Thomas Hale
Biographic Data
| ID | 3588896 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Hale |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Hale |
| SIGNATURE | HALE T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8871-3376 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 662 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
A “Conveyor Belt” From International Standards to Domestic Regulation? Evidence From the International Political Economy of Net Zero Governance
When and how do international standards influence domestic policies? The literature identifies a range of ways international standards may relate to domestic regulations—including by exporting, substituting, supplanting, or bolstering national rules—creating theoretical ambiguity. This article focuses, in particular, on whether, when, and how standards can help generate regulatory outcomes that are more rigorous than would otherwise be expected, …
Covid-19 vaccination policies around the world: How democracy influenced prioritisation strategies
The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines had a crucial role in facilitating the global recovery from the pandemic. Countries around the world adopted different vaccine prioritisation strategies, but this variation and its underlying causes are poorly understood. Drawing on Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker's data on vaccine prioritisation plans and eligibility, we describe which population groups were prioritised, when, and in which o…
Mapping Arctic Futures: Harnessing Participatory Tools for Sustainable Development in Ivittuut, Greenland
This paper investigates the use of participatory mapping as a tool to help communities navigate resource rushes by creating space for dialogue to identify alternative development trajectories and multiple land-use activities which could supplement, replace, or co-exist in post-industrial extractive spaces. The study focuses on renewed interest in mining development and alternative economies surrounding the historic Ivittuut cryolite mine nestled …
The revised oxford principles for net zero aligned carbon offsetting
The power of the “weak” and international organizations
By nearly every measure, power in the international system is concentrated, meaning that most states lack significant power resources. And yet international relations theory tends to focus on the behavior of great powers. This special issue instead explores the strategies that “weak” states use in the context of international organizations both to advance their interests and to resist pressure from stronger states. We define weakness as a relativ…
Turning a groundswell of climate action into ground rules for net zero
Cross-National Measures of the Intensity of Covid-19 Public Health Policies
Explaining the energy mix in China’s electricity projects under the belt and road initiative
This paper explains the energy mix of China’s overseas electricity investments across Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) recipient countries. We focus on Indonesia and Pakistan. Our research is based on both newly gathered project-level data and in-depth interviews with stakeholders of Chinese-backed power plants in Indonesia and Pakistan. We examine (1) why Chinese actors are involved in renewable power generation in Pakistan and not in Indonesia, a…
Making the Paris Agreement: Historical Processes and the Drivers of Institutional Design
After a decade-long search, countries finally agreed on a new climate treaty in 2015. The Paris Agreement has attracted attention both for overcoming years of gridlock and for its novel features. Here, we build on accounts explaining why states reached agreement, arguing that a deeper understanding requires a focus on institutional design. Ultimately, it was this agreement, with its specific provisions, that proved acceptable to states rather tha…
A panel dataset of Covid-19 vaccination policies in 185 countries
We present a panel dataset of COVID-19 vaccine policies, with data from 01 January 2020 for 185 countries and a number of subnational jurisdictions, reporting on vaccination prioritization plans, eligibility and availability, cost to the individual and mandatory vaccination policies. For each of these indicators, we recorded who is targeted by a policy using 52 standardized categories. These indicators document a detailed picture of the unprecede…
The meaning of net zero and how to get it right
Assessing the effectiveness of orchestrated climate action from five years of summits
Action-oriented summits like the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit and 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, have become a major feature of global climate governance. Their emphasis on cooperative initiatives by a host of non-state and local actors creates high expectations, especially when, according to the IPCC, governments’ policies still set the world on course for a disastrous 2.7 °C warming. While earlier studies have cautioned against undue optim…
Governing Global Antimicrobial Resistance: 6 Key Lessons From the Paris Climate Agreement
Climate Ambition and Sustainable Development for a New Decade: A Catalytic Framework
This paper examines the Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA) and discusses options to improve sub‐ and non‐state involvement in post‐2020 climate governance. A framework that stimulates sub‐ and non‐state action is a necessary complement to national governmental action, as the latter falls short of achieving low‐carbon and climate‐resilient development as envisaged in the Paris Agreement. Applying design principles for an ideal‐type orchestration …
Using Earnings Calls to Understand the Political Behavior of Major Polluters
The role that private actors play in accelerating or preventing progressive climate policy and true decarbonization is a core research interest of global environmental politics. Yet scholars have struggled to measure the political behavior of multinational firms due to lack of transparency about their activities and inconsistency in reporting requirements across jurisdictions. In this research note, we present a new data source—firms’ earnings ca…
A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker)
COVID-19 has prompted unprecedented government action around the world. We introduce the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), a dataset that addresses the need for continuously updated, readily usable and comparable information on policy measures. From 1 January 2020, the data capture government policies related to closure and containment, health and economic policy for more than 180 countries, plus several countries’ subnational…
A worldwide assessment of changes in adherence to Covid-19 protective behaviours and hypothesized pandemic fatigue
Bridging the Theory-Practice Divide in International Relations
Catalytic Cooperation
Scholars typically model the politics of global public goods or common pool resources as difficult collective action problems. Theories of international organization aim to explain how institutions can promote cooperation by solving the free rider problem. Based on an analysis of a quintessential global collective action problem—international climate mitigation—this article challenges both this diagnosis of the problem and the concomitant institu…
Transnational Actors and Transnational Governance in Global Environmental Politics
Transnational actors and transnational governance now form core elements of global environmental politics alongside intergovernmental diplomacy and institutions. This article explores how and under what conditions this transnationalism has arisen, as well as its implications for world politics. It considers what effects transnational actors and governance have had on political outcomes, their relation to states and intergovernmental institutions,…
Asset Revaluation and the Existential Politics of Climate Change
Whereas scholars have typically modeled climate change as a global collective action challenge, we offer a dynamic theory of climate politics based on the present and future revaluation of assets. Climate politics can be understood as a contest between owners of assets that accelerate climate change, such as fossil fuel plants, and owners of assets vulnerable to climate change, such as coastal property. To date, obstruction by "climate-forcing" a…
Sensitive intervention points in the post-carbon transition
We must exploit socioeconomic tipping points and amplifiers
Promises and risks of nonstate action in climate and sustainability governance
Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement stand as milestone diplomatic achievements. However, immense discrepancies between political commitments and governmental action remain. Combined national climate commitments fall far short of the Paris Agreement's 1.5/2°C targets. Similar political ambition gaps persist across various areas of sustainable development. Many therefore argue that actions by nonstate actors, such as businesses an…
Could Global Democracy Satisfy Diverse Policy Values? An Empirical Analysis
An important strand in contemporary political theory argues that democratic methods of political decision making should be extended to the global level. But are people's fundamental views on public policy issues too diverse across the world for democracy? We examine systematically the empirical basis of two related concerns: that global democratic decision making would leave more people dissatisfied with the outcome of decisions than keeping demo…
Regulating the polluters: Markets and strategies for protecting the global environment
Is concentrated business power bad for the environment? Alexander Ovodenko's Regulating the polluters bucks intuition by showing how, under certain conditions, oligopolies can in fact facilitate effective environmental protection at the international level. This carefully researched study makes a valuable contribution to the international political economy literature on environmental protection, a field whose increasing importance to global polit…
A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker)
COVID-19 has prompted unprecedented government action around the world. We introduce the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), a dataset that addresses the need for continuously updated, readily usable and comparable information on policy measures. From 1 January 2020, the data capture government policies related to closure and containment, health and economic policy for more than 180 countries, plus several countries’ subnational…
Asset Revaluation and the Existential Politics of Climate Change
Whereas scholars have typically modeled climate change as a global collective action challenge, we offer a dynamic theory of climate politics based on the present and future revaluation of assets. Climate politics can be understood as a contest between owners of assets that accelerate climate change, such as fossil fuel plants, and owners of assets vulnerable to climate change, such as coastal property. To date, obstruction by "climate-forcing" a…
All Hands on Deck”: The Paris Agreement and Nonstate Climate Action
The 2015 Paris Climate summit consolidated the transition of the climate regime from a “regulatory” to a “catalytic and facilitative” model. A key component of this shift was the intergovernmental regime’s embrace of climate action by sub- and nonstate actors. Although a groundswell of transnational climate action has been growing over time, the Paris Agreement seeks to bring this phenomenon into the heart of the new climate regime. This forum ar…
National Policy and Transnational Governance of Climate Change: Substitutes or Complements
Many scholars and policymakers see transnational governance as a substitute for lackluster national and international policies, particularly in the context of intergovernmental gridlock or limited state capacity. The bulk of the literature explains sub- and non-state actors' participation in transnational initiatives as a product of, on the one hand, micro-level incentives and, on the other, diffusion processes that create and spread normative an…
Transnational Actors and Transnational Governance in Global Environmental Politics
Transnational actors and transnational governance now form core elements of global environmental politics alongside intergovernmental diplomacy and institutions. This article explores how and under what conditions this transnationalism has arisen, as well as its implications for world politics. It considers what effects transnational actors and governance have had on political outcomes, their relation to states and intergovernmental institutions,…
The Comparative Politics of Transnational Climate Governance
We live in an era of remarkable transformations in how governance is supplied at the global level, as traditional means of intergovernmental institutions are being joined by a growing diversity of transnational arrangements. Yet, at present, we still have only a superficial understanding of what causes actors to adhere to transnational rules, norms, and initiatives once they appear, and especially what role domestic political, economic and social…
Catalytic Cooperation
Scholars typically model the politics of global public goods or common pool resources as difficult collective action problems. Theories of international organization aim to explain how institutions can promote cooperation by solving the free rider problem. Based on an analysis of a quintessential global collective action problem—international climate mitigation—this article challenges both this diagnosis of the problem and the concomitant institu…
Promises and risks of nonstate action in climate and sustainability governance
Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement stand as milestone diplomatic achievements. However, immense discrepancies between political commitments and governmental action remain. Combined national climate commitments fall far short of the Paris Agreement's 1.5/2°C targets. Similar political ambition gaps persist across various areas of sustainable development. Many therefore argue that actions by nonstate actors, such as businesses an…
Issues in ecosystem valuation: Improving information for decision making
In Spring 1991, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency convened an expert group of ecologists, economists and other social scientists for the purpose of advancing the state of the art of ecosystem valuation methods. This Ecosystem Valuation Forum was organized as a dialogue because it has been clear from the outset that agreement even on the meaning of the term "ecosystem valuation" could not be taken for granted. Individuals from diverse disci…
Transparency, Accountability, and Global Governance
Observers often cite transparency as a response to the accountability concerns of global actors, but how disclosure and openness actually affect the behavior of international organizations, transnational corporations, and nation-states remains theoretically and empirically under-specified. This article identifies three forces—market pressure, external discourse, and internal norms—that can have a regulatory effect on global actors who make their …
Making the Paris Agreement: Historical Processes and the Drivers of Institutional Design
After a decade-long search, countries finally agreed on a new climate treaty in 2015. The Paris Agreement has attracted attention both for overcoming years of gridlock and for its novel features. Here, we build on accounts explaining why states reached agreement, arguing that a deeper understanding requires a focus on institutional design. Ultimately, it was this agreement, with its specific provisions, that proved acceptable to states rather tha…
A worldwide assessment of changes in adherence to Covid-19 protective behaviours and hypothesized pandemic fatigue
Are Europeans ready for a more democratic European Union? New evidence on preference heterogeneity, polarisation and crosscuttingness
Some scholars and policy makers argue in favour of increasing democratic contestation for leadership and policy at the European level, for instance by having European‐wide parties campaign for competing candidates for President of the European Commission ahead of European Parliament elections. But do such changes put the survival of the European Union at risk? According to the consociational interpretation of the EU, the near absence of competiti…
When and how can unilateral policies promote the international diffusion of environmental policies and clean technology
How can governments manage transnational problems when other governments refuse to cooperate? We examine the conditions under which regulation in one jurisdiction can induce other jurisdictions to regulate. The analysis emphasizes the relationship between public policy, private actors, and technological change. We find that ambitious regulations in large markets can induce private actors to make technological changes that lower the cost of regula…
Could Global Democracy Satisfy Diverse Policy Values? An Empirical Analysis
An important strand in contemporary political theory argues that democratic methods of political decision making should be extended to the global level. But are people's fundamental views on public policy issues too diverse across the world for democracy? We examine systematically the empirical basis of two related concerns: that global democratic decision making would leave more people dissatisfied with the outcome of decisions than keeping demo…
Reversing the Marginalization of Global Environmental Politics in International Relations: An Opportunity for the Discipline
Despite the increasing urgency of many environmental problems, environmental politics remains at the margins of the discipline. Using data from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project, this article identifies a puzzle: the majority of international relations (IR) scholars find climate change among the top three most important policy issues today, yet fewer than 4% identify the environment as their primary area of research.…
A Climate Coalition of the Willing
A panel dataset of Covid-19 vaccination policies in 185 countries
We present a panel dataset of COVID-19 vaccine policies, with data from 01 January 2020 for 185 countries and a number of subnational jurisdictions, reporting on vaccination prioritization plans, eligibility and availability, cost to the individual and mandatory vaccination policies. For each of these indicators, we recorded who is targeted by a policy using 52 standardized categories. These indicators document a detailed picture of the unprecede…
The rule of law in the global economy: Explaining intergovernmental backing for private commercial tribunals
Global trade depends on the ability of firms to make credible commitments across borders. Absent a global state to enforce contracts, how can credibility be assured? Today, the majority of significant transborder contract disputes are adjudicated in private arbitral tribunals. The decisions of these bodies are enforceable in the public courts of the 146 countries that have ratified the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement o…
Explaining the energy mix in China’s electricity projects under the belt and road initiative
This paper explains the energy mix of China’s overseas electricity investments across Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) recipient countries. We focus on Indonesia and Pakistan. Our research is based on both newly gathered project-level data and in-depth interviews with stakeholders of Chinese-backed power plants in Indonesia and Pakistan. We examine (1) why Chinese actors are involved in renewable power generation in Pakistan and not in Indonesia, a…
Governing Global Antimicrobial Resistance: 6 Key Lessons From the Paris Climate Agreement
International sources of political order in the People’s Republic of China: A lacuna in the Fukuyama framework
Fukuyama's conception of political order centers on the state, the rule of law, and popular accountability, but does not adequately account for how international factors affect these elements of contemporary governance. Focusing on the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the article notes how international sources of political order shaped each element of Fukuyama's framework: conflict and war strengthened the PRC's state apparatus, …
The de facto preferential trade agreement in East Asia
East Asian countries apply lower tariffs on their neighbors’ products than they are required to under the various trade agreements to which they belong, a concession they grant only rarely to countries outside the region. The result is a de facto preferential trade area in East Asia in which applied tariff rates significantly undercut the legally bound rates. This gap, termed binding overhang, is an under-studied aspect of international political…
Issues in ecosystem valuation: Improving information for decision making
In Spring 1991, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency convened an expert group of ecologists, economists and other social scientists for the purpose of advancing the state of the art of ecosystem valuation methods. This Ecosystem Valuation Forum was organized as a dialogue because it has been clear from the outset that agreement even on the meaning of the term "ecosystem valuation" could not be taken for granted. Individuals from diverse disci…
Transparency, Accountability, and Global Governance
Observers often cite transparency as a response to the accountability concerns of global actors, but how disclosure and openness actually affect the behavior of international organizations, transnational corporations, and nation-states remains theoretically and empirically under-specified. This article identifies three forces—market pressure, external discourse, and internal norms—that can have a regulatory effect on global actors who make their …
The de facto preferential trade agreement in East Asia
East Asian countries apply lower tariffs on their neighbors’ products than they are required to under the various trade agreements to which they belong, a concession they grant only rarely to countries outside the region. The result is a de facto preferential trade area in East Asia in which applied tariff rates significantly undercut the legally bound rates. This gap, termed binding overhang, is an under-studied aspect of international political…
A Climate Coalition of the Willing
Transnational Climate Change Governance
The world of climate politics is increasingly no longer confined to the activities of national governments and international negotiations. Critical to this transformation of the politics of climate change has been the emergence of new forms of transnational governance that cut across traditional state-based jurisdictions and operate across public and private divides. This book provides the first comprehensive, cutting-edge account of the world of…
Orchestration and transnational climate governance
Reinvigorating International Climate Policy: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Nonstate Action
As countries negotiate a new climate agreement for the United Nations climate conference in December 2015, a groundswell of climate actions is emerging as cities, regions, businesses and civil society groups act on mitigation and adaptation, independently, with each other and with national governments and international organizations. The Paris conference provides a historic opportunity to establish a framework to catalyse, support, and steer thes…
NGOs and Climate Advocacy
When and how can unilateral policies promote the international diffusion of environmental policies and clean technology
How can governments manage transnational problems when other governments refuse to cooperate? We examine the conditions under which regulation in one jurisdiction can induce other jurisdictions to regulate. The analysis emphasizes the relationship between public policy, private actors, and technological change. We find that ambitious regulations in large markets can induce private actors to make technological changes that lower the cost of regula…
The rule of law in the global economy: Explaining intergovernmental backing for private commercial tribunals
Global trade depends on the ability of firms to make credible commitments across borders. Absent a global state to enforce contracts, how can credibility be assured? Today, the majority of significant transborder contract disputes are adjudicated in private arbitral tribunals. The decisions of these bodies are enforceable in the public courts of the 146 countries that have ratified the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement o…
All Hands on Deck”: The Paris Agreement and Nonstate Climate Action
The 2015 Paris Climate summit consolidated the transition of the climate regime from a “regulatory” to a “catalytic and facilitative” model. A key component of this shift was the intergovernmental regime’s embrace of climate action by sub- and nonstate actors. Although a groundswell of transnational climate action has been growing over time, the Paris Agreement seeks to bring this phenomenon into the heart of the new climate regime. This forum ar…
The Comparative Politics of Transnational Climate Governance
We live in an era of remarkable transformations in how governance is supplied at the global level, as traditional means of intergovernmental institutions are being joined by a growing diversity of transnational arrangements. Yet, at present, we still have only a superficial understanding of what causes actors to adhere to transnational rules, norms, and initiatives once they appear, and especially what role domestic political, economic and social…
Are Europeans ready for a more democratic European Union? New evidence on preference heterogeneity, polarisation and crosscuttingness
Some scholars and policy makers argue in favour of increasing democratic contestation for leadership and policy at the European level, for instance by having European‐wide parties campaign for competing candidates for President of the European Commission ahead of European Parliament elections. But do such changes put the survival of the European Union at risk? According to the consociational interpretation of the EU, the near absence of competiti…
International sources of political order in the People’s Republic of China: A lacuna in the Fukuyama framework
Fukuyama's conception of political order centers on the state, the rule of law, and popular accountability, but does not adequately account for how international factors affect these elements of contemporary governance. Focusing on the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the article notes how international sources of political order shaped each element of Fukuyama's framework: conflict and war strengthened the PRC's state apparatus, …
National Policy and Transnational Governance of Climate Change: Substitutes or Complements
Many scholars and policymakers see transnational governance as a substitute for lackluster national and international policies, particularly in the context of intergovernmental gridlock or limited state capacity. The bulk of the literature explains sub- and non-state actors' participation in transnational initiatives as a product of, on the one hand, micro-level incentives and, on the other, diffusion processes that create and spread normative an…
Reversing the Marginalization of Global Environmental Politics in International Relations: An Opportunity for the Discipline
Despite the increasing urgency of many environmental problems, environmental politics remains at the margins of the discipline. Using data from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project, this article identifies a puzzle: the majority of international relations (IR) scholars find climate change among the top three most important policy issues today, yet fewer than 4% identify the environment as their primary area of research.…
Regulating the polluters: Markets and strategies for protecting the global environment
Is concentrated business power bad for the environment? Alexander Ovodenko's Regulating the polluters bucks intuition by showing how, under certain conditions, oligopolies can in fact facilitate effective environmental protection at the international level. This carefully researched study makes a valuable contribution to the international political economy literature on environmental protection, a field whose increasing importance to global polit…
Sensitive intervention points in the post-carbon transition
We must exploit socioeconomic tipping points and amplifiers
Promises and risks of nonstate action in climate and sustainability governance
Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement stand as milestone diplomatic achievements. However, immense discrepancies between political commitments and governmental action remain. Combined national climate commitments fall far short of the Paris Agreement's 1.5/2°C targets. Similar political ambition gaps persist across various areas of sustainable development. Many therefore argue that actions by nonstate actors, such as businesses an…
Could Global Democracy Satisfy Diverse Policy Values? An Empirical Analysis
An important strand in contemporary political theory argues that democratic methods of political decision making should be extended to the global level. But are people's fundamental views on public policy issues too diverse across the world for democracy? We examine systematically the empirical basis of two related concerns: that global democratic decision making would leave more people dissatisfied with the outcome of decisions than keeping demo…
Bridging the Theory-Practice Divide in International Relations
Catalytic Cooperation
Scholars typically model the politics of global public goods or common pool resources as difficult collective action problems. Theories of international organization aim to explain how institutions can promote cooperation by solving the free rider problem. Based on an analysis of a quintessential global collective action problem—international climate mitigation—this article challenges both this diagnosis of the problem and the concomitant institu…
Transnational Actors and Transnational Governance in Global Environmental Politics
Transnational actors and transnational governance now form core elements of global environmental politics alongside intergovernmental diplomacy and institutions. This article explores how and under what conditions this transnationalism has arisen, as well as its implications for world politics. It considers what effects transnational actors and governance have had on political outcomes, their relation to states and intergovernmental institutions,…
Asset Revaluation and the Existential Politics of Climate Change
Whereas scholars have typically modeled climate change as a global collective action challenge, we offer a dynamic theory of climate politics based on the present and future revaluation of assets. Climate politics can be understood as a contest between owners of assets that accelerate climate change, such as fossil fuel plants, and owners of assets vulnerable to climate change, such as coastal property. To date, obstruction by "climate-forcing" a…
Climate Ambition and Sustainable Development for a New Decade: A Catalytic Framework
This paper examines the Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA) and discusses options to improve sub‐ and non‐state involvement in post‐2020 climate governance. A framework that stimulates sub‐ and non‐state action is a necessary complement to national governmental action, as the latter falls short of achieving low‐carbon and climate‐resilient development as envisaged in the Paris Agreement. Applying design principles for an ideal‐type orchestration …
Political science (29 works) · Economics (27 works) · Climate Change Policy and Economics (17 works) · Law (17 works) · Politics (16 works) · Corporate governance (14 works) · Business (13 works) · Climate change (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (11 works)