This course examines one of the most remarkable political developments of the past century: the rise, within a single generation, of environmental concern and associated social movements and public policies in far-flung societies around the globe. What was once the preoccupation of small numbers of citizens in wealthy countries has become a major global trend inspiring political action from Rio to Budapest, Hong Kong, Lagos, and Tehran. 

This affords us several opportunities. First, we will switch from the wide-angle lens of "Saving the Planet" - symbolized by the image of Earth seen from outer space - to take a closer look at the political challenges faced by environmental advocates in diverse domestic settings. Specific topics include comparative political systems, policymaking styles, environmental movements, state-society relations, corruption, authoritarian regimes, democratization, resource conflicts, lesson-learning across borders, policy reform, gender analysis, decentralization, and European unification. Second, we will use the environment as a window into broader themes in comparative political analysis. Students will learn how to work more effectively in foreign settings by assessing the political context in which technological and policy innovations are applied. Third, the subject allows us to study one of the leading edges of environmental research as it unfolds. In conjunction with the course, a speaker series will bring well-known scholars in environmental politics to campus to present recent findings.

Required Readings
Readings are available through ERes and may be purchased as a course reader. In addition, students are responsible for reading three issues per week of The New York Times.

Course Requirements

 
Course Schedule

Wednesday, Jan. 21
Introduction and Course Overview         
Come prepared to share results from LexisNexis search on environmental politics in foreign countries.

Monday, Jan. 26
Comparing Political Systems

Readings:

• World Bank, World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World, Oxford University Press, 1997.  Chapter 1 and pp. 214-15.
• Clifford Geertz, Countries, pp. 21-25 only, in After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist, Harvard University Press, 1995.
  

Wednesday, Jan. 28
Comparing Policy Styles

Readings:

• Sheila Jasanoff (1990) American Exceptionalism and the Political Acknowledgement of Risk, Daedalus 119(4):61-81.
• James Q. Wilson, National Differences, pp. 295-312 in Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It, BasicBooks, 1989.
  

Friday, Jan. 29
World Development Indicators exercise due by 3pm

Monday, Feb. 2                
Readings:

• Merilee S. Grindle and John W. Thomas, Public Choices and Policy Change: The Political Economy of Reform in Developing Countries, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Chapter 3 only.  (Additional readings next page.)
• Howard Husock, Executive-Led Government and Hong Kong’s Legislative Council: Debating Harbor Protection, Case Study 1431.0 (A) and 1431.0 (B), Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
  

Wednesday, Feb. 4
Sharing Policy Innovations Across Borders

Readings:

• Richard Rose, Lesson-Drawing in Public Policy: A Guide to Learning Across Time and Space, Chatham House Publishers, 1993. Selections to be announced.
  

Monday, Feb. 9
Comparing Public Opinion on the Environment

Readings:

• Paul F. Steinberg, Environmental Privilege Revisited, in Environmental Leadership in Developing Countries, MIT Press, 2001.

Student teams to present oral summaries of the following: 

• Anthony Downs (1972) Up and Down with Ecology – the “Issue-Attention Cycle,” The Public Interest 28(Summer):38-50; Russel J. Dalton, Europeans and Environmentalism, in The Green Rainbow: Environmental Groups in Western Europe, Yale University Press, 1994
• Riley E. Dunlap, George H. Gallup, Jr., and Alec M. Gallup (1993) Of Global Concern: Results of the Health of the Planet Survey, Environment 77-15, 33-39; Deborah Lynn Guber, The Grassroots of a Green Revolution: Polling America on the Environment, MIT Press, 2003.

ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS

Wednesday, Feb. 11    
Readings:

• Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, On-Kwok Lai, Hwa-Jen Liu, Francisco A. Magno, Laura Edles, and Alvin Y. So, Culture and Asian Styles of Environmental Movements, pp. 210-229 in Yok-shiu F. Lee and Alvin Y. So (eds.), Asia’s Environmental Movements: Comparative Perspectives, M.E. Sharpe, 1999.

Monday, Feb. 16
Readings:

• Kathryn Hochstetler, The Evolution of the Brazilian Environmental Movement and Its Political Roles, in D. A. Chalmers et al. (eds.), The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America:  Rethinking Participation and Representation, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Video:

• Kayapo: Out of the Forest

Wednesday, Feb. 18
Midterm 1


ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT UNDER AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES

Monday, Feb. 23        
Readings:

• Pamela Varley, High Price of Free Speech: Story of a Guatemalan Journalist, KSG Case Study 995.0, 1990.
• Samuel Blake, Guarding the Guards: General Hector Gramajo and the Guatemalan Army, KSG Case Study 1259.0 and 1259.1, 1994.
  

Wednesday, Feb. 25    
Come prepared to share results of LexisNexis and Google searches on environment and human rights.

Readings:

• Nancy Lee Peluso, Coercing Conservation: The Politics of State Resource Control, pp. 343-352 in Ronnie D. Lipschutz and Ken Conca (eds.), The State and Social Power in Global Environmental Politics, Columbia University Press, 1993.

DEMOCRATIZATION AND TRANSITIONS FROM AUTHORITARIAN RULE

Monday, March 1
Readings:

• Václav Havel, Dear Dr. Husák, pp. 50-83 in Havel, Open Letters, Vintage Books, New York, 1992.
• Tina Rosenberg (1995) Overcoming the Legacies of Dictatorship, Foreign Affairs 74(3):134 (19 pp.).
  

Wednesday, March 3
Readings:

• Duncan Fisher, The Emergence of the Environmental Movement in Eastern Europe and Its Role in the Revolutions of 1989, pp. 89-113 in Barbara Jancar-Webster (ed.), Environmental Action in Eastern Europe: Response to Crisis, M.E. Sharpe, 1993.

Student panel on the role of environmental concerns during regime changes in Eastern Europe, drawing on: Anna Vari and Pal Tamas (eds.), Environment and Democratic Transition: Policy and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe, Kluwer Publ., 1993; Barbara Jancar-Webster (ed.), Environmental Action in Eastern Europe: Response to Crisis, M.E. Sharpe, 1993; and Andrew Tickle and Ian Welsh (eds.), Environment and Society in Eastern Europe, Longman Publ., 1998.


RESOURCE CONFLICTS AND POLITICAL ECOLOGY

Monday, March 8 
Guest lecture: Dr. Melinda Herrold-Menzies, Pitzer College

Readings to be announced.


GENDER POLITICS

Wednesday, March 10    
Readings:

• Linda Mayoux (1995) Beyond Naivety: Women, Gender Inequality and Participatory Development, Development and Change 26:235-258.
• Connie Campbell, in collaboration with the Women’s Groups of Xapuri, Out on the Front Lines But Still Struggling for Voice: Women in the Rubber Tappers’ Defense of the Forest in Xapuri, Acre, Brazil, pp. 27-61 in Dianne Rocheleau, Barbara Thomas-Slayter, and Esther Wangari (eds.) Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experiences, Routledge, 1996.
  

March 12-21            
Spring Break

 
ENVIRONMENTAL NEGOTIATION

Monday, March 22    
Readings:

• Howard Raiffa, The Art and Science of Negotiation, Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 11-19.
• David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius, The Manager as Negotiator: Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain, Free Press, 1986.  Selections from chapters 2 and 3.
  

Wednesday, March 24
Negotiation simulation “Water on the West Bank” (2.5 hours) this week.
Written agreements due by the evening of Sunday, March 28.

Monday, March 29
Discussion of negotiation simulation. 
No required readings.


CORRUPTION

Wednesday, March 31        
Research paper proposal and bibliography due

Readings:

• Browse text of U.N. Convention Against Corruption (ERes); website of Transparency International; and World Bank bibliography on corruption (ERes).
• Additional readings to be announced.
  

Monday, April 5
Midterm 2

FORCES FOR CHANGE: INFLUENCING POLICY AGENDA

Wednesday, April 7    
Readings:

• Grindle and Thomas, chapters 4 and 5.

FORCES FOR CHANGE: IMPLEMENTING POLICY REFORMS

April 12 Monday   
Readings:

• Grindle and Thomas, chapter 6.
• Paul F. Steinberg, Civic Environmentalism in Developing Countries:  Opportunities for Innovation in State-Society Relations, background paper for World Development 2003, World Bank, 2003.
  

FORCES FOR CHANGE: CASE STUDIES IN CIVIC ENVIRONMENTALISM

Wednesday, April 14        
Student teams will present oral summaries of additional case studies on citizens standing provisions, eco-hotlines, volunteer bio-monitoring, public disclosure programs and watchdog groups.

Readings:

• World Bank, Greening Industry, chapter 3 (ERes).

SCALING DOWN: DECENTRALIZATION

Monday, April 19
Readings:

• James Manor, The Problem of Hubris, pp. 13-25 in The Political Economy of Democratic Decentralization, World Bank, 1999.
• Jesse C. Ribot, Democratic Decentralization of Natural Resources: Institutionalizing Popular Participation, World Resources Institute, 2002.  (ERes.)  Selections to be announced.
  

Wednesday, April 21
Readings:

• Brian Child, Zimbabwe, pp. 123-138 and Joyce H. Poole and Richard E. Leakey, Kenya, pp. 55-64 in Ernst Lutz and Julian Caldecott (eds.), Decentralization and Biodiversity Conservation, World Bank, 1996.

SCALING UP: ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Monday, April 26
Research paper due in class.
No required readings.


FUTURE TRENDS

Wednesday, April 28
No required readings.

May 3-5
Presentation Days
No class