Routledge Environment and Politics (Routledge Introductions to Environment: Environment and Society Texts)

Environment and Politics 4th Edition is a concise introduction to this ever-expanding interdisciplinary field, explaining and illustrating how concepts, conflicts, movements, political systems and the practices of policy-making can be analysed in a systematic way. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the key themes that shape the field, and examines a diverse range of environmental problems and policy solutions found in different countries and cultures. The new edition has been extensively revised to include up-to-date explanation of green political theories and traditions and the debates that shape action on the ground. It contains an expanded discussion of environmental movements that work in the Global North, the Global South and transnationally. Greater attention has been given to the roles of corporations, non-governmental organizations, the media, consumers and citizens in order to reflect the changing nature of environmental governance. The text also focuses throughout on debates surrounding the concepts of environmental security, environmental justice and environmental citizenship. The authors examine the institutional responses of parliaments, administrative, legal and electoral systems; the more informal politics of social movements; and the politics of markets and the corporate sector as they respond to (or resist) the greening of societies. This engaging text has been fully updated to offer readers a greater understanding of international, national and local environmental politics as well as expected future developments at all levels. Environment and Politics continues to use illustrative examples of conflicts, people and events spanning North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, giving it global perspective and relevance. Each chapter includes questions for debate as well as a list of key words and resources for independent research. This successful textbook remains a key resource for undergraduate and postgraduate studies across politics, environmental studies, development studies and human geography courses. Review With this fourth edition, Doyle (international political economy and global environmental politics, Univ. of Adelaide, Australia), McEachern (formerly, Univ. of Western Australia), and MacGregor (environmental politics, Keele Univ., UK) have significantly updated their textbook. This work provides a global perspective on the manner in which politics shapes environmental policies. This edition is an audacious effort at examining environmental politics through a myriad of theoretical lenses―from neoliberalism to ecocentrism. It includes chapters on environmental movements, nongovernmental organizations, parties, capitalism and corporations, and environmental governance and citizenship. End-of-chapter key words and discussion questions are useful. Most topics are treated with nuance and fairness, although the rationales for emphases on some topics and the selection of examples are often unclear. The authors contextualize American environmental issues as part of the “minority world” in which the minority of the human population lives. Readers who want a summary of US environmental legislation will be disappointed. This is a thought-provoking textbook, and its goal is to help readers make sense of environmental issues by inserting them in philosophical and theoretical contexts. Though free of jargon, the work is still a challenging read.--R. E. O'Connor, National Science Foundation, January 2017 issue of CHOICE About the Author Timothy Doyle teaches and researches International Political Economy and Global Environmental Politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia; and he is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute (AAPI), Curtin University, Western Australia. Doug McEachern was formerly Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation at t