Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
6-2025
Abstract
Does civil society in competitive authoritarian and authoritarian countries impact environmental policy? Specifically, does civil society speed up the ratification of international environmental treaties? Treaty ratification is a crucial step for translating international commitments to domestic politics. I argue that in competitive authoritarian regimes, where civil society operates under constraints but retains some space for advocacy, more robust civil society accelerates the ratification of environmental treaties compared to states with weaker civil society. These regimes often tolerate civil society pressure on non-threatening issues, such as environmental governance, which allows for strategic concessions without undermining state authority. Focusing on Southeast Asia, I conduct an event history analysis to understand how ratification timings of environmental treaties are affected by the participatory environments of civil society organizations. I use three measures of participatory environment: the level of control over civil society, the consultation status of civil society organizations, and the participation of women in civil society. I find that states with more robust civil society ratify environmental treaties faster compared to those with weaker civil society. This study challenges the assumption that authoritarian regimes uniformly ignore civil society and underscores the importance of strategic advocacy in advancing environmental governance.
Keywords
civil society, environmental policy, environmental treaties, environment, NGOs, authoritarian, authoritarianism, ratifying, ratification, environmental governance
Discipline
Environmental Policy | Political Science
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Global Policy
Volume
16
Issue
3
First Page
1
Last Page
12
ISSN
1758-5880
Identifier
10.1111/1758-5899.70044
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
PARR, Christianna Sirindah.(2025). Advocacy under authoritarianism: Civil society's impact on environmental treaty ratification in Southeast Asia. Global Policy, 16(3), 1-12.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4221
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.70044