Irek Kusmierczyk
“Water over the Bridge: The Effects of Integration on Environmental Cooperation in the Great Lakes and Baltic Sea Regions”
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Abstract
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Does regional economic integration help or hinder cross-border cooperation in confronting pollution problems that transcend national boundaries? Over fifty per-cent of the Province of Ontario’s air pollution comes from the United States, causing 2,700 premature deaths each year and $5.2 billion in annual health and environmental costs. Even more extreme is the city of Windsor, located within the Province of Ontario, which receives ninety per cent of its dirty air from the adjacent city of Detroit, Michigan, leading to the highest mortality rate from air pollution in Canada. The vast majority of research on the integration-environment nexus analyzes whether, or how, economic integration exacerbates environmental problems through increased trade and industrial production. However, if we are to lessen the financial and human costs from trans-national pollution, we must also understand the effects of integration on the collective responses to these environmental threats. My research is tied to this smaller body of research which questions whether the effects of economic integration on our problem solving, that is, democratic, institutions are truly benign. Recognizing that each form of regional integration introduces new political, economic, and social arrangements, my research will compare the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union to determine how these new structures and processes impact collective responses to these environmental threats at the local, that is, municipal level. In short, my research will ask a question few scholars have contemplated: can more integration in some areas actually lead to less integration, even disintegration, in others?
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