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Can transparency enhance the legitimacy of international institutions? As transparency has become a widely applied procedural standard in international politics, a range of institutions have implemented transparency reforms under the presumption that increased transparency can elicit support among relevant audiences. This article evaluates whether increased transparency in the UN Security Council leads to enhanced legitimacy perceptions among UN member-states. The article first traces the history of Security Council reform since 1990 and draws on interviews with diplomats and observers to describe a transparency reform the Council enacted in 2006. Next, the article uses longitudinal content analysis to empirically probe the legitimation effects of that transparency reform. The empirical analysis is based on an original dataset of 4,303 legitimacy statements made by UN member-states in annual UN General Assembly debates over the periods 1990–2006 and 2006–18. The findings cast doubt over the potential of transparency reform to improve the Council's legitimacy; instead they suggest that increasing the direct participation of the wider UN membership may be a more viable legitimation strategy. This article contributes to existing international legitimacy literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between transparency and legitimacy, and by demonstrating which institutional features that affect the perceived legitimacy of the Security Council.

Can transparency enhance the legitimacy of international institutions? As transparency has become a widely applied procedural standard in international politics, a range of institutions have implemented transparency reforms under the presumption that increased transparency can elicit support among relevant audiences. This article evaluates whether increased transparency in the UN Security Council leads to enhanced legitimacy perceptions among UN member-states. The article first traces the history of Security Council reform since 1990 and draws on interviews with diplomats and observers to describe a transparency reform the Council enacted in 2006. Next, the article uses longitudinal content analysis to empirically probe the legitimation effects of that transparency reform. The empirical analysis is based on an original dataset of 4,303 legitimacy statements made by UN member-states in annual UN General Assembly debates over the periods 1990–2006 and 2006–18. The findings cast doubt over the potential of transparency reform to improve the Council's legitimacy; instead they suggest that increasing the direct participation of the wider UN membership may be a more viable legitimation strategy. This article contributes to existing international legitimacy literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between transparency and legitimacy, and by demonstrating which institutional features that affect the perceived legitimacy of the Security Council.

In the climate negotiations, conceptions of fairness plays an important role. For a climate agreement to be effective and durable, it must be conceived as fair by as many of its parties as possible. Unfortunately, there is hardly a consensus in the negotiations on what a fair agreement should constitute, and diverging fairness conceptions are at the heart of the conflicts of the negotiations. This thesis is an attempt at understanding this fairness dimension. It attempts to answer two related questions: 1) what do the parties in the negotiations conceive as fair? And 2) why do parties in the negotiations have differing conceptions of what constitutes a fair agreement? The findings of this thesis indicate that there has been little progress on reaching a common understanding of fairness in the negotiations over the last five-year cycle of negotiations that concluded with the Paris agreement. Even though a significant potential for compromise exists, key actors' positions on the fairness dimension are polarized. This might be an explanation for why a burden-sharing approach is no longer possible in the negotiations. Whether a country is listed as "developing" or "developed" in the UNFCCC is the most important explanatory factor for diverging fairness conceptions - indicating that conceptions of fairness are largely driven by self-interest.

In the climate negotiations, conceptions of fairness plays an important role. For a climate agreement to be effective and durable, it must be conceived as fair by as many of its parties as possible. Unfortunately, there is hardly a consensus in the negotiations on what a fair agreement should constitute, and diverging fairness conceptions are at the heart of the conflicts of the negotiations. This thesis is an attempt at understanding this fairness dimension. It attempts to answer two related questions: 1) what do the parties in the negotiations conceive as fair? And 2) why do parties in the negotiations have differing conceptions of what constitutes a fair agreement? The findings of this thesis indicate that there has been little progress on reaching a common understanding of fairness in the negotiations over the last five-year cycle of negotiations that concluded with the Paris agreement. Even though a significant potential for compromise exists, key actors' positions on the fairness dimension are polarized. This might be an explanation for why a burden-sharing approach is no longer possible in the negotiations. Whether a country is listed as "developing" or "developed" in the UNFCCC is the most important explanatory factor for diverging fairness conceptions - indicating that conceptions of fairness are largely driven by self-interest.

Which types of international institutions display higher ability to change states' behaviour? This article assesses the relative environmental effectiveness of a management-based ('soft') and an enforcement-based ('hard') international agreement: the United Nations Sofia Protocol and a European Union directive. Using difference-in-differences analysis, we find that the European Union directive is more effective in inducing emissions reductions than the United Nation's Sofia Protocol. We propose that the European Union's enforcement capacity is a likely driver of the directive's effectiveness. The article makes two contributions to existing literature. First, we provide causal evidence on the relative importance of overlapping international institutions in regulating environmental policy outcomes, elucidating how an apparent emissions-reducing effect of a 'soft' United Nations Protocol is in fact driven by the existence of overlapping 'hard' European Union regulation. Second, we demonstrate how states' enthusiasm for emissions regulations can explain the relative effectiveness of soft and hard law institutions.

Under the Paris Agreement, parties self-determine their mitigation ambition level by submitting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Extant assessments find that the collective ambition of current pledges is not line with the Agreement's goals and that individual ambition varies greatly across countries, but there have not been attempts at explaining this variation. This paper identifies several potential drivers of national climate ambition, and tests whether these can account for differences in the ambition level of countries' mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement. After outlining theorized relationships between a set of domestic political characteristics and climate policy ambition, regression analysis is used to assess the effects of different potential drivers across a dataset of 170 countries. We find that a country's level of democracy and vulnerability to climate change have positive effects on NDC ambition, while coal rent and GDP have negative effects. Our findings suggest that these objective factors are more important than subjective factors, while the most influential subjective factor is the cosmopolitanism-nativism value dimension. ; This work was supported by Research Council of Norway, projects no. 261491 and 209701. ; publishedVersion

Under the Paris Agreement, parties self-determine their mitigation ambition level by submitting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Extant assessments find that the collective ambition of current pledges is not line with the Agreement's goals and that individual ambition varies greatly across countries, but there have not been attempts at explaining this variation. This paper identifies several potential drivers of national climate ambition, and tests whether these can account for differences in the ambition level of countries' mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement. After outlining theorized relationships between a set of domestic political characteristics and climate policy ambition, regression analysis is used to assess the effects of different potential drivers across a dataset of 170 countries. We find that a country's level of democracy and vulnerability to climate change have positive effects on NDC ambition, while coal rent and GDP have negative effects. Our findings suggest that these objective factors are more important than subjective factors, while the most influential subjective factor is the cosmopolitanism-nativism value dimension.

First published online: 11 February 2020 ; Under the Paris Agreement, parties self-determine their mitigation ambition level by submitting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Extant assessments find that the collective ambition of current pledges is not line with the Agreement's goals and that individual ambition varies greatly across countries, but there have not been attempts at explaining this variation. This paper identifies several potential drivers of national climate ambition, and tests whether these can account for differences in the ambition level of countries' mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement. After outlining theorized relationships between a set of domestic political characteristics and climate policy ambition, regression analysis is used to assess the effects of different potential drivers across a dataset of 170 countries. We find that a country's level of democracy and vulnerability to climate change have positive effects on NDC ambition, while coal rent and GDP have negative effects. Our findings suggest that these objective factors are more important than subjective factors, while the most influential subjective factor is the cosmopolitanism-nativism value dimension.