The social bases of environmental treaty ratification, 1900-1990

Most accounts of environmental treaty ratification emphasize the boundedness of states, characterizing ratification as a calculated "choice" of interested rational actors. Here I present an alternative to this view; depicting nation-states as constructed of globally legitimated models, including those seen to promote environmental protection. Countries with dense connections to world society are most likely to embody global models of nation-state environmentalization regardless of measures of national interests, such as natural degradation, economic development, scientific capacity, or political openness. I test the alternative views in a series of structural equation models with latent variables, analyzing cross-national variation in the number of international environmental treaties ratified during the periods 1900-1945, 1946-1962, 1963-1972, and 1973-1990. In every analysis a nation-state's linkage to world society is the strongest predictor of its number of ratifications. The results lend support to the notion that nation-states are constituted within a wider world social system, in which environmental protection forms a central and highly legitimate node of discourse and activity.