Climate change is prompting an unprecedented questioning of the fundamental bases upon which society is founded. Businesses claim that technology can save the environment, while politicians champion the role of international environmental agreements to secure global action. Economists suggest that we should pay developing countries not to destroy their forests, while environmentalists question whether we can solve ecological problems with the same thinking that created them. As the process of steering society, governance has a critical role to play in coordinating these disparate voices and securing collective action to achieve a more sustainable future.

Environmental Governance is the only book to discuss the first principles of governance, while also providing a critical overview of the wide ranging theories and approaches that underpin policy and practice today. It places governance within its wider political context to explore how the environment is controlled, manipulated, regulated, and contested by a range of actors and institutions. This book shows how network and market governance have shaped current approaches to environmental issues, while also introducing emerging approaches such as transition management and adaptive governance. In so doing, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches currently in play, and considers their political implications.

This text provides a groundbreaking overview of dominant and emerging approaches of environmental governance, drawing on cutting edge debates and forging critical links between them. Each chapter is complemented by case studies, key debates, questions for discussion and further reading. It is essential reading for students of the environment, politics and sociology, and, indeed, anyone concerned with changing society to secure a more sustainable future.

About the Author
James Evans is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Governance in the School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester. He has an abiding interest in how environmental research underpins urban sustainability, and is currently leading two projects exploring this question in relation to resilience and living laboratories.

Reviews

"J.P. Evans has written a first-class introduction to environmental governance that locates the subject clearly against the background of wider debates about the state, markets, and social actors. It should be an invaluable help to students interested in understanding the broader context of environmental policy, and how different actors work to make it happen at the global and other levels." Tim Forsyth, Reader in Environment and Development, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.

"I am grateful to finally have an accessible reader that introduces students to the phenomenon of Environmental Governance that offers them a means to see, understand, and begin to evaluate the effectiveness of the West's ongoing transition from environmental management by governments to environmental governance by multiple actors. The book covers a surprisingly broad range of experiences, mechanisms, and even ways of framing environmental governance. With examples drawn from around the globe, this text should easily find a home in environmental politics and governance courses around the world." Ben Bradshaw, Associate Professor of Geography and Coordinator of the Environmental Governance Program, University of Guelph, Canada.

Book Information
ISBN 9780415589826
Author J.P. Evans
Format Paperback
Page Count 254
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 500g