Environmental History, Political Economy and Change: Frameworks and Tools for Research and Analysis

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronnie D. Lipschutz
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Conservation Policies ◽  
The World

This article addresses questions of method, focus and research strategy in environmental history and political economy for policy analysis and policy-making. While most environmental history is seen as having to do with landscapes past and how they got that way, environmental history can also have practical contemporary applications. By coming to understand the sources and origins of environmental degradation, and the patterns of social organization that led to them, we may be better positioned to foster environmental protection and conservation in ways that may resolve and/or support local efforts around the world. Such studies can help to address conflicts that arise over conservation policies, especially when these studies illuminate the origins and historical trajectories of places, and provide insights into ways of working with, rather than against, local cultures, knowledges, and social arrangements.

Diversity of information sources: An evaluation of global think tanks knowledge construct

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-278
Author(s):  
Mahmood Ahmad ◽  
Muhammad Ayub Jan
Keyword(s):  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Comprehensive List ◽  
The World ◽  
Sources Of Variation ◽  
Over Time

AbstractIn the realm of policy making, place and prestige of think tanks is acknowledged for their contribution in policy analysis and recommendations. Governments around the world consider the reports and recommendations of leading global think tanks when developing their policies. However, in spite of there being a comprehensive list of typologies and functions of think tanks, much less is known about these ‘machineries of knowledge’ and what enables them ‘to know what they know, and the key sources of variation among them’. Drawing on the theory of epistemic knowledge, this study aims to provide insights about how knowledge is produced inside these machineries of knowledge by looking at source citations’ pattern of reports produced by the top 50 global think tanks. For this purpose, a total of 365 research reports on one country, i.e. Pakistan, published between 2007 and 2016 were retrieved. A total of 17,801 references were extracted and analyzed. The study finds that there is great variation across think tanks in the use of diverse information sources and the use also varies considerably over time even for the same organization.

The Politics of the Environment in Singapore? Lessons from a "Strange" Case

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. S. Goh
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Developmental States

AbstractSoutheast Asia has come under scholarly focus for the contradictions of rapid development and environmental protection, and the ensuing politics. Most give Singapore a miss because it is a "strange" case that does not fit into a region where affected local peoples, "middle class" activists and developmental states struggle over the exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation. This paper claims that analysis of the "quiet" politics of environment in Singapore is instructive, and can correct the materialist bias evident in the understanding of Southeast Asian political economy/ecology. It argues that urban "middle class" environmental activism is a manifestation of resistance to enlarging systems of governance allied with capital. Environmentalism can be seen as a response against the encroachment of the system into the intimate living places of the lifeworld. This response is embedded within an international public sphere that enables environmental politics. These activists derive their motivation and political strength from public moral discursive actions. Environmentalism is a contemporary reflection of a fundamental sociological theme, the discontents' moral struggle for the good society, not necessarily reflecting parochial class interests.

scholarly journals The Impact of Scarcity on Pro-environmental Behavior in the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonya Sachdeva ◽  
James Shyan-Tau Wu ◽  
Jiaying Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Environmental Behavior ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Willingness To Engage

As the world contends with the far-ranging impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing environmental crises have, to some extent, been neglected during the pandemic. One reason behind this shift in priorities is the scarcity mindset triggered by the pandemic. Scarcity is the feeling of having less than what is necessary, and it causes people to prioritize immediate short-term needs over long-term ones. Scarcity experienced in the pandemic can reduce the willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior, leading to environmental degradation that increases the chance of future pandemics. To protect pro-environmental behavior, we argue that it should not be viewed as value-laden and effortful, but rather reconceptualized as actions that address a multitude of human needs including pragmatic actions that conserve resources especially during scarcity. To bolster environmental protection, systematic changes are needed to make pro-environmental behavior better integrated into people's lives, communities, and cities, such that it is more accessible, less costly, and more resilient to future disturbances.

scholarly journals Assessing Vietnam’s Environmental Laws and Direction for Improvement

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Võ Trung Tín
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Environmental Regulations ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Environmental Laws ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
The World ◽  
Legal Document

AbstractEnvironmental protection has gotten much attention and been prioritized in policy making for economic – social development of countries around the world, including Vietnam. The policies have been gradually institutionalized into law. Environmental Protection Law comes into existence in Vietnam as in other developing countries, which could be affirmed as the latest legal field. Before Environmental Protection Law was issued as an independent legal document by the National Assembly, other environmental regulations in Vietnam covered some aspects of environmental protection to meet management need without targeting the protection of environmental factors. Environment or environment-related regulations have been found in many separate legal documents. In order to meet the growing demand for integration, Vietnam needs to continue to reform environmental regulations. The paper analyzes the Vietnamese environmental regulations and practical implementation, thereby giving some suggestions.

Methods and Capacities for Institutional Policy Making in Environmental Governance

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-33
Author(s):  
Mononita Kundu Das
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Institutional Policy ◽  
Global Environmental

Environmental governance is the range of rules, practices and institutions related to the management of the environment in its different forms ranging from conservation, protection and exploitation of natural resources. It also indicates all the processes and institutions, both formal and informal, that encompasses the standards, values, behaviour, and organizing mechanisms used by citizens, organizations and social movements as well as the different interest groups as a basis for linking up their interests, defending their differences, and exercising their rights and obligations in terms of accessing and using natural resources. Globally environmental governance is deciphered as the sum of organizations, policy instruments, financing mechanisms, rules, procedures, and norms that regulate the processes of global environmental protection. The need for environmental regulation is the result of identification of factors resulting in environmental degradation.

The Historiography of Environmental History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. McNeill
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the emergence of environmental history, which developed in the context of the environmental concerns that began in the 1960s with worries about local industrial pollution, but which has since evolved into a full-scale global crisis of climate change. Environmental history is ‘the history of the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature’. It includes three chief areas of inquiry: the study of material environmental history, political and policy-related environmental history, and a form of environmental history which concerns what humans have thought, believed, written, and more rarely, painted, sculpted, sung, or danced that deals with the relationship between society and nature. Since 1980, environmental history has come to flourish in many corners of the world, and scholars everywhere have found models, approaches, and perspectives rather different from those developed for the US context.

Japan Meets the Sharing Economy: Contending Frames

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G ALTURA ◽  
Yuki HASHIMOTO ◽  
Sanford M JACOBY ◽  
Kaoru KANAI ◽  
Kazuro SAGUCHI
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Sharing Economy ◽  
The World ◽  
Framing Processes ◽  
Regulatory Institutions

Abstract The ‘sharing economy’ epitomized by Airbnb and Uber has challenged business, labor, and regulatory institutions throughout the world. The arrival of Airbnb and Uber in Japan provided an opportunity for Prime Minister Abe’s administration to demonstrate its commitment to deregulation. Both platform companies garnered support from powerful governmental and industry actors who framed the sharing economy as a solution to various economic and social problems. However, they met resistance from actors elsewhere in government, the private sector, and civil society, who constructed competing frames. Unlike studies that compare national responses to the sharing economy, we contrast the different experiences and fates of Airbnb and Uber within a single country. Doing so highlights actors, framing processes, and within-country heterogeneity. The study reveals the limits of overly institutionalized understandings of Japanese political economy. It also contributes to current debates concerning Prime Minister Abe’s efforts at implementing deregulation during the 2010s.

scholarly journals On storiation and what is washed ashore: The Anthropocene as big kahuna

2021 ◽  
pp. 204382062110174
Author(s):  
Elena Burgos Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Perspective

This commentary begins by outlining current debates on the notion of the Anthropocene from a critical perspective. Subsequently, it will discuss how Pugh and Chandler (2021) directly address such a problematic and how their work contributes to pluralising contemporary academic debates on the Anthropocene. Their previous academic engagements are no stranger to questions of epistemic discrimination in the broad fields of geography, geopolitics, island studies, and social research, and, more concretely, mainstreamed anthropological thinking. This commentary will therefore focus on their call for storiation and its relevance for contemporary debates seeking more ethical, localised, fluid, and coherent approaches to environmental degradation, environmental history, island identity, geopolitics of climate change, and indigeneity. From all the shapes storiation can take, this commentary focuses on indigenous storiation as embodiment.

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