It is a commonplace in contemporary political and academic debates that globalization affects the state. Nevertheless, the actual repercussions of globalization or, more precisely, of economic and political internationalization on the state, public decision-making, and public governance remain one of the most contested issues in social sciences. In Comparative Politics and International Relations, the key theoretical debates and related empirical research cluster around three controversial questions. Does the state retain agency and influence in domestic and international governance or does it loose autonomy and authority in decision-making? Does the state lower or tighten the stringency of its policies? Do patterns of public governance converge or diverge across countries? In cross-country comparisons of public policies, these interrelated controversies essentially boil down to the question whether in the face of internationalization public policymakers in a given country are willing and able to initiate and maintain a public policy approach that goes beyond the approach in other countries. In the comparative study of public environmental governance, this question and the related controversies loom large, too, amongst others because empirical research has not yet provided reliable and generalizable answers to the question. One obstacle in providing such answers and to resolve the related controversies is the difficulty in measuring pioneership over time and across states and in developing an indicator that could be used in quantitative analyses. Against this background, I propose in this paper a new measurement concept of pioneership in environmental governance that advances the existing ones and is suitable for the application in quantitative analyses. To this end, I review and discuss to what extent existing quantitative approaches to the measurement of pioneership (or related phenomenons) are suitable to provide valid and accurate assessments of the willingness and ability of states to act as pioneers in environmental governance.
