Global Environmentalism and the World-System: A Cross-National Analysis of Air Pollution

Ambient air pollution represents a global health crisis, leading to 7 million annual deaths worldwide. The rise of a “global environmental regime” manifests in the widespread adoption of environmental policies and laws to reduce ambient air pollution, but debate remains whether they have any effect. Scholars argue that the relationship between the global environmental regime and air pollution depends on the penetration of the global environmental regime. In this analysis, I argue that the relationship between the global environmental regime and air pollution levels is contingent on a country’s position in the world-system. Using fixed effects panel analyses of 144 countries from 1990 to 2010, I find embeddedness in the global environmental regime does predict lower national air pollution levels. This effect, however, is smaller in semi-peripheral and peripheral countries. These findings contribute to an emerging body of scholarship integrating world society and world systems approaches in the study of the environment.