Profile

I am a Senior Visiting Research Associate in the Forest Governance Group at the ECI. As a political scientist specializing in international relations, my main area of interest and research is in international environmental negotiations, specifically international negotiating processes on forests and climate change. I come from a realist rational choice background and am currently focusing my academic work on expanding definitions of interests and on the roles of identity and trust in the development and furthering of interests within negotiation processes.

I have followed international forest and climate change policy-making processes closely since Rio 1992. As well as participating as an academic observer and as reporter, my involvement at the intergovernmental level has included, over the years, serving on national delegations to the UNFCCC, the UNFF, and the ITTO (for three different countries!).

From 2002 I held full-time academic posts, in the US and then in the UK, for seven years. My academic output encompasses my book, Global Environmental Negotiations and US Interests (2006), as well as numerous articles and chapters within the realm of international environmental politics. I was also convening lead author of Chapter 5, Forests and Sustainability, of the second assessment report of the UN Collaborative Partnership on Forests' Global Forest Expert Panel, on the international forest regime (2011).

I also have substantial experience working in the NGO sector. In the mid-1990s I directed the environmental work of the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, which included spending over a year in Guyana, and I have been an occasional writer/editor for IISD Reporting Services for 15 years.

Currently I mainly wear a private sector hat. As an independent consultant I have been involved in projects and studies for numerous governmental, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental bodies, including the FAO, the World Bank, the Governments of the UK, Norway, Switzerland and Finland, as well as the Joint Nature Conservation Committee of the UK. My consultancy work focuses particularly on political and social issues related to international policy-making processes in the areas of forests and climate change.

Selected Academic Publications

• Davenport, D., Wagner, L., and Spence, C. (forthcoming, 2012) Earth Negotiations on a Comfy Couch: Building Negotiator Trust through Innovative Processes. In Chasek, P. and L. Wagner, eds. The Roads from Rio: Lessons Learned from Twenty Years of Multilateral Environmental Negotiations, Chapter 10. London: Earthscan.
• Davenport, D. (forthcoming, 2011) The International Dimensions of Climate Policy. In Bailey, I. and H. Compston, eds. Feeling the Heat: Political strategy and Climate Policy in Rapidly Industrialising Countries, Chapter 2. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Davenport, D., Bulkan, J., Hajjar, R., Hardcastle, P., Assembe-Mvondo, S., Eba’a Atyi, R., Humphreys, D., and Maryudi, A. (2011) Forests and Sustainability. In Rayner, J., A. Buck and P. Katila, eds. Embracing Complexity: Meeting the Challenges of International Forest Governance. Global Forest Expert Panel on the International Forest Regime. IUFRO World Series Volume 28. Vienna. pp. 75-91.
• Wagner, L. and Davenport, D. (2010) Desertification and Forests. In Denemark, R., et al., eds. The International Studies Compendium. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Davenport, D. (2008) The Global Context. In Compston, H. and I. Bailey, eds. Turning Down the Heat: The Politics of Climate Policy in Affluent Democracies, Chapter 4. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Davenport, D. (2006) Global Environmental Negotiations and US Interests. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Davenport, D. and Wood, P. (2006) "UNFF-5, -6 and -7: Finding the Way Forward for the International Arrangement on Forests." Review of European Community and International Environmental Law (RECIEL) 15:3 (October), 316-326.
• Davenport, D. (2005) "An Alternative Explanation for the Failure of the UNCED Forest Negotiations." Global Environmental Politics 5:1 (February), 106-130.
• Davenport, D. (1997) Collaboration and Consultation on Land Use in Guyana: Final Project Report. Atlanta, GA: Carter Center Working Paper Series.

Selected Commissioned Research

• Patrick Hardcastle, P., Davenport, D., Cowling, P., and Watson, C. (2011) Discussion of Effectiveness of Multilateral REDD+ Initiatives. The IDL Group for the World Bank on behalf of the REDD+ Partnership.
• Hardcastle, P., Davenport, D., and Lincoln, P. (2010) Real-Time Evaluation of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative on NICFI’s support to the formulation and implementation of national REDD strategies: Guyana National Study. LTS International et al. for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).
• Tipper, R., Berry, N., Camargo, M., Davenport, D., Dutschke, M., Helland, J., Lincoln, P., Low, R., Makundi, W., Pedroni, L., and _sedotter Str¯nen, I. (2010) Real-Time Evaluation of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative: Contributions to a Global REDD Policy 2007-2010. LTS International et al. for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).
• Davenport, D. (2009) The UNFF and the UK: A Political Analysis. For the British Forestry Commission.
• Davenport, D., Hardcastle, P., Lokshall, E., Hodes, G., Dunn, Z., Tyler, E., and Abbot, P. (2009) Study of the Potential to Help Increase Sub-Saharan Access to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), March-April 2009. Dew Point Development Resource Centre for the Department for International Development (DFID), UK.