An Overall Assessment of the State of Environmental Policy Making

2013 ◽  
pp. 231-238
1994 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Winfield

AbstractThis article summarizes the conclusions of a comparative study of the environmental policy experiences of two Canadian provinces, Alberta and Ontario, in the period 1971–1993. The examination led to the conclusion that there is a pattern of environmental politics and policy-making common to both provinces, although it emerges at a different pace. This divergence is a function of well-known societal differences between the two provinces. Furthermore, in the Ontario and Alberta experiences, the policy-making capacity of the state can be seen to be severely challenged by the cross-sectoral nature of environmental policy issues. A number of observations regarding the effects of federal-provincial relations and of American influences on environmental policy-making at the provincial level in Canada are also possible.


Author(s):  
Michael Jones ◽  
Elizabeth A. Shanahan ◽  
Lisa J. Hammer

In this chapter the authors examine state and local environmental policy. They provide a brief historical but policy-centered background, which pays special attention to the role of federalism in environmental policy. Next they summarize the state of academic and scientific research on state and local environmental policy. The next two sections give the reader an aggregate sense of what substantive environmental policy areas are being studied by reporting the aggregated peer-reviewed publications reported in three databases between 1980 and 2011. In addition, the authors focus on two areas highlighted in the literature: public participation in environmental policy making and climate change policy. Finally, the authors provide a summary of the state of existing literature and offer directions for future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklas Harring ◽  
Tomas Torbjörnsson ◽  
Cecilia Lundholm

This paper explores whether value orientation (VO) and trust in the state (TIS) are linked to support for environmental intervention and steering among Swedish students in economics, law, and political science. Furthermore, we considered whether environmental personal norms mediate the link between VO and support for environmental policy instruments and finally, whether TIS moderates the link between environmental personal norms and support for environmental policy instruments, testing this on a sample of over 800 Swedish students. We found a positive link between both a self-transcendence VO and TIS on environmental policy support; however, we cannot confirm a moderating effect of TIS on the relation between environmental personal norms and policy support. Furthermore, left-wing students displayed stronger support for environmental intervention. We conclude that more knowledge on programme-specific characteristics regarding environmental values, beliefs, and attitudes among freshman students can enhance sustainability teaching intended to develop the students’ critical and reflective capabilities.


Author(s):  
Kate Crowley ◽  
Jenny Stewart ◽  
Adrian Kay ◽  
Brian W. Head

State-centred and society-centred explanations in comparative public policy analysis disagree markedly on the extent to which the state has autonomy or is essentially a clearing-house for outside forces. In this chapter, we reconsider the position of the state in policy studies by investigating the interactions and inter-dependency between the state and society rather than making a binary choice between state-centred and society-centred perspectives on governance. The core argument is that policy studies can improve its ability to apprehend the position of the state in dilemmas of contemporary policy-making by acknowledging that the state is, at once, both critical to collective action and reliant on crucial elements of societal support for its policy effectiveness. In such terms, governance is a useful label for the variety of ways in which society is not simply acted upon by the state, but actively shapes the actions of and outcomes of state activity.


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