Fiddling while the ice melts? How organizational scholars can take a more active role in the climate change debate

The debate over anthropogenic climate change or the idea that human activities are altering the physical climate of the planet continues to rage amid seemingly irreconcilable differences, both within the developed world and between developed and less developed countries. With high uncertainty, rival worldviews, and wide diversity of meaning attached to the expression, climate change has become a key narrative within which local and transnational issues – economic, social, and political – are framed and contested. The field is fraught with controversies regarding causes and consequences, as well as different attitudes toward risks, technologies, and economic and social well-being for different groups. Parties also dispute how to share responsibility for reducing emissions – whether the issue primarily needs market, regulatory, technological, or behavioral solutions. Climate change is many things to many people. Competing interests negotiate over its interpretation and utilize various strategies to promote practices that advance their own understandings regarding climate change and its governance

Constructing a climate change logic: An institutional perspective on the "tragedy of the commons"

Despite increasing interest in transnational fields, transnational commons have received little attention. In contrast to economic models of commons, which argue that commons occur naturally and are prone to collective inaction and tragedy, we introduce a social constructionist account of commons. Specifically, we show that actor-level frame changes can eventually lead to the emergence of an overarching, hybrid "commons logic" at the field level. These frame shifts enable actors with different logics to reach a working consensus and avoid "tragedies of the commons." Using a longitudinal analysis of key actors' logics and frames, we tracked the evolution of the global climate change field over 40 years. We bracketed time periods demarcated by key field-configuring events, documented the different frame shifts in each time period, and identified five mechanisms (collective theorizing, issue linkage, active learning, legitimacy seeking, and catalytic amplification) that underpin how and why actors changed their frames at various points in time-enabling them to move toward greater consensus around a transnational commons logic. In conclusion, the emergence of a commons logic in a transnational field is a nonlinear process and involves satisfying three conditions: (1) key actors view their fates as being interconnected with respect to a problem issue, (2) these actors perceive their own behavior as contributing to the problem, and (3) they take collective action to address the problem. Our findings provide insights for multinational companies, nation-states, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders in both conventional and unconventional commons

Identity-Based Cooperation in the Multilateral Negotiations on Climate Change: The Group of 77 and China

This chapter analyses the cooperation in multilateral negotiations on climate change among developing countries, focusing on the Group of 77 and China, based on a constructivist approach of International Relations. Constructivism identifies how the formation of identities affects the Southern alliances, in contrast to other theoretical approaches of IR mainstream that rely on the material elements as a way of explaining actor behaviour and regimes evolution. Constructivism considers that these material aspects are significant as they compose, together with the ideational aspects and interests, the social structure.Therefore, this chapter states that the idea and construction of a "South?, as a space of multidimensional cooperation where the developing countries, with their multiple material and historical differences, find common positions based on all the elements of the social structure, is the source of the G77 and China cooperation and strength. This "South identity" is closely linked to poverty eradication and other development dilemmas that have concrete expression with regard to the adverse effects of climate change.The chapter makes specific emphasis in Latin American countries of the G77 and China, which is composed of all the countries of the region, except for Mexico.Fil: Bueno, Maria del Pilar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales; Argentin