Erika Weinthal - Böcker

The complexities and scope of environmental issues have not only outpaced the capacities and responsiveness of traditional political actors but also generated new innovations, constituencies, and approaches to governing environmental problems. In response, comparative environmental politics (CEP) has emerged as a vibrant and growing field of scholarly inquiry, embracing new questions and methods even as it addresses enduring questions in the broader field of comparative politics. Utilizing a range of methodological approaches, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics delves into more traditional forms of CEP--the political economy of natural resources and the role of corporations and supply chains--while also showcasing new trends in CEP scholarship, particularly the comparative study of environmental injustice and intersectional inequities.Moving beyond the field's earlier work that focused on cross-national comparisons of political institutions, regulatory styles, and state-society relations, the Handbook includes approaches from political science, anthropology, sociology, geography, gender theory, law, human rights, and development studies. Moreover, the chapters highlight scholarship from a broader range of regions, and analyze the construction and diffusion of norms, rights, ethics, and ideology across the globe and through various social movements (with a focus on approaches from the Global South). Including 42 chapters, organized across 9 sections, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics explores some of the most important environmental issues through the lens of comparative politics, including energy, climate change, food, health, urbanization, waste, and sustainability.

Water is a basic human need and a scarce commodity with increasing value to farmers, industries, and cities in an urbanizing world. It is unpredictable in supply and quality, difficult to contain or direct, and notoriously difficult to manage well. Several trends--climate change, the endurance of widespread global water poverty, intensifying competition among rival uses and users, and the vulnerability of critical freshwater ecosystems--combine to intensify the challenges of governing water wisely, fairly, and efficiently. The twenty-seven chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy address such issues over the course of seven thematic sections. These themes reflect familiar frameworks in the water policy world, including water, poverty, and health; water and nature; and water equity and justice. Other sections look at emergent and contentious policy arenas, including the water/energy/food nexus and management of uncertainty in water supply, or connect well-established strands in new ways, including sections on water tools (water price and value, supply and demand, privatization, corporate responsibility) and issues surrounding transboundary waters. This volume conceives of water as a global issue, and gathers a diverse group of leading scholars of water politics and policy.

Water is a basic human need and a scarce commodity with increasing value to farmers, industries, and cities in an urbanizing world. It is unpredictable in supply and quality, difficult to contain or direct, and notoriously difficult to manage well. Several trends -- climate change, the endurance of widespread global water poverty, intensifying competition among rival uses and users, and the vulnerability of critical freshwater ecosystems -- combine to intensify the challenges of governing water wisely, fairly, and efficiently. The twenty-seven chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy address such issues over the course of seven thematic sections. These themes reflect familiar frameworks in the water policy world, including water, poverty, and health; water and nature; and water equity and justice. Other sections look at emergent and contentious policy arenas, including the water/energy/food nexus and management of uncertainty in water supply, or connect well-established strands in new ways, including sections on water tools (water price and value, supply and demand, privatization, corporate responsibility) and issues surrounding transboundary waters. This volume conceives of water as a global issue, and gathers a diverse group of leading scholars of water politics and policy.

This book makes two central claims: first, that mineral-rich states are cursed not by their wealth but, rather, by the ownership structure they choose to manage their mineral wealth and second, that weak institutions are not inevitable in mineral-rich states. Each represents a significant departure from the conventional resource curse literature, which has treated ownership structure as a constant across time and space and has presumed that mineral-rich countries are incapable of either building or sustaining strong institutions - particularly fiscal regimes. The experience of the five petroleum-rich Soviet successor states (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) provides a clear challenge to both of these assumptions. Their respective developmental trajectories since independence demonstrate not only that ownership structure can vary even across countries that share the same institutional legacy but also that this variation helps to explain the divergence in their subsequent fiscal regimes.

This book makes two central claims: first, that mineral-rich states are cursed not by their wealth but, rather, by the ownership structure they choose to manage their mineral wealth and second, that weak institutions are not inevitable in mineral-rich states. Each represents a significant departure from the conventional resource curse literature, which has treated ownership structure as a constant across time and space and has presumed that mineral-rich countries are incapable of either building or sustaining strong institutions - particularly fiscal regimes. The experience of the five petroleum-rich Soviet successor states (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) provides a clear challenge to both of these assumptions. Their respective developmental trajectories since independence demonstrate not only that ownership structure can vary even across countries that share the same institutional legacy but also that this variation helps to explain the divergence in their subsequent fiscal regimes.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the essential concepts of environmental conflict and peacebuilding by compiling and explaining key terms in an easy-to-navigate A–Z format.Over the past 80 years, scholarly interest in war and peace has flourished, resulting in the institutionalization of disciplines such as international relations, security studies, and peace and conflict studies. Since at least the 1970s, research has also investigated the planetary effects of global environmental change. Environmental peacebuilding emerged at the intersection of environment, conflict, and peace, weaving together several related threads that address both environmental risks of conflict and environmental opportunities for peace. The language used to describe, explain, predict, teach, negotiate, and form policy in the arena of environmental peacebuilding is often nuanced, evolving, and contested. This book fills a gap in the literature by providing a consistent understanding and approach to key aspects of environmental peacebuilding. The book begins with a thematic introduction to contextualize the topic, written by a team of world-leading scholars. The book then follows an A–Z format, with over 150 entries from experts in the field describing and explaining key concepts and providing examples of how different terms are applied within this growing discipline.This comprehensive A–Z guide will be useful for students, academics, professionals, and policymakers seeking a wider understanding of environmental peacebuilding. The book will also be useful for those studying security studies, peace and conflict studies, environmental studies, and environmental law.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the essential concepts of environmental conflict and peacebuilding by compiling and explaining key terms in an easy-to-navigate A–Z format.Over the past 80 years, scholarly interest in war and peace has flourished, resulting in the institutionalization of disciplines such as international relations, security studies, and peace and conflict studies. Since at least the 1970s, research has also investigated the planetary effects of global environmental change. Environmental peacebuilding emerged at the intersection of environment, conflict, and peace, weaving together several related threads that address both environmental risks of conflict and environmental opportunities for peace. The language used to describe, explain, predict, teach, negotiate, and form policy in the arena of environmental peacebuilding is often nuanced, evolving, and contested. This book fills a gap in the literature by providing a consistent understanding and approach to key aspects of environmental peacebuilding. The book begins with a thematic introduction to contextualize the topic, written by a team of world-leading scholars. The book then follows an A–Z format, with over 150 entries from experts in the field describing and explaining key concepts and providing examples of how different terms are applied within this growing discipline.This comprehensive A–Z guide will be useful for students, academics, professionals, and policymakers seeking a wider understanding of environmental peacebuilding. The book will also be useful for those studying security studies, peace and conflict studies, environmental studies, and environmental law.

Energy and water have been fundamental to powering the global economy and building modern society. This cross-disciplinary book provides an integrated assessment of the different scientific and policy tools around the energy-water nexus. It focuses on how water use, and wastewater and waste solids produced from fossil fuel energy production affect water quality and quantity. Summarizing cutting edge research, it describes the scientific methods for detecting contamination sources in the context of policy and regulations. The authors highlight the growing evidence that fossil fuel production, from both conventional and unconventional sources, leads to water quality degradation, while regulations for the water and energy sector remain fractured and highly variable across and within countries. This volume will be a key reference for scholars, industry professionals, environmental consultants and policy makers seeking information on the risks associated with the energy cycle and its impact on the environment, particularly water resources.

Water is a basic human need, and despite predictions of "water wars," shared waters have proven to be the natural resource with the greatest potential for interstate cooperation and local confidence building. Indeed, water management plays a singularly important role in rebuilding trust after conflict and in preventing a return to conflict. Featuring nineteen case studies and analyses of experiences from twenty eight countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East, and drawing on the experiences of thirty-five researchers and practitioners from around the world, this book creates a framework for understanding how decisions governing water resources in post-conflict settings can facilitate or undermine peacebuilding. The lessons will be of value to practitioners in international development and humanitarian initiatives, policy makers, students, and others interested in post-conflict peacebuilding and the nexus between water management and conflict. Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding is part of a global initiative to identify and analyze lessons in post-conflict peacebuilding and natural resource management. The project has generated six edited books of case studies and analyses, with contributions from practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. Other books in this series address high-value resources, land, livelihoods, assessing and restoring natural resources, and governance.