Content Listing

Summary

The Setting

In the previous chapter, we reviewed some of the evidence for a specific kind of structural relationship as the basis for the form of English sentences. The fact that neither meaning nor simple linear order can account for certain well-attested syntactic patterns led us to consider a more abstract relationship – structural constituency – as a possible source for these patterns. Displacement and replacement emerged as ‘gold standard’ probes for what turns out to be a hierarchical structure, in which words combine into syntactic units and such units in turn combine into still larger units, corresponding ultimately to the whole sentence. Phrase structure trees were introduced as a convenient graphic representation of this hierarchical mode of organization, and a systematic and workmanlike procedure was demonstrated to guide the reader in constructing arguments for structural analyses of any given sentence.

Having argued for the existence of phrase structure, we now turn to the question of its origins. What determines the class of trees that correspond in English (or in any other human language) to exactly the set of sentences constituting that language? One often sees arguments to the effect that the familiar fact of speakers being able to distinguish sentences of their languages, regardless of length, from nonsentences using the same set of vocabulary, means that whatever it is that corresponds to that knowledge must be finite (since it models a cognitive ability which is itself necessarily finite) but with no specified upper limit on the number of separate structures, and therefore word strings, that it can define as well-formed. Putting it quite roughly, our knowledge of language points to some kind of formal system with a finite set of components but no inherent limit on the size of its output. But this line of reasoning asserts an identity between a theory of the sentences of a language and our knowledge of those sentences, which is quite problematic (after all, a theory of the integers is going to look quite different from a psychologically plausible theory of our ability to count and carry out arithmetic operations).

Summary

This chapter introduces the large and complex cast of characters active across different sites and modes of global environmental politics (GEP) and governance. We examine five types of actors: nation-states; international organizations; the global environmental movement; the corporate sector; and experts. The latter three groups are often referred to collectively as “non-state actors,” but they differ significantly from each other. We look at each group's participants, how they engage in GEP and global environmental governance (GEG), and the critical questions around their participation in and influence on the politics of the global environment.

The roles these groups of actors play in GEG and GEP has changed significantly over time and across issue areas, partly because of changing governance structures and opportunities to participate but also because of entrepreneurialism on the part of the actors themselves. In the case of the dominant mode of international environmental diplomacy, states take the lead, with non-state actors in supporting roles. For non-state modes of governance, their roles are reversed. Across the modes and sites of GEG we examine in this book, there is also strong variation in how groups of actors interact with each other. For example, civil society actors, including environmental groups, have been far more confrontational in dealing with international economic institutions than in their engagement in international environmental cooperation, employing tactics from repertoires of contentious politics.

In turn, these observations raise questions of influence and agency. Does wider participation in GEG signal greater influence on the part of non-traditional actors, or is it still the case that states and their representatives wield the most power in governance decisions? Within actor groups, are some more influential than others? For example, are certain types of expertise, and therefore experts, more privileged than others in international environmental politics (IEP)? As we proceed in later chapters to discuss different sites and modes of GEG, these questions remain front and center.

Nation-States and Global Environmental Politics

Nation-states, or, more accurately, their governments, are the primary actors in the international system: the only actors with decision-making authority under international law.

Summary

This chapter examines the emergence of market mechanisms as new modes of global environmental governance (GEG). As tools of governance, market mechanisms create or correct markets for environmental “goods” such as avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or ecosystem services. Actions to create prices and markets for environmental goods or services create incentives for actors to conserve or use them sustainably, hence steering toward better outcomes. From relatively abstract beginnings in economic theory, market mechanisms first took hold in domestic environmental policies of developed countries, and have now gained traction at the global level. Carbon markets and taxes, emissions-trading schemes (ETSs), payment for ecosystem services: all these terms are now commonplace, and are reflected in the activities of expansive networks of NGO and corporate organizations, private market exchanges, and national and intergovernmental organization (IGO) agencies and funds. They have displaced command and control modes of governance across large-scale and complex issues, particularly deforestation, biodiversity and climate change, both within and outside of state-led governance regimes, and have cropped up in unlikely places, such as the People's Republic of China, which launched its own ETS in 2013.

Studying market mechanisms as new modes of GEG generates significant insights into how modern global governance is changing, and how new ideas and interests are injected into these political processes. They are part of the growing fragmentation and hybridity of twenty-first-century GEG. While market mechanisms emerged suddenly and diffused quickly across regulatory jurisdictions, political science (including international relations) analysis of their emergence and impact has lagged considerably. This chapter represents one attempt to redress this, focusing on governance and political implications of global market mechanisms in relevant governance regimes. States and IGOs remain central through most of this chapter. Private market mechanisms do exist (and we discuss them as they come up), but the impetus and infrastructural support for creating prices and markets for carbon and ecosystem services tends to come from government coffers.

Markets are human-constructed institutions, not a natural logic of economic organization. While they are powerful tools for changing behavior, they are highly fallible. One of the major contributions of a political-science-based analysis of market mechanisms is in understanding why, in fact, market mechanisms in GEG have been far less successful than their advocates expected, but persist as governance institutions.

Summary

Introduction: The Problem, and a Possible Solution

Natural Language Data

Linguists appear to be in an enviable position among scientific disciplines. The lifeblood of science is data, and unlike, say, glaciologists, who can only collect primary material for their research in remote and generally rather inhospitable parts of the planet, or particle physicists, who require access to massive, extremely expensive, and sometimes erratic machines – with demand for access to such machines far exceeding supply – linguists are literally surrounded by the kind of data that make up the target of their investigations. It's true that field linguists need informants at a considerable distance from where they themselves live, and experimental linguists often need laboratories with elaborate and sophisticated equipment. But for syntacticians – linguists who investigate the structure of sentences, a large fraction of whom (possibly a majority) study sentences in their own respective languages – matters are as convenient as they could possibly be. Syntacticians have intuitive access to all of the sentences made available by their own knowledge of their language, as well as the speech (and reactions) of their fellows in constant use around them, and ready-made corpora in the form of written materials and electronic records, many of which are available for searches based on word sequences (Google, for example, is a valuable source of data for both syntacticians and morphologists). Learning how to take advantage of this vast pool of readily available data is a major component of syntacticians’ training.

In a sense, of course, the true data of syntax are not strings of words themselves, but judgments about the status of those strings of words. The syntactician's primary responsibility is to give an account of how it is that certain strings of words have the status of sentences, while other do not, and still others have a kind of shadowy intermediate status – not bad enough to be outright rubbish, but not good enough to pass completely unnoticed in conversation as utterly and tediously normal. For example, consider the status of the three word strings in (1):

Summary

The most significant way that the international community has sought to govern the global environment is through cooperation among nation-states, creating multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and international regimes. Some counts put the number of MEAs at more than 400, many of which have come into being since 1972. This chapter introduces this state-led model of global environmental governance (GEG), its basic rules and principles, and the driving forces behind it. In so doing, we address a question that underlies the study of global environmental negotiations: Who, or what, shapes the negotiating outcomes we see in this system, and how?

Studying international environmental cooperation provides insights into exactly how nation-states succeed or fail to work together to address complex transboundary and global problems. International environmental negotiations have been fraught with difficulties, and conflicts of national interests, values, and priorities. These clashes have often led to compromises that have disappointed many. Environmental negotiations are, however, often remarkable for examples of political entrepreneurship, creative compromises, and last-minute solutions. They have attracted attention and participation from a wide range of actors, not only states and their representatives, but also scientists, activists, and business leaders. Despite frustrations and failures that have afflicted some recent negotiations, James Rosenau's description of global governance efforts being “marked less by despair over the past and present than by hope for the future” still resonates (Rosenau 1995, p. 21).

International relations theories of state-led bargaining and cooperation under anarchy have provided important insights into the complex factors that shape negotiation outcomes and regime formation. At the same time, the study of international environmental cooperation has brought to the fore important dimensions of these processes that had hitherto been less visible in this field of study, but have gained in importance across most, if not all, types of global governance regime in recent years. In later sections of this chapter we examine the growing influence of the South in global governance, the role of scientific and technological expertise, and increasing demands for participation by non-state actors, notably civil society and corporate-sector actors. We finish by examining critiques of the state-led system of GEG, while noting the important changes that have happened or been instituted within this system. We begin with a description of the major building blocks of state-led GEG, and the formal (and informal) processes of international law and negotiation that lead to their creation.

Summary

In October 1993, 130 representatives from 26 countries met in Toronto, Canada, to inaugurate a governance regime designed to protect the world's forests. Participants agreed on ten principles for sustainable forest management, from controlling harvests to ensure steady timber yields over time, to protecting fragile ecosystems, to protecting the rights of local forest-dwellers. The implementation of these principles would not be cost-free, and monitoring compliance hard to achieve. Nonetheless, participants agreed that this program represented a significant step forward in global forest conservation, while still allowing forest owners to benefit economically.

This governance institution – the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – now covers over 180 million hectares of forest across eighty-one countries, according to 2015 data. In some ways it looks like the intergovernmental regimes we have examined in previous chapters. In others it is very different. First, none of the participants at the Toronto meeting were government representatives. Instead, the driving force behind the establishment of the FSC was a coalition of NGOs, forest owners and timber companies, and forest-dwelling communities, led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a leading international NGO. Second, FSC achieves its goals through the transmission of information and the power of the market. If a timber-producing firm signs up to its standards, it agrees to allow an independent auditor to certify its compliance with FSC's principles. If it qualifies, the firm can then affix an eco-label to its products, which tells purchasers and consumers further down the supply chain that the wood they are buying was grown and harvested sustainably. Purchasers can then signal their support for these measures by buying products with the FSC logo – often at a significant price premium, providing an additional incentive for firms to participate in this governance initiative.

The recognition of failures across current state-led efforts to regulate environmental problems has encouraged the decentralization and diversification of traditional sites and modes of governance, shifting regulatory action to markets and to the non-state sector. In Chapter 6 we saw how economic globalization has at best complicated and at worst harmed the state of the global environment.

Summary

There is a vast literature on all of the topics discussed in the past seven chapters, much of it demanding a deeper technical background than I'm assuming for people using this textbook. The following sources should, however, be largely accessible to readers who've worked their way through all of the preceding material. The bibliographies of these sources will then offer further routes to still more advanced material. Full bibliographic details on all of these suggested readings are included in the list of references at the end of this volume.

Chapter 1

The material covered in the first chapter, which is intended to assist the reader in developing a sense of the critical patterns in data from the point of view of syntacticians, is more or less standard in syntax textbooks; a particularly nice example is Robert Borsley's Syntactic Theory (1993). But probably the most comprehensive explanation of what syntacticians are really after, and how they structure their inquiries to lead to the kind of elegant, far-reaching generalizations that constitute the Holy Grail of linguistics, is to be found in Andrew Radford's Transformational Grammar: A First Course (1988).

Chapter 2

The primary technical tools in this chapter are the decomposition of category labels into highly structured complex symbols utilizing feature names and values supplied for those names, and statements of constraints, using the format of context-free phrase structure rules, on the form of possible two-generation trees in terms of feature identities which must be satisfied in order for a given tree to be legal.

The treatment of categories as complex symbols was first introduced into theoretical discourse very early in an important but generally neglected paper by Gilbert Harman (1963), which provoked a rather hostile response by Chomsky (1964), who subsequently reintroduced the use of features without reference to Harman's prior work, first at the level of lexical categories (1965) and subsequently at the phrasal level (Chomsky 1970: 207–208), where the resistance to such treatment is attributed to the American structuralists of the 1940s and 1950s – despite the fact that the decomposition of phrasal categories into a category type and level of phrasal complexity, which anticipated Chomsky's own use of complex symbols in his 1970 paper, was first proposed by just such an American structuralist, Zelig Harris, in work published in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Summary

Nothing moves without a mover.

ISAAC NEWTON

TECHNICAL NOTES - Ethics

The electrical engineering curriculum in most accredited engineering schools in this country is so crowded that there is no room for courses such as engineering ethics, economics, or law. Part of the problem is that most engineering professors are not prepared to introduce engineering ethics into their classrooms.

The days when an engineer's only ethical commitment was loyalty to his or her employer have long passed. Society in general tends to hold the engineering profession to an elevated standard and expects practicing engineers to perform on a higher ethical plane. Society holds engineers accountable for their actions. And for engineers, the implications are inescapable.

As members of the engineering profession, engineers are expected to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and integrity. Engineering has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for all people. Engineers must perform under a standard of professional behavior that requires adherence to the highest principles of ethical conduct. The ability to discern right from wrong in cases of apparent ethical dilemma is important. With ethics, there is frequently no absolute right answer, just a personal best answer. Ethics poses dilemmas, which force hard moral choices and cause us to deal with values.

Each professional engineering society has some form of ethical code. Here is a combination of some.

• Accept personal responsibility consistent with the safety, health, and welfare of the public.

• Conduct themselves responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession.

• Be guided in all relations by the highest standards of honesty and integrity.

• Reject bribery in all its forms.

• Perform professional services only in areas of your competence.

• Conform with state registration laws in the practice of engineering.

• Treat fairly all colleagues and co-workers regardless of their race, religion, gender, age, or national origin.

INTRODUCTION

So far in this book, we have been dealing with deterministic signals, i.e. signals which can be expressed explicitly so that they can be determined at all times. However, most of the signals we deal with in practice are random (unpredictable or erratic) and not deterministic. Random signals are encountered in one form or another in every practical communication system.

Summary

As with many other global issues – managing the global economy, protecting human rights, combating diseases such as Ebola and HIV/AIDS, controlling terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – global environmental problems are so complex and widespread that unilateral measures – measures undertaken by countries acting on their own initiative – are not enough. This is an interdependent world: even if a country the size of the USA acted to unilaterally reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by a significant amount, we would not forestall the impacts of climate change without other countries doing likewise.

Global problems are not new, but over the past decades they have increased in scale, scope, visibility, and complexity. The international community itself has changed as well. Membership of the UN has grown by 370 percent since 1945; NGOs, corporations, and expert groups are seeking a voice in international affairs, economic globalization has increased the complexity of global management, and new technology has vastly increased the speed and quantity of information traversing the globe. Many global problems are environmental in nature, or have environmental side effects.

This chapter explains how, and why, environmental change became a matter of global concern and political action in the late twentieth century. We examine ways to think about framing and comparing environmental issue areas, and how to find out more about global environmental trends. The first part of this chapter charts the globalization of environmental concern and action, focusing on awareness of the expanding scope and scale of environmental problems from the Industrial Revolution onwards, and the role of the environmental movement and the UN in transforming new knowledge and concern into political action at the international level. Second, we examine different types and examples of international environmental issues, how one might track them, and how they change over time. We focus specifically on how environmental problems are framed at the global level – generating distinct forms of political action. The third part shifts the analysis to global problems with strong environmental dimensions – such as population growth, consumption, and nuclear power – that are not addressed as environmental issues or by environmental agencies and organizations at the international level. Throughout, we examine how many of these issues are linked.

Summary

MATLAB has become a powerful tool of technical professionals worldwide. The term MATLAB is an abbreviation for MATrix LABoratory, implying that MATLAB is a computational tool that employes matrices and vectors/arrays to carry out numerical analysis, signal processing, and scientific visualization tasks. Because MATLAB uses matrices as its fundamental building blocks, one can write mathematical expressions involving matrices just as easily as one would on paper. MATLAB is available for Macintosh, Unix, and Windows operating systems. A student version of MATLAB is available for PCs. A copy of MATLAB can be obtained from:

The Mathworks, Inc.

3 Apple Hill Drive

Natick, MA 01760–2098, USA

Phone:(508) 647–7000

Website: http://www.mathworks.com

A brief introduction on MATLAB is presented in this Appendix. What is presented is sufficient for solving problems in this book. Other information on MATLAB required in this book is provided on a chapter-by-chapter basis as needed. Additional information about MATLAB can be found in MATLAB books and from online help. The best way to learn MATLAB is to work with it after one has learned the basics.

MATLAB FUNDAMENTALS

The Command window is the primary area where you interact with MATLAB. A little later, we will learn how to use the text editor to create M-files, which allow one to execute sequences of commands. For now, we focus on how to work in the Command window. We will first learn how to use MATLAB as a calculator. We do so by using the algebraic operators in Table B.1.

To begin to use MATLAB, we use these operators. Type commands at the MATLAB prompt “>>” in the Command window (correct any mistakes by backspacing) and press the <Enter> key. For example,

The first command assigns the values 2, 4, and −6 to the variables a, b, and c respectively. MATLAB does not respond because this line ends with a semicolon. The second command sets dat to b 2 − 4ac and MATLAB returns the answer as 64. Finally, the third line sets e equal to the square root of dat and divides by 10. MATLAB prints the answer as 0.8. The function sqrt is used here; other mathematical functions listed in Table B.2 can be used.

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A - Mathematical formulas

Frontmatter

2 - Syntactic Rules and Lexical Valence

Summary

2 - Signals and systems

Index

3 - Actors in Global Environmental Politics

Summary

8 - The Global Politics of Market Mechanisms

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1 - Syntactic Data, Patterns, and Structure

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4 - State-Led Global Environmental Governance

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5 - Pulse modulation and transmission

6 - The Limits of Valence: Topicalization

7 - Non-State Global Environmental Governance

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Index

Contents

Suggestions for Further Reading

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6 - Probability and random processes

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2 - Global Environmental Problems

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B - MATLAB

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