Environmental Politics : oso

The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability

John Barry — 2012-05-24

Author:: John Barry
ISBN:: 9780199695393
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695393.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Going against both the naive techno-optimist of ‘greening business as usual’ and a resurgent ‘catastrophism’ within green thinking and politics, The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability offers an analysis of the causes of unsustainability and diminished human flourishing. The books locates the causes of unsustainability in dominant capitalist modes of production, debt-based consumer culture, the imperative for orthodox economic growth and the dominant ideology of neoclassical economics. It suggests that valuable insights into the causes of and alternatives to unsustainability can be found in a critical embracing of human vulnerability and dependency as both constitutive and ineliminable aspects of what it means to be human. The book defends resilience, the ability to ‘cope with’ rather than somehow ‘solve’ vulnerability. The book offers a trenchant critique of the dominant neoclassical economic ‘groupthink’, viewing it not as some value-neutral form of ‘expert knowledge’, but as a thoroughly ideological ‘common sense’. Outlining a green political economic alternative replacing economic growth with economic security, it argues economic growth has done its work in the minority, affluent world, which should now focus on improving human flourishing, lowering socio-economic equality and fostering solidarity as part of a new re-orientation of public policy. Complementing this, a, ‘green republicanism’ is developed as an innovative and original contribution to contemporary debates on a ‘post-growth’ economy and society. The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability draws widely from a range of disciplines and thinkers, from cultural critic Susan Sontag to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, contemporary debates in green political thinking, and the latest thinking in heterodox and green economics, to produce a highly relevant, timely, and provocatively original statement on the human predicament in the twenty-first century.

Animal Rights

Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum — 2012-03-22

Author:: Cass R.SunsteinMartha C.Nussbaumboth at the University of Chicagohttp://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/nussbaum/
ISBN:: 9780195305104
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305104.001.0001
Published in print:: 2005
Published Online:: 2012-03-22

This book explores the legal and political issues that underlie the campaign for animal rights and the opposition to it. Addressing ethical questions about ownership, protection against unjustified suffering, and the ability of animals to make their own choices free from human control, its chapters offer numerous different perspectives on animal rights and animal welfare. They show that whatever one's ultimate conclusions, the relationship between human beings and nonhuman animals is being fundamentally rethought. The book offers a modern treatment of that rethinking.

Environmental Governance in Europe

2011-10-03

Author:: Albert Weale, Geoffrey Pridham, Michelle Cini, Dimitrios Konstadakopulos, Martin Porter, Brendan Flynn
ISBN:: 9780199257478
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, European Union, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199257478.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2011-10-03

Over the last thirty years, the European Union (EU) has created a system of environmental governance in Europe. With a large number of legislative measures, the EU's environmental policy is broad in scope, extensive in detail, and often stringent in effect. Environmental governance also extends to the ways in which decision-making on environmental policy has become institutionalised within Europe, both at the level of the EU itself and in the practices of the member states. This book seeks to understand this new system of environmental governance both at the European level and at the level of member states. It argues that the system is multi-level, horizontally complex, evolving, and incomplete. Locating developments at the European level in theories of European integration, it goes on to examine the extent of convergence and divergence in environmental policy among six member states: Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It then looks at the operation of the system of environmental governance through an examination of policy case studies before examining the wider political significance of these developments.

Climate Governance at the Crossroads

Matthew J. Hoffmann — 2011-05-01

Author:: Matthew J. Hoffmann
ISBN:: 9780195390087
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics, International Relations and Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390087.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-05-01

The global governance of climate change is in flux. Conventional strategies of addressing climate change through universal, interstate negotiations—the most prominent of which is the Kyoto Protocol—have been stymied by the gaps that exist between the negotiating powers of states, rendering such initiatives stagnant and ineffectual. In response, a number of new actors and processes have begun to challenge the traditionally exclusive authority of nation-states to create rules and manage environmental problems via multi-national treaties. Dozens of innovative climate response initiatives, or “governance experiments,” have emerged at multiple levels of politics and across multiple jurisdictions: individuals, cities, states/provinces, corporations, and even new multilateral initiatives. This book explains how and why these new governance experiments have emerged, drawing upon a database of such initiatives to ascertain how these initiatives fit together and how they influence what is defined as environmental governance. In assessing the relational impact of these initiatives (whether they complement each other or clash; whether they can be scaled up or down; and whether they can be expanded beyond their current jurisdictional and geographic boundaries), the book provides insight into whether this experimentation is likely to result in an effective response to climate change. Additionally, it draws broader conclusions about how we understand global governance, addressing questions of how we understand authority and what we accept as modes of rule-making in global political spaces.

Winds of Change

Ion Bogdan Vasi — 2011-01-01

Author:: Ion Bogdan Vasi
ISBN:: 9780199746927
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746927.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2011-01-01

This book brings social movements into the study of market formation and industry growth. It starts from the observation that while wind power stands out as a renewable energy success story in some countries and regions, it has failed to reach its true potential in many countries and has had an uneven global development. The book offers an interpretation that differs from the dominant technological and economic perspectives. It develops a model that argues that the development of the wind energy industry is influenced by interactions between the environmental movement, the social context, and natural resources. The model identifies three main pathways through which the environmental movement influences the development of the wind energy industry. The first pathway is the influence that environmental activists and organizations have on energy policymakers' decisions to adopt and implement pro‐renewable energy policies. The second pathway is the influence that environmental groups and activists have on energy consumers. The third pathway is the influence of the environmental movement on energy professionals. The empirical study combines quantitative and qualitative analyses. Case studies focus on Canada, Denmark, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The conclusion argues that environmentalist “global winds of change” are almost as important as the atmospheric winds for the development of the wind energy industry around the world. It also presents a few implications for future studies of industry creation and energy sector growth.

Atmospheric Justice

Steve Vanderheiden — 2008-05-01

Author:: Steve Vanderheiden
ISBN:: 9780195334609
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195334609.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2008-05-01

When policies of or activities within one country and generation cause deleterious consequences for those of other nations and later generations, they can constitute serious injustices. Hence, anthropogenic climate change poses not only a global environmental threat, but also one to international and intergenerational justice. The avoidance of such injustice has been recognized as a primary objective of global climate policy, and this book aims to comprehend the nature of this objective–to explore how climate change raises issues of international and intergenerational justice and to consider how the design of a global climate regime might these aims into account. Enlisting conceptual tools from ethics as well as legal and political theory, it treats justice as concerned with equity and responsibility and considers how each is undermined by climate change but might be incorporated into climate policy. Various theoretical problems in applying norms of equity and responsibility across borders, over time, and to nations for their greenhouse emissions are considered, and responses are given to these challenges. Finally, an outline for a global climate policy that adequately incorporates norms of justice is articulated and defended, along with a case for procedural fairness in policy development processes. Demonstrating how political theory can usefully contribute toward better understanding the proper human response to climate change as well as how the climate case offers insights into resolving contemporary controversies within political theory, the book offers a case study in which the application of normative theory to policy allows readers to better understand both.

Defining Environmental Justice

David Schlosberg — 2007-09-01

Author:: David Schlosberg
ISBN:: 9780199286294
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286294.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

The basic task of this book is to explore what, exactly, is meant by ‘justice’ in definitions of environmental and ecological justice. It examines how the term is used in both self-described environmental justice movements and in theories of environmental and ecological justice. The central argument is that a theory and practice of environmental justice necessarily includes distributive conceptions of justice, but must also embrace notions of justice based in recognition, capabilities, and participation. Throughout, the goal is the development of a broad, multi-faceted, yet integrated notion of justice that can be applied to both relations regarding environmental risks in human populations and relations between human communities and non-human nature.

Citizenship and the Environment

Andrew Dobson — 2004-04-07

Author:: Andrew Dobson
ISBN:: 9780199258444
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0199258449.001.0001
Published in print:: 2003
Published Online:: 2004-04-07

Ecological citizenship cannot be fully articulated in either liberal or civic republican terms. It is, rather, an example and an inflection of ‘post‐cosmopolitan’ citizenship. Ecological citizenship focuses on duties as well as rights, and its conception of political space is not the state or the municipality, or the ideal speech community of cosmopolitanism, but the ‘ecological footprint’. Ecological citizenship contrasts with fiscal incentives as a way of encouraging people to act more sustainably, in the belief that the former is more compatible with the long‐term and deeper shifts of attitude and behaviour that sustainability requires. This book offers an original account of the relationship between liberalism and sustainability, arguing that the former's commitment to a plurality of conceptions of the good entails a commitment to so‐called ‘strong’ forms of the latter. How to make an ecological citizen? The potential of formal high school citizenship education programmes is examined through a case study of the recent implementation of the compulsory citizenship curriculum in the UK.

Preservation Versus the People?

Mathew Humphrey — 2003-11-01

Author:: Mathew Humphrey
ISBN:: 9780199242672
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0199242674.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

Environmental political philosophy has generally been framed around the differing axiologies of ecocentrism (nature‐centred) and anthropocentric (human‐centred) forms of ethics. This book seeks to challenge the political relevance of this philosophical dispute with respect to the problem of nature preservation as public policy. A detailed analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of both ecocentric and ‘ecological humanist’ positions shows that the ‘embedded humanism’ within ecocentric arguments offers an opportunity to move beyond the ecocentric‐anthropocentric divide. Furthermore, a principle of ‘strong irreplaceability’ with regard to natural goods can provide the basis for a political argument for nature preservation that is compatible with both human‐centred and nature‐centred concerns.

The Politics of Environmental Discourse

Maarten A. Hajer — 2003-11-01

Author:: Maarten A. Hajer
ISBN:: 9780198293330
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/019829333X.001.0001
Published in print:: 1997
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

The book identifies the emergence and increasing political importance of ‘ecological modernization’ as a new language in environmental politics. In this conceptual language, environmental management appears as a ‘positive sum game’. Combining social theory with detailed empirical analysis, the book illustrates the social and political dynamics of ecological modernization through a study of the acid rain controversies in Great Britain and the Netherlands. The book concludes with a reflection on the institutional challenge of environmental politics in the years to come. The book is not only seen as a ‘modern classic’ in the literature on environmental politics but is also renowned for its application of discourse analysis to the study of the policy process.

Living with Nature

Frank Fischer and Maarten Hajer — 2003-11-01

Author:: FrankFischerBloustein School of Planning and Public Policyhttp://politicalscience.newark.rutgers.edu/fischer.htmMaartenHajerUniversity of Amsterdamhttp://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.a.hajer/
ISBN:: 9780198295099
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/019829509X.001.0001
Published in print:: 1999
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

The environmental politics of sustainable development has reached an impasse, despite the optimism that attended the ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Notwithstanding wide recognition of the environmental crisis, environmental protection continues to be regarded as less important than economic competitiveness. Because of the failure of governments to reach a consensus on appropriate policy action, sustainable development has in practice served mainly to extend the technocratic approaches and solutions that have failed in the past. By examining this failed discourse of environmental policy, the contributors to this book call attention to our neglect of the underlying cultural dynamics of ecological politics. In providing a critical assessment of the ways in which today's economic and political institutions address environmental policy, this book brings into focus the socio–cultural dimensions of the environmental debate. How is our way of life implicated in the crisis? Are there implicit cultural politics at work in policy‐making? What role can science play in finding acceptable solutions? This book calls for a new balance between theoretical‐analytic assessment of the environmental crisis and a practical approach to policy that takes account of local circumstances, norms, and knowledge. The political challenge is to find ways of addressing humanity's wish to live together with nature.

Justice, Posterity, and the Environment

Wilfred Beckerman and Joanna Pasek — 2003-11-01

Author:: Wilfred Beckerman, Joanna Pasek
ISBN:: 9780199245086
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0199245088.001.0001
Published in print:: 2001
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

In rich countries, environmental problems are seen as problems of prosperity. In poor countries, they are seen as problems of poverty. This is because the environmental problems in poor countries—such as lack of clean drinking water or decent sanitation—are problems that affect them here and now, whereas in rich countries the environmental problems that people worry about most—largely as a result of current prosperity and economic growth—are those that seem likely to harm mainly posterity and hence violate our obligations to future generations. But what exactly are our obligations to future generations? Are they determined by some sort of ethical system, such as the ‘rights’ of future generations, or justice between generations, or intergenerational equity, or sustainable development? The first part of this book is addressed to these questions. It is argued that while ethical ‘systems’ do not provide much help, we still have moral obligations to take account of the interests that future generations will have. But an appraisal of these interests in the light of probable future developments suggests that, while environmental problems have to be taken seriously, our main obligation to future generations is to bequeath to them a more decent society in which there is greater respect for basic human rights than is the case today throughout most of the world. Furthermore, it cannot serve the interests of justice if the burden of protecting the environment for the benefit of posterity is born mainly by poorer people today. More resources devoted to the environment means fewer are devoted competing claims for, say, health care or education or housing, not to mention plain private consumption. And in poor countries millions of people suffer from acute lack of sanitation, clean drinking water, shelter, and basic infrastructures to prevent or cure widespread disease. Neither generations nor nations are homogeneous entities. The later chapters of this book, therefore, are addressed to the ethical aspects of the way that resources ought to be shared out between environmental protection and competing uses in all countries, and how the burden of dealing with global environmental problems ought to be shared out between rich and poor nations.

Justice and the Environment

Andrew Dobson — 2003-11-01

Author:: Andrew Dobson
ISBN:: 9780198294955
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0198294956.001.0001
Published in print:: 1998
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

Environmental sustainability and social, or distributive, justice are both widely regarded as desirable social objectives. But can we assume that they are compatible with each other? This book analyses the complex relationship between these two pressing objectives. Environmental sustainability is taken to be a contested idea, and three distinct conceptions of it are explored and described. These conceptions are then examined in the context of fundamental distributive questions. Among whom or what should distribution take place? What should be distributed? What should the principle of distribution be? The book contains a critical examination of the claims of the ‘environmental‐justice’ and ‘sustainable‐development’ movements that social justice and environmental sustainability are points on the same virtuous circle, and suggests that radical environmental demands involving the preservation of ‘nature’ are only incompletely served by couching them in terms of justice. The conclusion is that inter‐generational justice is the context in which distributive and sustainability agendas are most closely aligned.

Implementing Sustainable Development

William M. Lafferty and James Meadowcroft — 2003-11-01

Author:: William M. Lafferty, James Meadowcroft
ISBN:: 9780199242016
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0199242011.001.0001
Published in print:: 2000
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

This volume examines the response of governments in the industrialized countries to the challenge of sustainable development. It focuses on the response of central governments in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, the USA, and the EU. The study shows that sustainable development has been integrated into governmental idiom in most jurisdictions, and has come to be associated with a series of changes to the structures and approaches deployed to manage environmental problems. Yet, it also reveals significant differences of interpretation and priority across the governments surveyed. The study pays particular attention to various understandings of sustainable development, institutional reform, government engagement with other societal actors, national plans and strategies, and the policy areas of climate change and biodiversity.

Green States and Social Movements

2003-11-01

Author:: John S. Dryzek, David Downes, Christian Hunold, David Schlosberg, Hans-Kristian Hernes
ISBN:: 9780199249022
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0199249024.001.0001
Published in print:: 2003
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

Social movements take shape in relation to the kind of state they face, while, over time, states are transformed by the movements they both incorporate and resist. Social movements are central to democracy and democratization. This book examines the interaction between states and environmentalism, emblematic of contemporary social movements. The analysis covers the entire sweep of the modern environmental era that begins in the 1970s, emphasizing the comparative history of four countries: the US, UK, Germany, and Norway, each of which captures a particular kind of interest representation. Interest groups, parties, mass mobilizations, protest businesses, and oppositional public spheres vary in their weight and significance across the four countries. The book explains why the US was an environmental pioneer around 1970, why it was then eclipsed by Norway, why Germany now shows the way, and why the UK has been a laggard throughout. Ecological modernization and the growing salience of environmental risks mean that environmental conservation can now emerge as a basic priority of government, growing out of entrenched economic and legitimation imperatives. The end in view is a green state, on a par with earlier transformations that produced first the liberal capitalist state and then the welfare state. Any such transformation can be envisaged only to the extent environmentalism maintains its focus as a critical social movement that confronts as well as engages the state.

Fairness and Futurity

Andrew Dobson — 2003-11-01

Author:: AndrewDobsonKeele Universityhttp://www.keele.ac.uk/research/lpj/membership/profiles/A.Dobson.htm
ISBN:: 9780198294894
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0198294891.001.0001
Published in print:: 1999
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

Contributors to this edited book consider the normative issues at stake in the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. If future generations are owed justice, what should we bequeath them? Is ‘sustainability’ an appropriate medium for environmentalists to express their demands? Is environmental protection compatible with justice within generations? Is environmental sustainability a luxury when social peace has broken down? The contested nature of sustainable development is considered––is it a useful concept at all any longer? Is it reconcilable with capital accumulation? Liberal––particularly Rawlsian––and socialist notions of justice are tested against the demands of sustainability, and policy instruments for sustainability––such as environmental taxation––are examined for their distributive effects.

Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism

David Schlosberg — 2003-11-01

Author:: David Schlosberg
ISBN:: 9780199256419
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0199256411.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

In this first ever theoretical treatment of the environmental justice movement, David Schlosberg demonstrates the development of a new form of ‘critical’ pluralism, in both theory and practice. Taking into account the evolution of environmentalism and pluralism over the course of the century, Schlosberg argues that the environmental justice movement and new pluralist theories now represent a considerable challenge to both conventional pluralist thought and the practices of the major groups in the US environmental movement. Much of recent political theory has been aimed at how to acknowledge and recognize, rather than deny, the diversity inherent in contemporary life. In practice, the myriad ways people define and experience the ‘environment’ has given credence to a form of environmentalism that takes difference seriously. The environmental justice movement, with its base in diversity, its networked structure, and its communicative practices and demands, exemplifies the attempt to design political practices beyond those one would expect from a standard interest group in the conventional pluralist model. The book is arranged in four parts: I. Environmentalism and Difference: The Pluralist Challenge (two chapters); II. Critical Pluralism in Theory (two chapters); III. Environmental Justice: Critical Pluralism in Practice (two chapters); and IV. Conclusion (one chapter).

The Environment Between Theory and Practice

Avner de-Shalit — 2003-11-01

Author:: Avner de-Shalit
ISBN:: 9780199240388
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Political Science, Environmental Politics
DOI:: 10.1093/0199240388.001.0001
Published in print:: 2000
Published Online:: 2003-11-01

When constructing environmental policies in democratic regimes, there is a need for a theory that can be used not only by academics but also by politicians and activists. So why has the major part of environmental ethics failed to penetrate environmental policy and serve as its rationale? Obviously, there is a gap between the questions that environmental philosophers discuss and the issues that motivate environmental activists. Avner de‐Shalit attempts to bridge this gap by combining tools of political philosophy with questions of environmental ethics and environmental politics. He defends a radical position in relation to both environmental protection and social policies, in order to put forward a political theory, which is not only philosophically sound, but also relevant to the practice of environmental activism. The author argues that several directions in environmental ethics can be at odds with the contemporary political debates surrounding environmental politics. He then goes on to examine the environmental scope of liberalism, communitarianism, participatory democracy, and socialism, and concludes that while elements of liberalism and communitarianism may support environmental protection, it is participatory democracy and a modified version of socialism that are crucial for protecting the environment.