Voting for Green? U.S. Support for Environmental Projects in the Multilateral Development Banks

• Author: Daniel Braaten,Jonathan R. Strand,Maui Orozco
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/1070496518815216
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Voting for Green? U.S.

Support for Environmental

Projects in the Multilateral

Development Banks

Daniel Braaten

1

, Maui Orozco

2

, and

Jonathan R. Strand

3

Abstract

This article examines the drivers of American support for environmental projects in

the multilateral development banks (MDBs). We first describe how U.S. Executive

Directors are guided by Congressional directives regarding environmental aspects of

MDB projects. The article then turns to statistical analysis of the strategic and nor-

mative drivers of U.S. positions on MDB projects. Our analysis finds mixed support

for environmental factors driving U.S. votes. The United States is more inclined to

vote against ‘‘dirty’’ projects (i.e., mining, coal, and oil) rather than specifically sup-

port ‘‘green’’ projects (i.e., projects related toward climate change or biodiversity).

The overall environmental performance of a country had a minor influence on

whether the United States would support proposals from that country, but the

United States was much more likely to disapprove of a project if a project failed

to undergo an environmental analysis or failed the analysis in anyway.

Keywords

multilateral development banks, environment, development, U.S. foreign policy,

U.S. Congress, voting

Journal of Environment &

Development

2019, Vol. 28(1) 28–53

!The Author(s) 2018

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1070496518815216

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1

Texas Lutheran University, Seguin, TX, USA

2

Rubicon Global, Atlanta, GA, USA

3

University of Nevada Las Vegas, NV, USA

Corresponding Author:

Daniel Braaten, Texas Lutheran University, 1000 W Court Street, Seguin, TX 78155, USA.

Email: dbraaten@tlu.edu

When casting votes and advocating foreign policy preferences within interna-

tional organizations, government representatives are expected to adhere to spe-

cif‌ic domestic policy demands. Most prior research has considered macroforeign

policy interests of states when examining voting behavior in international orga-

nizations. For instance, several studies have examined voting behavior within

the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and the UN Security Council. Early

work identif‌ied voting blocs in the UN, while more recent research examined

questions such as whether or not U.S. foreign aid is related to recipient support

for U.S. policies in the UN (Dreher, Nunnenkamp, & Thiele, 2008). Other

scholars have demonstrated that elected members of the Security Council receive

more assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

(IMF) as well as more American bilateral aid (Dreher & Sturm, 2012; Dreher,

Sturm, & Vreeland, 2009; Kuziemko & Werker, 2006; Vreeland & Dreher, 2014).

Less attention has been paid to other international organizations, although in

the past few years there have been studies looking at the relationship between

Japan’s bilateral aid and voting in the International Whaling Commission

(Miller & Dols

ˇak, 2007; Strand & Tuman, 2012) and on American strategic

behavior in the multilateral development banks (MDBs; Braaten, 2014a;

Strand & Zappile, 2015) and international f‌inancial institutions (Lavelle,

2011a). Understanding the motivations of member state voting behavior in

international organizations is an important factor in comprehending how

these institutions operate.

Much like research on voting in international organization, research on the

drivers of foreign environmental aid received scant attention until recently.

Foreign aid to support the environment is a relatively recent phenomenon in

international politics. Although environmental aid had existed during the Cold

War, it was with the Rio Conference in 1992 that donor support for projects that

protected the environment began to be emphasized systematically by bilateral

and multilateral providers of foreign assistance. Since then, support for the

environment has become a legitimate, but variable, driver in the distribution

of foreign aid both bilaterally and multilaterally (and at least up until the pre-

sent

1

) is an important component of U.S. foreign aid policy (Corson, 2010). This

article examines U.S. support for environmental aid distributed through MDBs.

We examine the primary drivers of U.S. support for environmental projects in

the MDBs by examining voting data on U.S. support for projects related to the

environment. The MDBs are signif‌icant players in development f‌inancing, and

much of this has direct environmental impacts (Gallagher & Yuan, 2017). MDBs

also have an important role in climate f‌inancing with US$27 billion committed

for climate action in 2016 and US$158 billion in total committed from 2011 to

2016 (Inter-American Development Bank [IADB] et al., 2016).

We f‌ind variable support for environmental concerns in U.S. MDB voting

with the United States generally less supportive of MDB projects that fail to

meet environmental reporting requirements and ‘‘dirty projects,’’ those

Braaten et al. 29