The Impact of International and Domestic Factors on the Regulation of Acid Rain in Europe: Preliminary Findings

Studies of international environmental regulation have traditionally focused on transboundary pollution as the major explanation of international regulation. As a consequence, domestic sources of international environmental regulation were neglected. In this paper, the domestic and international sources of international environmental regulation are outlined and their effects tested for the international regulation of acid rain in Europe. In the analysis, the complex interdependence approach and the foreign environmental policy approach represent the major theories in the tradition of the international sources of international environmental regulation. Among the domestic factors, a range of elite attitudes are evaluated as well as economic and technological factors. The results from the empirical analysis generally shows minor support for those theories which stress the importance of the international sources of regulation, while the cost of regulation and access to technology are more strongly associated with a country's support for international environmental regulation