Design: International Cooperation: Environment - Research Paper Example

Accordingly, the source of the progress of a society under autocrats is directly linked with the economic and other interests of the autocrats however; this may not be the case under democracy. Though author argues that select few may dominate the policy making process under democracy however, for the lasting of democracy, it is important to secure the rights of the individuals to the property as well as the enforcement of the social contracts. Battig and Bernauer article however, suggest the impact of democracies on the climate change and the efforts of the democratic governments on reducing the impact of the same.

Authors have concluded that though democracies show positive intent towards eliminating this problem however, it may be relatively inconclusive to determine that democracies contribute positively towards the provision of public goods. Authors however, have suggested that the overall influence of public and interest groups for climate change may be higher under democracies than under non-democratic governments. As such the overall there is still a lot of optimism required to conclude that democratic governments can be influenced by the public and interest groups for climate change.

Methods of Analysis Olson’s article is based upon the review of the literature and case study approach to perform the required level of analysis. Olson has taken a case study approach to outline different examples of democratic and non-democratic governments to explore and explain as to how this can actually result into the better management of the economic interests of the different groups in a society. Case study approach is quite helpful when the author intend to present an explanatory or descriptive study.

This approach therefore allows the author to become more engaged and explore the existing literature and present the arguments. What is critical with the case study approach is that without constraining authors can actually perform longitudinal studies without restricting to few variables and following strict protocols. The study conducted by Battig and Bernauer however is a quantitative study underlying the quantitative analysis of the data to measure the impact of the democratic government policies on the climate change.

Authors therefore have performed regression and correlation analysis between different factors to understand and explore the impact of policy making by the democratic governments on the climate change and the ability of the democratic governments to provide public goods. Quantitative studies however, can allow author(s) to test the empirical validity of different claims and arguments made in the article. Providing empirical validity through quantitative analysis gives more credibility to the overall study and its results.

Independent and dependent variables including operationalization Considering Olson’s study it may be quite plausible to conclude that there are two independent variables i.e. democracy and dictatorship whereas the dependent variable is economic development. Olson has taken the approach of comparing and contrasting the impact of these two independent variables on the economic development i.e. the impact of dictatorship and democracy on the economic development of the country. Olson however, also went on to discuss some other aspects and attempted to relate the same to the economic development.

Battig and Bernauer however, has taken a different approach and outlined various