Trajectories in Environmental Politics


Book Description

This book explores the dominant framings and paradigms of environmental politics, the relationship between academic analysis and environmental politics, and reflects on the first thirty years of the journal, Environmental Politics. The book has two purposes. The first is to identify and discuss the key themes that have driven scholarship in the field of environmental politics over the last three decades, and to highlight how this has also led to oversights and silences, and the marginalisation of important forms of analysis and thought. As several chapters in the book explore, problem-solving frameworks have increasingly taken away space from more radical systemic challenge and critique, as the key themes of environmental politics have become ever more central to the field of politics as a whole – and as our understandings of social and environmental crisis become ever clearer and more urgent. The second purpose of the volume is to map out a series of new and developing agendas for environmental politics. The chapters in this volume focus foremost on questions of justice, materiality, and power. Discussing state violence, multispecies justice, epistemic injustice, the circular economy, NGOs, parties, green transition, and urban climate governance, they call above all for greater attention to intersectionality and interdisciplinarity, and for centering key insights about power relations and socio-economic inequalities into increasingly widespread, yet also often depoliticised, topics in the study of environmental politics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.




Environmental Violence


Book Description

The book develops the concept of environmental violence as a potent tool to identify, track, reduce environmental threats to humanity.




The Politics of the Environment


Book Description

Revised to include new discussions on climate justice, green political parties, climate legislation and recent environmental struggles.




Living with Nature


Book Description

Despite the optimism of the `Earth Summit' held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the politics of environmental sustainable development has reached an impasse. Why do issues of environmental protection continue to take a back seat to economic competition, particularly in the international realm? Once the environmental problem was widely recognised, it was held that consensus could be reached. In practice, however, the development of sustainability had often continued to merely extend earlier technocratic practices and solutions, which fail to take into consideration the specific cultural questions. Living With Nature seeks to place the question of the dynamics of environmental crisis within a socio-cultural dimension of the existing economic and political institutions. The book argues for a need to find a new balance between a theoretical analysis of the debate and an appreciation of local circumstances, norms and knowledge. Politically, it implies an implicit understanding of the way in which we live together with nature.




Carbon Captured


Book Description

A comparative examination of domestic climate politics that offers a theory for cross-national differences in domestic climate policymaking. Climate change threatens the planet, and yet policy responses have varied widely across nations. Some countries have undertaken ambitious programs to stave off climate disaster, others have done little, and still others have passed policies that were later rolled back. In this book, Matto Mildenberger opens the “black box” of domestic climate politics, examining policy making trajectories in several countries and offering a theoretical explanation for national differences in the climate policy process. Mildenberger introduces the concept of double representation—when carbon polluters enjoy political representation on both the left (through industrial unions fearful of job loss) and the right (through industrial business associations fighting policy costs)—and argues that different climate policy approaches can be explained by the interaction of climate policy preferences and domestic institutions. He illustrates his theory with detailed histories of climate politics in Norway, the United States, and Australia, along with briefer discussions of policies in in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada. He shows that Norway systematically shielded politically connected industrial polluters from costs beginning with its pioneering carbon tax; the United States, after the failure of carbon reduction legislation, finally acted on climate reform through a series of Obama administration executive actions; and Australia's Labor and Green parties enacted an emissions trading scheme, which was subsequently repealed by a conservative Liberal party government. Ultimately, Mildenberger argues for the importance of political considerations in understanding the climate policymaking process and discusses possible future policy directions.




Environmental Politics


Book Description

At every stage, environmental policy is the result of the combat of stakeholders interested in, and affected by, the problem being addressed and the range of possible solutions. The combatants include any or all of the following: the federal government, environmental advocacy groups, and business, the media, the scientific community, think tanks, NGOs of every stripe, trade associations and professional organizations, and even state and local governments, each of whom have their own interests in the resulting policy. Environmental Politics: Interest Groups, the Media, and the Making of Policy discusses political battles over the environment from ground level - as they are fought in legislative chambers, the daily newspaper, on television, and, increasingly, on the Internet. The text explores environmental politics as a clash of interests, not ideologies, and environmental policy as a result of the reconciliation of those interests. The author covers not only the conventional aspects of the policymaking process but more recent and less recognized elements and developments such as: Proliferation of legislative riders and monument designations as major environmental strategies Evolving role of the media, from science popularizer to agenda setter Growing influence on both Congress and the public of conservative and libertarian foundations and think tanks Devolution of environmental power from the Federal to state governments Metamorphosis of EPA in a business-driven regulatory revolution Effect of globalization on US environmental policy Newly emerging role of the precautionary principle in marrying science and politics Increasing role of the Internet in promoting populist issues and promoting the decentralization of the environmental power structure No other book covers the politics of the environment the way this one does. Written by an expert with 25 years of experience in environmental policymaking, Environmental Politics: Interest Groups, the Media, and the Making of Policy gives you an insider's view of how policies are forged. By examining these issues through an interest group lens, this book not only accounts for what policies have been adopted but also shows how you can influence policy and effect change.




Remaking Political Institutions: Climate Change and Beyond


Book Description

Institutions are failing in many areas of contemporary politics, not least of which concerns climate change. However, remedying such problems is not straightforward. Pursuing institutional improvement is an intensely political process, playing out over extended timeframes, and intricately tied to existing setups. Such activities are open-ended, and outcomes are often provisional and indeterminate. The question of institutional improvement, therefore, centers on understanding how institutions are (re)made within complex settings. This Element develops an original analytical foundation for studying institutional remaking and its political dynamics. It explains how institutional remaking can be observed and provides a typology comprising five areas of institutional production involved in institutional remaking (Novelty, Uptake, Dismantling, Stability, Interplay). This opens up a new research agenda on the politics of responding to institutional breakdown, and brings sustainability scholarship into closer dialogue with scholarship on processes of institutional change and development. Also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.




Atmosphere of Collaboration


Book Description

This book discusses air pollution in Delhi from scientific, social and entrepreneurial perspectives. Using key debates and interventions on air pollution, it examines the trajectories of environmental politics in the Delhi region, one of the most polluted areas in the world. It highlights the administrative struggles, public advocacy, and entrepreneurial innovations that have built creative new links between science and urban citizenship. The book describes the atmosphere of collaboration that pervades these otherwise disparate spheres in contemporary Delhi. Key features: · Presents an original case study on urban environmentalism from the Global South · Cuts across science, policy, advocacy and innovation · Includes behind-the-scenes discussions, tensions and experimentations in the Indian air pollution space · Uses immersive ethnography to study a topical and relevant urban issue As South Asian and Global South cities confront fast-intensifying environmental risks, this study presents a dialogue between urban political ecology (UPE) and science and technology studies on Delhi’s air. The book explores how the governance of air is challenged by scales, jurisdictions, and institutional structures. It also shows how technical experts are bridging disciplinary silos as they engage in advocacy by translating science for public understanding. The book serves as a reminder of the enduring struggles over space, quality of life, and citizenship while pointing to the possibilities for different urban futures being negotiated by variegated agents. The book will interest scholars and researchers of science and technology studies, urban studies, urban geography, environmental studies, environmental politics, governance, public administration, and sociology, especially in the Global South context. It will also be useful to practitioners, policymakers, bureaucrats, government bodies, civil society organisations, and those working on air pollution advocacy.




Environment and Politics


Book Description

Published in the year 2001, Environment and Politics is a valuable contribution to the field of Geography.




Environmental Policy in India


Book Description

This book systematically introduces historical trajectories and dynamics of environmental policy and governance in India. Following the features of environmental policy in India as outlined in Chapter 1, subsequent chapters explore domestic and international factors that shape environmental policy in the country. The chapters examine the interplay between governmental and non-governmental actors, and the influence of social mobilisation and institutions on environmental policy and governance. Analysing various policy trajectories, the chapters identify and explore five central environmental policy subsystems: forests, water, climate, energy and city development. The authors drill down into the social, economic, political and ecological dimensions of each system, shedding light on why striking a balance between national economic growth and environmental sustainability is so challenging. Drawing on political science theories of policy processes and related theoretical concepts, this innovative edited volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental policy and politics and South Asian studies more broadly.