Who Takes The Lead? : Investigating Leadership In The Climate Change And Human Mobility Nexus

Abstract: Leadership has been claimed to be a critical determinant of success and failure in international negotiations. This thesis brings together the study of leadership in multilateral negotiations with the emerging discipline of climate change-induced human mobility. This is done by investigating the prevalence of leadership in the climate change and human mobility nexus, looking at three different actors: the Alliance of Small Island States, Bangladesh and Norway. These actors were analyzed in two different ways: first, by describing how each actor exercise leadership using an analytical framework informed by leadership theories. Second, by investigating whether these actors seem to be recognized as leaders by others, conducting and analyzing a survey from the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2018, COP24. The results indicate that all three actors can be said to exercise leadership in the area of climate change-induced migration, although they exercise leadership in slightly different ways. Out of the three actors that were analyzed, AOSIS was the only actor that seemed to be recognized by others as a leader in the effort to address climate change-induced human mobility.