Minilateralism Matters : An Analysis of Japan\u27s Diplomacy on Global Warming

The global warming is a transnational issue by definition that no single country cannot effectively solve by itself. However, it has been ironically proved that it has been facing enormous difficulty to architect the global cooperative system meeting the challenge because it is transnational issue. This paper employs the concept of multilateralism crafted by John Gerald Ruggie to illustrate the current status of the global warming politics because global warming is too obviously collective good and cannot be a zero-sum issue. This paper assumes that complete cooperation is ultimately inevitable, but also purports to analyze current international cooperation by using Ruggies concept of multilateralism that has shed lights on nature of cooperation rather than liberal institutionalism emphasizing organizational or norm structures. However, this paper then argues that his argument is still ineffective, and, therefore, this paper also utilizes the concept of minilateralism of Miles Kahler as auxiliary. In so doing, this paper can explain the status of divided multilateralism of global warming from the 1990s onwards