When considering public support for domestic policies that contribute to a global public good, such as climate change mitigation, the behavior of other countries is commonly regarded as pivotal. Using survey experiments in China and the United States we find that other countries’ behavior matters for public opinion, but in a contingent manner. When citizens learn that other countries decrease their emissions, this leads to support for further domestic action. Yet, support for reciprocal behavior is not a necessary consequence of other countries increasing their emissions. Responding in-kind to emissions increases abroad depends upon the home country’s past behavior and who the other country is. Our results imply that the international context remains important, despite global climate policy now relying more on coordinated unilateral action and polycentric governance. They also show, however, that we need to pay greater attention to contingent effects of countries’ positive and negative behavior in this area.

Do environmental implications of international trade influence public support for economic globalization? And under what conditions do environmental considerations shape individuals’ trade attitudes and policy preferences? In this study, we examine the microfoundations of the trade–environment nexus based on survey-embedded experiments in six OECD countries. Our empirical findings demonstrate that environmental implications have a substantial causal effect on public opinion about international trade. Furthermore, our results indicate that citizens are similarly sensitive to both domestic and international environmental implications of trade. These findings suggest that there is probably sufficient public support for green economy policies that take into account the global rather than only national environmental impacts from trade when designing trade policies.

Initiated in 2002, the International Environmental Agreements Data Base (IEADB) catalogs the texts, memberships, and design features of over 3,000 multilateral and bilateral environmental agreements. Using IEADB data, we create a comprehensive review of the evolution of international environmental law, including how the number, subjects, and state memberships in IEAs have changed over time. By providing IEA texts, the IEADB helps scholars identify and systematically code IEA design features. We review scholarship derived from the IEADB on international environmental governance, including insights into IEA membership, formation, and design as well as the deeper structure of international environmental law. We note the IEADB’s value as a teaching tool to promote undergraduate and graduate teaching and research. The IEADB’s structure and content opens up both broad research realms and specific research questions, and facilitates the ability of scholars to use the IEADB to answer those questions of greatest interest to them.

Many political leaders of the Global South oppose linkages between trade liberalization and environmental protection. We field-tested a combination of surveys and conjoint experiments in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Vietnam to examine whether citizens in developing countries share this position. The results show that citizens do not view economic integration and environmental protection as a trade-off. To the contrary, individuals with greener preferences are more supportive of trade liberalization. Furthermore, and in contrast to prevailing government rhetoric, the majority of citizens support environmental clauses in trade agreements. These findings suggest that there might be room for more ambitious efforts to include environmental standards in international trade agreements.

Civil society is commonly assumed to have a positive effect on international cooperation. This paper sheds light on one important facet of this assumption: we examine the impact of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on ratification behavior of countries vis-à-vis international environmental agreements (IEAs). The main argument of the paper focuses on a “democracy-civil society paradox”: although ENGOs have a positive effect on ratification of IEAs on average, this effect decreases with increasing levels of democracy. This argument is counter-intuitive and appears paradoxical because democracy is generally associated both with a more active civil society and more international cooperation. The reasons for this hypothesized effect pertain to public demand for environmental public goods provision, government incentives, and problems of collective action among ENGOs. To test the net effect of ENGOs on countries' ratification behavior, the paper uses a new dataset on ENGOs in the time-period 1973–2006. The results offer strong support for the presumed democracy–civil society paradox.