Previous studies have found evidence of regulatory expansion in the environmental area since the 1970s in developed and developing countries. This expansion of state responsibility has led some scholars to suggest the emergence of an environmental state, which is analogous to the welfare state in that the state uses its regulatory powers to address problems of market externalities. Despite the theoretical interest in environmental state, few studies have empirically examined the political dynamics generating environmental regulatory expansion. This paper presents a theoretical model of regulatory dynamics in the environmental state. We employ this model to explain regulatory expansion in the environmental area using a comprehensive environmental policy output dataset covering 25 policies in 37 countries for the period 1970- 2005. We argue that the regulatory dynamic of environmental policies is determined by two factors: a) partisan distributional effects of the new environmental regulation, and b) marginal returns from redistributive policy.
