IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popdev/v25y1999i3p411-442.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Population Weights in the International Order

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey McNicoll

Abstract

Relative population sizes play little part in the international system. A state's economic and military power is influenced by population size, but as one factor among many. Formal relations among states exclude population from consideration by the principle of sovereign equality. Three sources of possible change in this situation are explored, in which states would be “population‐weighted” to a greater degree than before. Convergence of productivity levels around the world, expected by many, would bring the economic and population rankings of states more into line. Some convergence is occurring, but selectively and for the most part quite slowly. Anticipation of its effect, however, influences the international order well in advance. A second source of change is the necessity to allocate among states the use of global commons, particularly the atmosphere as a sink for greenhouse gases. Acceptable remedies for this problem and perhaps for other global‐level threats are likely to involve at least in part a per capita allocation principle. And third, population weights will tend to be more prominent in futures in which states are less important—as envisaged, for example, in the more benign scenarios of global society.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey McNicoll, 1999. "Population Weights in the International Order," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 25(3), pages 411-442, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:25:y:1999:i:3:p:411-442
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.1999.00411.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.1999.00411.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1728-4457.1999.00411.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Warwick J. McKibbin & Peter J. Wilcoxen, 1999. "Permit Trading Under the Kyoto Protocol and Beyond," Economics and Environment Network Working Papers 9902, Australian National University, Economics and Environment Network.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cooper, Andrew F. & Fues, Thomas, 2008. "Do the Asian Drivers Pull their Diplomatic Weight China, India, and the United Nations," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 293-307, February.
    2. Rapkin, David P. & Strand, Jonathan R., 2005. "Developing country representation and governance of the International Monetary Fund," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 1993-2011, December.
    3. Chris Wilson, 2001. "On the Scale of Global Demographic Convergence 1950–2000," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 27(1), pages 155-171, March.
    4. David P. Rapkin & Jonathan R. Strand & Michael W. Trevathan, 2016. "Representation and Governance in International Organizations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(3), pages 77-89.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Warwick J. McKibbin, 1999. "An Early Action Proposal with Known Costs: A Sensible and Realistic Option for Emissions Trading in Australia," Economics and Environment Network Working Papers 9903, Australian National University, Economics and Environment Network.
    2. Warwick J. McKibbin & Peter J. Wilcoxen, 2000. "Designing a Realistic Climate Change Policy that includes Developing Countries," Economics and Environment Network Working Papers 0003, Australian National University, Economics and Environment Network.
    3. Marco Grasso, 2004. "Climate change: the global public good," Working Papers 75, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised May 2004.
    4. Perrels, Adriaan, 2000. "Greenhouse Gas Policy Questions and Socio-economic Research Implications for Finland in a National and International Context," Discussion Papers 222, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Warwick J. McKibbin & Peter J. Wilcoxen, 2000. "Beyond the Kyoto Protocol," Economics and Environment Network Working Papers 0002, Australian National University, Economics and Environment Network.
    6. David Appels, 2001. "Forest rotation lengths under carbon sequestration payments," Others 0110007, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:25:y:1999:i:3:p:411-442. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0098-7921 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.