Course info

This co-taught course is an introduction to environmental\nand natural resources policy and governance from a comparative perspective.\nOver the course of the past 50 years environmental policy and natural resources\ngovernance regimes have spread around the world through processes of\ninnovation, diffusion and adaptation. How environmental and resources\ngovernance is done is the result of a complex interplay between domestic and\ninternational institutions, legal frameworks, actors and other forces. This\nensures that while most of the challenges of environmental and resources\ngovernance are similar across states, each state also creates a very specific\ncontext that shapes both the environmental and resource problems it faces as\nwell as the governance approaches taken to addressing them. Moreover,\nincreasingly environmental and natural resources governance occurs in a\nmultilevel context that includes an international dimension.
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\nThe class will begin with theoretical perspectives on comparative environmental\nand natural resources governance, and will consider the proposition that the\ngreening of modern states has been a fitful yet powerful process shaping\nstate-society relations in the past several decades. We will then examine key\nissues in comparative environmental politics and policy, including\ninstitutional effectiveness across political systems, political processes and\norganizations, and the capacity of states to protect the environment. We will\nthen examine cases of national approaches to environmental protection, resource management and natural disaster prevention\nfrom different regions of the world. Finally, we will examine environmental and\nresources governance from the perspective of multilevel governance in different\nregions of the world.
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\nLearning Outcomes
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\nGain proficiency in analyzing environmental and natural resources governance\nfrom a comparative perspective.
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\nUnderstand how political systems and processes, history and culture, and\nknowledge interact to produce environmental governance regimes.
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\nUnderstand how multilevel environmental governance differs around the world and\nacross time to produce vastly different environmental outcomes and governance\ncapacities.

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Assessment

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15% class participation

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25% conference presentation

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60% written assignment