  also   produce  evils.  Once  we  are  aware  that  status  quo  is  action,  we  can  then  compare  its  discoverable   advantages  and  disadvantages  with  the  predicted  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  proposed  reform,   discounting  as  best  we  can  for  our  lack  of  experience.  On  the  basis  of  such  a  comparison,  we  can  make  a   rational  decision  which  will  not  involve  the  unworkable  assumption  that  only  perfect  systems  are   tolerable.     Recognition  of  Necessity   Perhaps  the  simplest  summary  of  this  analysis  of  man's  population  problems  is  this:  the  commons,  if   justifiable  at  all,  is  justifiable  only  under  conditions  of  low-­‐population  density.  As  the  human  population   has  increased,  the  commons  has  had  to  be  abandoned  in  one  aspect  after  another.  First  we  abandoned   the  commons  in  food  gathering,  enclosing  farm  land  and  restricting  pastures  and  hunting  and  fishing   areas.  These  restrictions  are  still  not  complete  throughout  the  world.     Somewhat  later  we  saw  that  the  commons  as  a  place  for  waste  disposal  would  also  have  to  be   abandoned.  Restrictions  on  the  disposal  of  domestic  sewage  are  widely  accepted  in  the  Western  world;   we  are  still  struggling  to  close  the  commons  to  pollution  by  automobiles,  factories,  insecticide  sprayers,   fertilizing  operations,  and  atomic  energy  installations.     In  a  still  more  embryonic  state  is  our  recognition  of  the  evils  of  the  commons  in  matters  of  pleasure.   There  is  almost  no  restriction  on  the  propagation  of  sound  waves  in  the  public  medium.  The  shopping   public  is  assaulted  with  mindless  music,  without  its  consent.  Our  government  is  paying  out  billions  of   dollars  to  create  supersonic  transport  which  will  disturb  50,000  people  for  every  one  person  who  is   whisked  from  coast  to  coast  3  hours  faster.  Advertisers  muddy  the  airwaves  of  radio  and  television  and   pollute  the  view  of  travelers.  We  are  a  long  way  from  outlawing  the  commons  in  matters  of  pleasure.  Is   this  because  our  Puritan  inheritance  makes  us  view  pleasure  as  something  of  a  sin,  and  pain  (that  is,  the   pollution  of  advertising)  as  the  sign  of  virtue?     Every  new  enclosure  of  the  commons  involves  the  infringement  of  somebody's  personal  liberty.   Infringements  made  in  the  distant  past  are  accepted  because  no  contemporary  complains  of  a  loss.  It  is   the  newly  proposed  infringements  that  we  vigorously  oppose;  cries  of  "rights"  and  "freedom"  fill  the  air.   But  what  does  "freedom"  mean?  When  men  mutually  agreed  to  pass  laws  against  robbing,  mankind   became  more  free,  not  less  so.  Individuals  locked  into  the  logic  of  the  commons  are  free  only  to  bring  on   universal  ruin;  once  they  see  the  necessity  of  mutual  coercion,  they  become  free  to  pursue  other  goals.  I   believe  it  was  Hegel  who  said,  "Freedom  is  the  recognition  of  necessity."     The  most  important  aspect  of  necessity  that  we  must  now  recognize,  is  the  necessity  of  abandoning  the   commons  in  breeding.  No  technical  solution  can  rescue  us  from  the  misery  of  overpopulation.  Freedom   to  breed  will  bring  ruin  to  all.  At  the  moment,  to  avoid  hard  decisions  many  of  us  are  tempted  to   propagandize  for  conscience  and  responsible  parenthood.  The  temptation  must  be  resisted,  because  an   appeal  to  independently  acting  consciences  selects  for  the  disappearance  of  all  conscience  in  the  long   run,  and  an  increase  in  anxiety  in  the  short.     The  only  way  we  can  preserve  and  nurture  other  and  more  precious  freedoms  is  by  relinquishing  the   freedom  to  breed,  and  that  very  soon.  "Freedom  is  the  recognition  of  necessity"-­‐-­‐and  it  is  the  role  of   education  to  reveal  to  all  the  necessity  of  abandoning  the  freedom  to  breed.  Only  so,  can  we  put  an  end   to  this  aspect  of  the  tragedy  of  the  commons.     References   1.  J.  B.  Wiesner  and  H.  F.  York,  Sci.  Amer.  211  (No.  4).  27  (1964).     2.  G.  Hardin,  J.  Hered.  50,  68  (1959);  S.  von  Hoernor,  Science  137,  18  (1962).     3.  J.  von  Neumann  and  O.  Morgenstern,  Theory  of  Games  and  Economic  Behavior  (Princeton  Univ.  Press,  Princeton,  N.J.,  1947),  p.  11.     4.  J.  H.  Fremlin.  New  Sci.,  No.  415  (1964),  p.  285.     5.  A.  Smith,  The  Wealth  of  Nations  (Modern  Library,  New  York,  1937),  p.  423.     6.  W.  F.  Lloyd,  Two  Lectures  on  the  Checks  to  Population  (Oxford  Univ.  Press,  Oxford,  England,  1833),  reprinted  (in  part)  in  Population,  Evolution,   and  Birth  Control,  G.  Hardin.  Ed.  (Freeman,  San  Francisco,  1964),  p.  37.     7.  A.  N.  Whitehead,  Science  and  the  Modern  World  (Mentor,  New  York,  1948),  p.  17.     8.  G.  Hardin,  Ed.  Population,  Evolution.  and  Birth  Control  (Freeman,  San  Francisco,  1964).  p.  56.     9.  S.  McVay,  Sci.  Amer.  216  (No.  8),  13  (1966).     10.  J.  Fletcher,  Situation  Ethics  (Westminster,  Philadelphia,  1966).     11.  D.  Lack,  The  Natural  Regulation  of  Animal  Numbers  (Clarendon  Press,  Oxford,  1954).     12.  H.  Girvetz,  From  Wealth  to  Welfare  (Stanford  Univ.  Press.  Stanford,  Calif.,  1950).     13.  G.  Hardin,  Perspec.  Biol.  Med.  6,  366  (1963).     14.  U.  Thant,  Int.  Planned  Parenthood  News,  No.168  (February  1968),  p.  3.     15.  K.  Davis,  Science  158,  730  (1967).     16.  S.  Tax,  Ed.,  Evolution  after  Darwin  (Univ.  of  Chicago  Press,  Chicago,  1960),  vol.  2,  p.  469.     17.  G.  Bateson,  D.  D.  Jackson,  J.  Haley,  J.  Weakland,  Behav.  Sci.  1.  251  (1956).     18.  P.  Goodman,  New  York  Rev.  Books  10(8),  22  (23  May  1968).     19.  A.  Comfort,  The  Anxiety  Makers  (Nelson,  London,  1967).     20.  C.  Frankel,  The  Case  for  Modern  Man  (Harper,  New  York,  1955),  p.  203.     21.  J.  D.  Roslansky,  Genetics  and  the  Future  of  Man  (Appleton-­‐Century-­‐Crofts,  New  York,  1966).  p.  177.               Transnational Challenges 251 Chapter 8 Transnational Challenges The State System Under Stress ray world politics has been about the competitive struggle among states, especially In the Cold War era and, indeed, throughout much of the past several centuries, the great powers, to acquire land, people, wealth, and influence. Security and survival were determined largely by one's success, often through military means, in capturing those valuable assets more effectively than other states. In the view of many scholars, however, the twenty-first century is presenting new kinds of challenges that come not from the armies of other states but from an ar- problems, including environmental pollution, illegal immigration, infectious y of transnational (or what Maryann Cusimano aptly labels "transsovereign") diseases, drug smuggling, and terrorism. These challenges play havoc with the idea of state sovereignty and, by implication, with the realist understanding of how the world works. That is a view that liberals, constructivists, feminists, and neo-Marxists would tend to share. For realist scholars such as Stephen Krasner, however, these issues threaten neither the sovereignty of the state nor the traditional realist understanding unique, and states continue to have the resourcefulness to respond to them. States, he notes, have a "keen instinct for survival," and, thus, "those who pro- claim the death of sovereignty misread history.". It thereby follows that as long as we continue to organize human societies within the institution of the state, concern over national security and the state's relative power will remain the driving force in international life. The range of global issues over which this debate can be waged is extensive. For the purposes of this chapter, three issues will be addressed as representa- tive of the debate. They are the global environment, global health and disease, and the flow of information over the Internet. In each case, we will first describe the challenge posed and will then assess how well sovereign states are dealing with the problem. This analysis will provide you with both an understanding of each issue and an appreciation of how you might view these issues within the debate over how the world works. First, however, we will examine the theoreti- cal issues at stake. Canadian icebreaker in Arctic waters. Climate change is opening up Arctic waters to commercial shipping and military vessels of countries competing to claim the resources of the region. Will cooperative solutions to climate change and Artic management be found, or will tension and conflict over those challenges prevail? What would the various IR paradigms predict? Learning Objectives 8-1 Compare and contrast the concepts of national security and human security From National Security to Human Security 8-1 Compare and contrast the concepts of national security and human 8-2 Explain how transnational environmental problems pose a challenge to sovereign states, and assess how states cope with that challenge in the three response scenarios discussed in this section. 8-3 Explain how infectious diseases challenge the essence of the state system, and discuss how globalization has contributed to that challenge. 8-4 Explain how the Internet poses a threat to state sovereignty, and assess the ability of states to respond to that threat. security. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool realist would likely acknowledge the reality of global problems such as pollution, infectious disease, or international criminal organizations and would accept the need for remedial action in response. To be a realist does not require one to be indifferent to global warming or the spread of a disease such as AIDS. The differences between realists and their critics relate 250 252 Chapter 8 Transnational Challenges 253 Figure 8.1 Two Approaches to Security National Security Key Actors Human Security Sovereign States Individuals, Nonstate Actors, and States Goals Protection of State Interests Protection of Individual Human Rights and Interests Source of Threat to Goals Other States Environment, Disease, Crime, Poverty, War Response to Threats Self-Help; Military Power Global Cooperation; Nonmilitary Instruments to whether they believe these problems require rethinking certain fundamental assumptions about how the world works. First, in the realist view, the main threats and challenges faced by states emanate from other states in particular, the threat posed by the use, or poten- tial use, of military power. However, as scholars like Cusimano argue, the new global challenges like pollution and AIDS neither emanate from other states nor are military in character. They result from the actions of an array of nonstate actors pursuing their individual or organizational interests. These new transna- tional forces pay little heed to state interests or boundaries, and if recent world trends are any indication, it may be harder for a state to defend its borders from these challenges than from foreign armies. Second, the traditional realist approach to defending the national interest has been self-help, specifically, the accumulation of military power. However, critics suggest that individual states acting alone cannot adequately respond to these new threats, as they mock the notion of the sovereign border and require cooperative, global responses that extend far beyond self-help. As for military power, it seems largely irrelevant to problems such as environmental degrada- tion or infectious disease. Third, the main goals of statecraft and foreign policy have traditionally been defense of sovereignty and the promotion of national security. However, to critics of realism, these new transnational challenges suggest a need not only to sacrifice some national sovereignty but also to think beyond national security to a more inclusive notion of human security. This new concept focuses on the security of individual humans facing a wide range of political, military, eco- nomic, and environmental threats, not all of which directly emanate from other states (see Figure 8.1). The idea of human security achieved prominence in 1994, when it emerged as the central organizing theme of that year's United Nations Human Development Report. The report argued that the traditional notion of security interpreted "as security of territory from external aggression or as protection of national interests in foreign policy" is too narrow, as it overlooks "the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives" from threats such as crime, hunger, disease, and environmental hazards. 3 Skeptics have suggested that this idea of human security, encompassing as it does such a diverse range of problems, is too broad and vague to be useful either to international relations theorists or to policy-makers. However, to the extent that "human security” refers to more than a list of global problems but is also intended, as suggested above, as a new way to think about the essential nature of world politics, it presents a theoretical challenge to realism and a new perspective on how the world works. In examining the issues of the environ- ment, disease, and the Internet in the following pages, these theoretical issues can be more clearly illustrated. human security View of security emphasizing protec- tion of individu- als from political, military, economic, and environmental threats; challenges the idea of 'national security" as too state- centric. The Global Environment 8-2 Explain how transnational environmental problems pose a challenge to sovereign states, and assess how states cope with that challenge in the three response scenarios discussed in this section. In 1798 an English scholar by the name of Thomas Malthus penned his influen- tial “An Essay on the Principle of Population." Malthus argued that the supply of food would not be able to keep up with growth in population and that only moral constraint limiting reproduction, combined with human disasters such as war, disease, and famine, would keep population growth in check. Today the Malthusian label can be loosely attached to those who argue that we live in Malthusian a world of finite resources and limits to growth. Jettisoning Malthus's specific One influenced by predictions and time lines, these contemporary Malthusians make two interre- lated points: (1) growing demand for the earth's finite resources-energy, miner- supply of food would als, fresh water-is raising serious questions about future availability of those degrading the quality of the earth's environment by distinguishing four different types of goods that people regularly consume: private goods, public goods, common pool resources, and club goods. four types of goods are distinguished from one another along two different Thomas Malthus not be able to keep up with the world porary Malthusians argue that we live a resources and that there are limits to growth. Those 254 Chapter 8 Transnational Challenges 255 we will focus on two central and interrelated issues: Figure 8.2 Four Types of Goods is rooted in finding ways to avoid the tragedy of the commons and the free-rider problem characteristic of common pool resources and global public goods. To illustrate that challenge, energy and climate change. The discussion of those issues will then be followed examination of approaches to coping with the challenge presented. Are the Malthusians right, or is their pessimism overstated? Excludable Non-Excludable Private Good Common Pool Resource by an Rival (food, clothing, cars) (fisheries, well water) The Energy Challenge Club Good on reliable sources of energy. Since the beginning of the industrial tions, depend tion of Public Good Non-Rival (cable TV) (Wikipedia, public radio) public good A good or service whose benefits are freely available to all without possibility of exclusion and whose dimensions. First, are they excludable—that is, is it possible or not to exclude consumption by one people from consuming the good in question? Second, are they rival—that is, individual does not limit the ability of does one person's consumption of that good limit the ability of others to enjoy others to consume its use? that same good or Figure 8.2 illustrates these distinctions. A private good (e.g., a pizza) is both service. excludable and rival. People unwilling to pay can be excluded from eating a free-rider problem pizza, and a pizza is rival since my consumption of a slice means that slice is The tendency of not available for others to eat. The opposite of a private good is a public good, individuals or which is both non-excludable and non-rival. A good example is Wikipedia. organizations to fail to contribute to the Whether or not you contribute to one of Wikipedia's periodic fundraising cam- production of a public paigns, you can continue to use the product, and your use of it does not limit good or service, since those who do not anyone else's ability to do so. Such public goods are susceptible to the free-rider contribute can con- problem, whereby some benefit, without contribution, from the efforts of others. tinue to benefit from that good or service. The two other types of goods are a club good, which is excludable but non-rival (e.g., cable TV), and a common pool resource, which is rival but not excludable common pool (e.g., ocean fisheries). Common pool resources are susceptible to what ecolo- A good or service gist Garrett Hardin termed the tragedy of the commons, in which a commonly which is not exclud- available resource like a fishery is abused, exploited, and overused without any- able but whose one feeling a responsibility to protect it. 4 supply is finite, thus causing one person's Global environmental politics is all about common pool resources and pub- consumption to limit lic goods. For example, ocean fisheries or oil deposits in international waters the ability of others to consume it. are good examples of common pool resources (non-excludable but rival). To the extent that most natural resources are finite and rival, one might argue that tragedy of the com- they generally can be considered common pool resources. At the same time, the Concept popularized concept of a “global public good" has been increasingly utilized over the past by ecologist Garrett decade or so to refer to things like a clean environment or the eradication of Hardin, in which infectious diseases. According to the World Health Organization: "Public goods a common pool resource is exploited become global ... in nature when the benefits flow to more than one country and without anyone feel- ing a responsibility to no country can effectively be denied access to those benefits."5 Countries can protect it. free-ride just as individuals do. Thus, the central global environmental challenge growth and human well-being than energy. All aspects of human activity, Of all the world's scarce resources, none is more fundamental to economic including food production, manufacturing, transportation, and communica- age, human economic activity has heavily depended for its energy needs on fos- sil fuels-coal, natural gas, and petroleum. While coal originally was the most important of the three, government and industry turned increasingly to petro- coal, oil was easier to transport, often cheaper, and it burned cleaner, thereby releasing fewer harmful toxins into the atmosphere. The rise of the automobile petroleum, rapidly increased dependence on oil; by the last decades of the twentieth century, oil had become the lifeblood of all developed economies and crucial for all others seeking to develop. The challenge for the twenty-first century is satisfying a rapidly increasing global demand for energy. According to US government data, global consump- energy almost doubled between 1980 and 2012, and if you exclude the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan, consumption in the rest of the world over that same period increased 450 percent. Rapid economic growth in China and other developing countries is fueling the bulk of the increase in global energy demand. Between 1980 and 2012, Chinese energy consumption increased 600 percent, and in 2012 China was the world's largest energy user accounting for about 20 percent of global energy consumption At the same time that demand is increasing, some contemporary Malthusians worry about the future supply of energy, especially oil. In recent years, some experts have suggested that the world is approaching peak peak oil The point at which oil, the point when global oil production reaches its peak and then starts the global production of oil peaks and then to decline. While that decline is expected to be gradual, it would signal a turning point in the global energy economy that could set off a speculative starts to decline. panic and a rise in oil prices even beyond what the supply and demand situ- ation would anticipate . Though some have predicted that peak oil will occur by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), an agency of the US govern- ment, has suggested that the peak would not occur until the middle of the century. resource mons within a matter of years, a major study of world energy resources conducted 256 Chapter 8 Transnational Challenges 257 about peak The Climate Change Challenge intriguing conversation with his In 1995, US President Bill Clinton had an Chinese counterpart, Jiang Zemin. In an interview with New York Times colum- nist Thomas Friedman, Clinton noted that the Chinese president asked about US attitudes and intentions toward China. Clinton surprised the Chinese presi- dent in noting that the greatest security concern posed by China to the United States had little to do with Chinese military power or policy toward Taiwan, but, instead, that the Chinese people "will want to get rich in exactly the same way got rich." Clinton went on to talk about the impact of more than one billion Chinese driving cars and emitting greenhouse gases on a scale matching that of individual Americans, and he suggested that would lead to environmental we catastrophe. 11 since that conversation, concern over the environmental chal- In the years 10 climate change nation of the two. worry Declining global oil prices in 2014 cooled some of the oil, with many observers pointing to new technologies like fracking as the antidote to Malthusian pessimism. Yet even under the more optimistic sce- narios, a continuing source of concern is the location of many of the world's most prolific oil fields in politically unstable regions. A 2014 report from the US Energy Information Administration, while noting that world supplies of oil should be adequate for at least the next 25 years, also notes that such pro- jections are uncertain and assume the absence of geopolitical events capable of undercutting supply. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, eight states in the politically volatile Persian Gulf/North African region (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria) accounted for approximately 69 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil. Add to that the 7.4 percent of proven world reserves found in Russia and sev- eral unstable former Soviet states along the Caspian Sea, and another 7.4 per- cent in Venezuela and one ends up with over 80 percent of global oil reserves in places where it is not hard to imagine politically generated disruptions of supply. In fact, much recent volatility in world oil supplies and prices has been rooted in political causes. In the mid-1970s the first of the great oil shocks to Organization of hit the global economy was due to the effectiveness of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in artificially raising the global price Countries (OPEC) Cartel of oil-producing of oil. Composed largely of Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf oil states, OPEC states, many located established production quotas for its member states that limited the amount of in the Middle East oil produced, reduced the global supply of oil available for export, and thereby and Persian Gulf, who through the establish- raised both the price of oil and the revenues of oil-exporting countries. In 1979 ment of production the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan combined with the Iranian Revolution, which quotas for member states seek to control replaced the US-backed shah of Iran with an Islamic fundamentalist regime, led the global supply and to a second politically inspired oil shock. By the end of the decade, a barrel of price of oil. Persian Gulf oil, available for a couple of dollars at the beginning of the 1970s, hovered in the 40 dollar range. In the early years of the twenty-first century, a combination of economic, political, and geological factors once again focused global attention on oil sup- plies and prices. The sustained growth in the Chinese thirst for oil continued to put long-term pressure on global oil supplies and prices. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the subsequent war on terror launched by the Bush administration, and the war in Iraq together reminded the world of how much it depended for the bulk of its oil on the politically unstable Middle East and Persian Gulf region. And the April 2010 explosion of British Petroleum's ultra- deepwater offshore drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, and the subsequent disas- trous oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico led some to suggest that even if we are not in an era of "peak oil," it is an era of "tough oil" as the search for new supplies will necessitate drilling in less accessible and more environmentally fragile locations. An increase in the average temperature ties, or some combi- nation of the two. lenge posed by fossil fuel emissions and their impact both on air quality and cli- mate change has grown more intense. Since most scientists believe that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change, any solution to the energy challenge An extended altera- that is based on finding and using more oil, gas, or coal will likely exacerbate tion in Earth's climate this problem. Climate change refers to any extended alteration in Earth's climate pro- ties, or some combi- factors, human activi- duced by natural factors, human activities, or some combination of the two. Currently, the central climate change concern is global warming—the increase global warming in the average temperature of Earth's lower atmosphere. Experts disagree on specific dimensions of the challenge: how much warming we might anticipate , of Earth's atmospher how severe the consequences might be, and what the time line is for all these produced by natural developments. However, widespread consensus exists among climate scientists factors, human activ on certain basic questions. First, most scientists agree that the Earth is warming. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes that from 1901 to 2013, the surface temperature of Earth has increased at an average rate of 0.15°F per decade a total increase in temperature over that period of roughly 1.65°F—and that 2001-2010 was the warmest decade on record since thermometer-based observations began. Furthermore, the EPA expects the pace of warming in the twenty-first century to accelerate, with average global temperature increasing another 2-11.5°F by 2100, depending on the pace of greenhouse gas emissions and the climate projection model utilized. In 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 13 Change (IPCC) established by the United Nations confirmed the assessment that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," that "each of the last three decade since 1850," and that "in the Northern Hemisphere, 1983-2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years." Second, the scientific consensus is that this global warming cannot be explained entirely by natural factors. This view was confirmed by the IPCC, which suggests both that it is "extremely likely" that over half of the observed increase in 12 *14 Transnational Challenges 259 258 Chapter 8 the price of oil in the United States; new coal-fired plants being built in China at a rate of one per week will increase the emissions of greenhouse gases that may nullify European Union efforts to combat global warming. In 2006 an "Asian brown cloud" produced largely by Chinese pollution drifted over the Korean Peninsula before making its way across the Pacific Ocean. Using a US satellite to track the cloud as it made its way over US territory, scientists detected a rise in dangerous pollutants associated with cancer, heart disease, and respiratory ailments. One scientist found that filters deployed to measure pollution in the mountains of eastern California were "the darkest that we've seen" outside and performance of athletes participating in the Beijing Olympics. While air quality during the games was the best Beijing had experienced in years, that many 5 only because the Chinese government had temporarily closed tories and placed restrictions on automobiles in the weeks preceding the start of the games. In 2012, a new study suggested that the annual drifting of the Asian brown cloud to the United States could warm the United States by 0.4°C 18 In 2008 concerns ran high that pollution would harm the health urban areas. was fac- (0.72°F) by 2024.19 16 surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was anthropogenic (human generated) and that the evidence of the anthropogenic sources of climate change has increased over time.15 The major human contributions to global warming come from burn- ing fossil fuels and from deforestation. Burning fossil fuels in cars, homes, and businesses emits carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in our atmosphere. While some quantity of such gases is natural and, indeed, essential to keep Earth warm enough for human survival, over the past two cen- turies the Industrial Revolution has produced a rapid increase in the presence of such gases. This trend has been further exacerbated by deforestation, which has reduced the presence of trees and other plant life that absorb carbon dioxide. Third, there is concern that climate change, if unabated, will have costly effects on human health and life. For example, warming is already melting glaciers and polar ice caps, which in turn leads to rising sea levels and poten- tial flooding and permanent submersion of coastal territories. Global warming could also shift patterns of human agriculture, bringing longer growing seasons to some locations but excessive heat and drought to others. Warming can also impact the spread of climate-sensitive diseases, especially those spread via insects, as it can extend the geographic range of disease transmission as well as the duration of disease transmission seasons. Some see these effects as poten- tially catastrophic, while others caution against exaggeration and hysteria, but almost all scientific observers believe that significant potential exists for harmful effects if global warming is left unchecked. This climate change consensus came under attack in late 2009 when hun- dreds of private e-mail messages and scientific documents on the server of a prominent British university were unearthed by computer hackers. The e-mails discussed tactics for combating climate change skeptics, derisive comments about those critics, and, perhaps most damning, discussion of how to engage in statistical “tricks” to hide some recent evidence of a decline in temperatures. 17 While some have argued that the e-mails provide cause to seriously undermine the prevailing climate change orthodoxy, others, indeed the vast majority of scientists, have argued that notwithstanding the questionable behavior of a few of their colleagues, the evidence remains overwhelming that the climate change threat is both real and serious. While oil shortages and climate change are perhaps the most dramatic and widely discussed resource and environmental threats facing Earth and its human inhabitants, they are not the only such challenges we face. On the resource front, some observers expect that in parts of the world, shortages of water may soon rival shortages of energy as a reason for concern. On the pol- lution front, smog, degradation of lakes and streams, and acid rain, though lacking the drama of global climate change, also have significant adverse health, economic, and quality-of-life consequences. Most important, what all these environmental challenges share is a disre- gard for sovereign borders. Pollution from factories in Detroit produces acid rain across the border in Canada; increased energy consumption in India raises Responses to the Challenge: Three Scenarios Experts have imagined a wide range of possible responses to the myriad and often interlinked global environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. However, most scenarios fall into one of three broad categories: (1) geopolitical conflict, (2) markets and technology to the rescue, or (3) effective global regula- tion. While many observers might emphasize the greater likelihood of one out- come over the others, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. GLOBAL CONFLICT The realist paradigm does not, of course, offer any opinion on the relative scarcity or abundance of a resource such as petroleum or on the causes or severity of global climate change. What realism does con- tribute to the discussion is an expectation that states will attempt to respond to these challenges by putting their own interests first even if, as is likely, that comes at the expense of other states. Thus, realists see global environmental problems as yet another potential source of international tension and conflict. The most immediate source of that conflict is likely to be competition for scarce resources. Geopolitical conflict over resources is hardly a novel development. Japan's surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was intended to preempt a US naval response to seizure of oil fields in Southeast Asia. Iraq's August 1990 attack on Kuwait aimed at control over the rich Kuwaiti oil fields and the revenues they generate. The US-led global military coalition that evicted Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Persian Gulf War sought to ensure that Saddam Hussein did not seize control of Persian Gulf oil. The United States is not the only outside power with a vital stake in access to global oil supplies and other important resources. Japan, the European
Purchase answer to see full attachment