Page - 166 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

166 E.Calliari et al. by high degrees of complexity and feed-back effects, state interactions are daily occurrencesinanumberofrealms, includingsociety,economy,politicsandtechnol- ogy. These interactions are fuelled by specific state preferences (as determined by domesticactors),withoutwhichastatewouldnothaveanyincentivetoengageinthe internationalcontext.Liberalist lensesare thususeful to investigatehowasymmetry betweenstates’preferencesaffectL&Doutcomes. Finally, constructivismisa relatively recent theoreticalparadigm,challenging in manyaspectsbothrealistandliberal theoriesinexplaininginternationalnegotiations andpowerrelations.What fundamentallydistinguishesconstructivismfromthefor- mer schools of thought is its ontological assumptionof theworld as being socially constructed. Thismeans, asHurd (2008) puts it, that “howpeople and states think andbehaveinworldpolitics ispremisedontheirunderstandingof theworldaround them,whichincludestheirownbeliefsabouttheworld, theidentities theyholdabout themselves andothers, and the shared understandings andpractices inwhich they participate”.Oneof themost important contributionsof constructivism is showing thatnormsmatter (Price2008)and thusethical and legal standardsare important in guidingworldpolitics (Snyder2004). We suggest all these viewpoints are necessary to understandL&Dnegotiations. In the following sections we apply such competing theories to the L&D case by assuming the particular perspective of small island states,AOSISbeing theirmost proactiveproponenton theL&Dissue. 6.4.1 Neorealism Intermsofaggregatepower,AOSIS—acoalitionofsocially,economicallyandenvi- ronmentallyvulnerablesmall islandnations—wouldbedefinedasalow-poweractor ininternationalnegotiations.Itsmembersarehometolessthan1%oftheworldpop- ulation; thesumoftheir39GDPsequals theannualeconomyofthecityofLondon5; andalmosthalfofthestateshavenoorlimitedarmedforces(Barbey2015).Yet,such traditional indicatorsofpowermight explain little in a specificbargaining situation likeclimatenegotiations.Inthissetting,two“issue-specificpower”resourcesacquire particular relevance:delegationsizeandcapacity.Botharereflectionsofacountry’s GDP.Thesizeofnationalbudgets influences thenumberofpersonnelandexperts in thegovernment and theministriesbackhome that candevelopnational negotiation positions, aswell as the sizeof thedelegations (Panke2012).Developingcountries oftencannotaffordtosendbignegotiatingteamstoCOPs,andsomeinitiativeshave beenput inplace inresponse to that.Oneof themis theTrustFundforParticipation in theUNFCCC establishedunder theConvention,which is nevertheless basedon limitedanddecreasingvoluntarycontributionsandcanonlysupportaroundtwoaddi- tionaldelegatespereligibledevelopingParty(UNFCCC2016).Thesecircumstances inevitablyhamperdevelopingcountries’fullparticipationinthenegotiationprocess. 5Owncalculationsbasedon theWorldDevelopment Indicatorsby theWorldBank (2015).