| The research focuses on the international effort to protect the ozone layer, an activity which can be regarded as a collective action problem involving the provision of a public good. By reducing its consumption of ozone depleting substances (ODSs) a country will be providing environmental benefits both to itself and to the rest of the world. These environmental benefits are non-rival and non-excludable, thus fulfilling the basic criteria of a public good. The basic insight from public goods theory is that economic agents, acting individually and voluntarily in a market setting, will generally fail to provide themselves with the efficient amount of the public good. Either a sufficiently sophisticated coordinating mechanism or a governmental authority may offer an efficiency-enhancing solution. In a world of sovereign nation-states, only the former option is available.;The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer is the principal mechanism through which individual countries coordinated their provision of the global public good of ozone layer preservation. By focusing on the public good aspects of the problem, this dissertation attempts to explain and evaluate the international behavior connected with the Montreal Protocol. Primarily, this behavior takes two objective forms. First, there is the behavior connected with formal participation in the international policy-making process. Secondly, there is the behavior connected with actual contributions to the global public good, i.e., increases or decreases in the consumption of ODSs.;With a view towards explaining this behavior, a description of the international process surrounding ozone preservation is given, followed by an examination of the relevant theoretical perspectives. Ultimately, the theoretical approach developed here is grounded in public goods theory, but informed by the basic insights flowing from the international relations literature. Specifically, we make use of a public goods model which has not been applied to international environmental problems before, namely, the model of impure public goods involving joint products. We develop the rationale for applying this model by drawing on the major theoretical perspectives in international relations theory, Realism and Liberalism.;The underlying logic of the theoretical approach developed here is that participation in the international effort to preserve the environment jointly produces both private and public benefits for a country. An examination of the behavioral outcomes associated with the Montreal Protocol indicates support for a joint product model in explaining international behavior. Moreover, the theoretical approach developed here would seem to be applicable to a broad range of issues involving international cooperation. |
