Environmental Governance (Routledge Introductions to Environment: Environment and Society Texts)

✍ Scribed by James Evans, Craig Thomas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 311
• Edition: 2
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Climate change is prompting an unprecedented questioning of the fundamental bases upon which society is founded. Businesses claim that technology can save the environment, while politicians champion the role of international environmental agreements to secure global action. Economists suggest that we should pay developing countries not to destroy their forests, while environmentalists question whether we can solve ecological problems with the same thinking that created them. As the process of steering society, governance has a critical role to play in coordinating these disparate voices and securing collective action to achieve a more sustainable future.

Environmental Governance is the only book to discuss the first principles of governance, while also providing a critical overview of the wide-ranging theories and approaches that underpin policy and practice today. It places governance within its wider political context to explore how the environment is controlled, manipulated, regulated and contested by a range of actors and institutions. This book shows how network and market governance have shaped current approaches to environmental issues, while also introducing approaches such as transition management and adaptive governance. In so doing, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches currently in play, and considers their political implications.

This second edition has been comprehensively updated to build upon the success of the acclaimed first edition, with a new chapter on the environmental governance of outer space and updated analysis of international climate change summits. It provides a ground-breaking overview of dominant and emerging approaches of environmental governance, forging critical links between them. Each chapter has been updated with new case studies, key debates and figures, and includes questions for discussion and further reading. It is essential reading for students of the environment, politics and sociology, and, indeed, anyone concerned with changing society to secure a more sustainable future.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Endorsements Page
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Plates
List of Analytics of Governance Boxes
List of Case Study Boxes
List of Key Debate Boxes
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Introduction
Voltaire’s Snowflake
The Environment as a Crisis of Governance
Defining Governance
The Challenge of Collective Action
Opportunities for Change
Scope of the Book
Structure of the Book
Chapter 2 Governing the Environment
Introduction
Governing by Government
The Emergence of the Environment as a Global Problem
Globalization and the Hollowing out of the Nation-State
The Shift from Government to Governance
Modes of Governance
Orders of Governance
Conclusions
Chapter 3 Institutions, Rules and Actors
Introduction
Institutions
Rules
Common pool Resource Management
A note on Scale
Key Actors
Conclusions
Chapter 4 Global Governance
Introduction
Process
The United Nations Conferences
The Shift to Climate Change
Architecture
Implementation
Conclusions
Chapter 5 Networks
Introduction
The Power of Networks
Transnational Governance Networks
Corporate Social Responsibility
Certification Networks
Auditing Networks
Conclusions
Chapter 6 Markets
Introduction
Using Markets
Enclosure and Commodification
Valuing the Environment
Conclusions
Chapter 7 Transition Management
Introduction
Technological Transitions
Transition and Sustainability
Society and Transition
Transition in Practice
Conclusions
Chapter 8 Adaptive Governance
Introduction
Resilience and the Adaptive Cycle
Social–Ecological Systems
Adaptive Governance
The Politics of Resilience and Adaptation
Conclusions
Chapter 9 Participation and Politics
Introduction
Risk
The Rationale for Participation
Public Participation
Problems with Public Participation
Political Activism
Alternative Futures
Conclusions
Chapter 10 Conclusions
Introduction
Environmental Governance Reconsidered
Comparing the Different Modes of Environmental Governance
Eight Hypotheses
The Future
Bibliography
Index