Brian J. Gareau, Ph.D.

“Dangerous Holes in Global Environmental Governance: The Roles of Neoliberal Discourse, Science, and California Agriculture in the Montreal Protocol”

A central theme of my dissertation research is the interconnection between environmental sociology, critical geography, and ‘porous’ political science, and their pertinence to studies of neoliberalism and global environmental governance. This research contributes to and extends existing studies of these concepts by investigating their intersection in global environmental governance via the stalled methyl bromide (MeBr) phase-out in the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. My research illustrates how powerful actors are able to articulate, through neoliberal discourse, protectionist positions without appearing protectionist (Antipode, 2008). Additionally, the work investigates the effect of neoliberal policies on the application of scientific knowledge, industry/nation-state linkages, NGO effectiveness, and the usurpation of global knowledge by particularistic knowledge (case study in Social Science Quarterly, 2008; 4S annual meeting, 2006). The work also explores how the spaces opened up in the Montreal Protocol by neoliberalism have been occupied primarily by powerful corporate actors, not civil society groups (AAG annual meeting, 2007).

Additionally, I illustrate the links between global political and economic dominance and global environmental governance (ISA Forum, 2008). My work shows that powerful nation-states and agro-industrial firms are able to “jump scale” to influence decision-making at the global scale (Book chapter, forthcoming). Drawing from interviews with ozone scientists, state delegates, NGO and industry representatives, and direct observation at international meetings, I argue that the stalled phase-out of methyl bromide is the consequence of US protectionism of its strawberry production complex. The dissertation also demonstrates how the MeBr controversy involves much more than just protectionism per se; it also involves the protection of the legitimacy of US scientific knowledge in the global arena.

Finally, a number of observers have pointed to the possibility of transferring successes – and even linking regulations – between the Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol, the international but stalled global climate change agreement.  My work argues that there is the need for caution on this issue.  The Montreal and Kyoto protocols are the outcomes of vastly different political contexts, from public civil society approaches to “the private turn”: the current loss of faith in state sovereignty, the rejection of multilateralism, and an embrace of private knowledge about economic damage over public knowledge about the protection of citizens and natural resources.  From this broader perspective, the dissertation shows that the differences between the Montreal and Kyoto protocols are therefore more than “command-and-control” versus “market-based” solutions.  These differences also reflect an even deeper divide over what “counts” as knowledge in political decision-making processes (Please see CV for publications).