SUNY series in International Environmental Policy and Theory – serie

This book examines why policies and laws intended to protect the environment often do not work. In particular, Gamman addresses the fundamental reasons why efforts to protect natural resources in the developing world generally fail. He describes why environmental initiatives originating in national governments, international foreign assistance agencies, and environmental groups suffer from a dysfunctional decision making process. And he suggests how to improve environmental policymaking by creating partnerships for sustainable development, showing how to do this with a step-by-step negotiation process.

Ecological resistance movements are proliferating around the world. Some are explicitly radical in their ideas and militant in their tactics while others have emerged from a variety of social movements that, in response to environmental deterioration, have taken up ecological sustainability as a central objective. This book brings together a team of international scholars to examine contemporary movements of ecological resistance. The first four sections focus on the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Africa, and Europe, and the book concludes with a selection of articles that address the philosophical and moral issues these movements pose, assess trends found among them, and evaluate their impacts and prospects. [Among the many contributors to the volume are Daniel Deudney, Robert Edwards, Heidi Hadsell, Sheldon Kamieniecki, Lois Lorentzen, David Rothenberg, Wolfgang Rudig, Jerry Stark, Paul Wapner, and Ben Wisner.]

A theoretical study of the politics of transnational environmental activist groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wildlife Fund that argues that environmental activists practice world civic politics and play a central role in the way the world addresses environmental issues.

Explores the growing role of global civil society and local environmental activism in the management and protection of the environment worldwide.What will it take to protect the global environment? In this book, Ronnie D. Lipschutz argues that neither world government nor green economics can do the job. Governmental regulations often are resisted by those whose behavior they are intended to change, and markets-even green ones-look to profits more than to protection. What will be needed, Lipschutz believes, is not global management but political action through community- and place-based organizations and projects. People acting together locally can have a cumulative impact on environmental quality that is significant, long lasting, and widespread.The comparative case studies of environmental activism in Northern California, Hungary, and Indonesia (the latter written by Judith Mayer) illustrate one of the central premises of this book: that local action is linked increasingly to globe-spanning networks of knowledge and practice, in what Lipschutz calls global civil society. The result is a system of governance that is both local and global, to which states and international organizations are turning increasingly for help and advice.

Presents alternative and often opposing viewpoints on the major national and international environmental controversies that will be with us well into the twenty-first century.As a contribution to public policy and to help educate students about natural resource issues, this book identifies the likely "hot spots" of environmental policy and presents alternative and often opposing points of view on the major controversies that are likely to be with us well into the next century. Among the topics covered are comparative risk assessment; market incentives in environmental regulation; environmental justice; public versus private management of public lands; international trade and sustainable development; and the relationship between national security and environmental protection.

Examines in depth the ecological problems, policies, and politics of ten major developing countries.The interconnectedness of the global environment and finiteness of the earth's natural resources require an increased understanding of environmental and natural-resource policy and politics in countries around the world. This is especially true of industrializing countries where widespread ecological disturbances and rapid exploitation of natural resources are taking place. Ecological Policy and Politics in Developing Countries provides an in-depth study of ecological problems, policies, and politics in ten major industrializing countries. Each chapter discusses the increasingly international context of domestic environmental policies and explores some of the powerful interests and institutional forces that contribute to ecological problems and shape the policies to deal with them in each country. The authors identify some of the major impediments to both well-designed environmental policies and their effective implementation. The ten countries included here-the Czech Republic, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Taiwan, Thailand, Slovakia, and Venezuela-cover five continents, over half of the world's population and most of the major industrializing countries.[Contributors include Lester Ross, Robert Cribb, Jonathan Rigg and Philip Stott, Juju Chin-Shou Wang, R. K. Sapru, Stephen P. Mumme, Pablo Gutman, Olusegun Areola, and Catherine Albrecht.]

Presents diverse views on the relationship between environmental politics and international security.Since the end of the Cold War, the relationship between international security and the environment has been subject to intensive policy concern, scholarly debate and research. Contested Grounds brings together many of the best known researchers on this emerging topic as they present sharply conflicting views on the relationship between the environment and security and conflict.The book puts the contemporary debate in historical and theoretical perspective by demonstrating the important, but overlooked, role that environmental factors have placed in historical developments and in earlier geopolitical theories. The contributors present diverse and often conflicting answers to three questions: What are the relationships between environmental change, degradation and protection and traditional natural security concepts and organizations? How useful are security concepts and organizations in mobilizing political responses to environmental problems? What role do environmental factors play in stimulating international conflict and cooperation?In-depth case studies on transboundary resource issues are explored as well as the implications of Chinese environmental decay for political conflict, and the use of military satellites for environmental monitoring.[Contributors include Ken Butts, Simon Dalby, Daniel Deudney, Ronald J. Deibert, Michel Frederick, Jack Goldstone, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Miriam Lowi, Richard Matthew, and Eric Stern.]

Explores the tensions between American political culture, which is predicated on self-interest, and environmental regulation, which restricts individual property rights.Environmental Deceptions brings together normative analysis and empirical data to explain the structural limitations liberal society places on environmental improvement. Whereas liberal society is predicated on individual self-interest, environmental legislation is predicated on communal regulation of individual property rights. Cahn's aim is to expose the tensions between American political culture and environmental regulation in an effort to make environmental policy discourse more effective. By analyzing such areas as air policy, water policy, waste policy, and energy policy, he exposes the subtle tensions that often lead to failure and explains why traditional models of environmental legislation are insufficient to resolve existing environmental dilemmas.

Explores the tensions between American political culture, which is predicated on self-interest, and environmental regulation, which restricts individual property rights.Environmental Deceptions brings together normative analysis and empirical data to explain the structural limitations liberal society places on environmental improvement. Whereas liberal society is predicated on individual self-interest, environmental legislation is predicated on communal regulation of individual property rights. Cahn's aim is to expose the tensions between American political culture and environmental regulation in an effort to make environmental policy discourse more effective. By analyzing such areas as air policy, water policy, waste policy, and energy policy, he exposes the subtle tensions that often lead to failure and explains why traditional models of environmental legislation are insufficient to resolve existing environmental dilemmas.

Examines the strategic impact of two European ecology parties on the recomposition of left-wing politics in their countries.Redefining Red and Green explores the political strategies of two European ecology parties, the socialist German Grünen and the radically democratic French Les Verts. The strategies represent typical choices-and dilemmas-of progressive politics, with far-reaching implications. Once proud of their "anti-political" stance, the ideas of these former militant outsiders have been integrated into mainstream political discourse. Now green parties are a recognized political force in their respective countries. In this book, Shull examines the full range of strategic choices made by the parties and probes the limits and tradeoffs involved in each choice, and in any strategy for progressive reform.The growth and transformation of the Grünen and Les Verts is of universal importance. Reader's sympathetic to the environmental movement will want to explore the different paths the Greens have taken in Europe. Those concerned about the future of the Left in the United States and Europe will be interested in the dialogue between ecologists and specialists on the subject. Scholars and students of social movements, parties, or contemporary political thought will find a fresh comparison and an original theoretical synthesis.