Changing the rules of the game: The Philippines and the politics of climate change in the post-Paris era

• Main Author: Dispo, Alyssa Marie Fernandez
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2021
• Subjects: Environmental policy > Philippines; Climatic changes—Government policy > Philippines; Climatic changes—Political aspects; European Languages and Societies; International and Area Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/5844; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12683&context=etd_masteral
• Institution: De La Salle University

When and how does a natural disaster experienced in the periphery influence the rules of the international climate regime? This research seeks to understand when and under which political conditions a developing state plays the role of rule-taker, rule-maker, or rule-breaker in international climate politics, and through which venues and with which implications for the architecture of the international environmental regime. It also departs from the Western-dominated literature of international environmental politics and instead, employs Carlos Escudé’s theory of peripheral realism. A deeper investigation of the political conditions leading up to the Haiyan disaster and its aftermath reveals that domestic politics and its translation to foreign climate policy under the rules of the climate regime is a complex process that necessitates the transition from rule-taker to either a transient rule-maker. In the Haiyan case, where a peripheral state seeks to establish itself as a promoter of new regime rules, it is the combination of domestic interest-group power, international networking, and bicephalous climate policy that activates the transition from partial rule-taker to transient rule-maker.