The genesis and end of institutional fragmentation in global governance on climate change from a constructivist perspective

Global governance on climate change experienced institutional fragmentation by the generation of a competing institution, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP), in 2005, outside the previously dominant institutions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Why was a competing institution created beside the extant dominant institutions in a singular international issue area? This puzzling question on the genesis of institutional fragmentation has been theoretically explored through international relation theories. However, a full-fledged answer has not come yet. This paper explains the genesis of institutional fragmentation on the theoretical grounds of constructivism’s normative contestation for strategic social construction. Results show that the APP was created by a norm entrepreneur as an organizational platform to embody normative contestation and diffuse the competing normative interpretations of climate change norms.