Bargaining over natural resources: Governments between environmental organizations and extraction firms

We consider the resource-extraction policy of a government that is lobbied by an environmental organization and an extraction firm from foreign countries. To analyze this situation, we propose a sequential Nash bargaining solution: The government bargains with both lobbies simultaneously. Should this trilateral negotiation fail, it chooses one lobby for a bilateral negotiation. The disagreement point then is to bargain with the other lobby. Finally, should this second bilateral negotiation break down, the government chooses the welfare-maximizing policy.As long as cumulative extraction is low, such that stock-dependent extraction costs are also low and extraction profits are high, the environmental organization has a weak bargaining position, but it takes influence to reduce extraction. Once that cumulative extraction has increased so much that extraction profits are below a threshold, the bargaining positions change, and the environmental organization gets compensated by the extraction firm for not letting the trilateral negotiation fail.     

Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements

We investigate the effect of domestic politics on international environmental policy by incorporating into a classic stage game of coalition formation the phenomenon of lobbying by special-interest groups. In doing so, we contribute to the theory of international environmental agreements, which has overwhelmingly assumed that governments make decisions based on a single set of public-interest motivations. Our results suggest that lobbying on emissions may affect the size of the stable coalition in counterintuitive ways. In particular, a powerful business lobby may increase the government's incentives to sign an agreement, by providing it with strong bargaining power with respect to that lobby at the emission stage. This would result in lower total emissions when the number of countries involved is not too large. We also show that things change radically when lobbying bears directly on the membership decisions, suggesting that both the object and timing of lobbying matter for the way in which membership decisions, emissions and welfare are affected.     

FORUM: The Converging Dynamics of Interest Representation in Resources Management

/ The role of the public in resource management has undergone aprofound transformation over the past two decades. Public input has evolvedfrom the enthusiasm for the widespread emergence public participation in theearly 1970s, through the realization of the relative effectiveness and costsof lobbying activities in the 1980s, to the emergence of environmentaldispute resolution (EDR) as a promising new alternative for the 1990s.Throughout this changing dynamic, there has been little attention tofundamental conception. This paper addresses this lack of conceptualization.A model of convergence is proposed to explain this transformation and as thebasis for an improved understanding of effective interest representationstrategies. The defining characteristics of lobbying, public participation,and environmental dispute resolution in resources management are outlinedrelative to the publics they involve, interest activity, organization,influence on policy, participatory features, and empowerment. Knowledge ofthese aspects will further aid in the identification and implementation ofeffective strategies to interest representation on a context-specific basis.KEY WORDS: Interest representation; Public participation; Disputeresolution; Lobbying; Resource management