Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance (Politics, Science, and the Environment) [Paperback]

Sheila Jasanoff (Editor), Marybeth Martello (Editor), Peter M. Haas (Editor), Gene Rochlin (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Politics, Science, and the Environment | Publication Date: March 19, 2004

Globalization today is as much a problem for international harmony as it is a necessary condition of living together on our planet. Increasing interconnectedness in ecology, economy, technology, and politics has brought nations and societies into ever closer contact, creating acute demands for cooperation. Earthly Politics argues that in the coming decades global governance will have to accommodate differences even as it obliterates distance, and will have to respect many aspects of the local while developing institutions that transcend localism.This book analyzes a variety of environmental-governance approaches that balance the local and the global in order to encourage new, more flexible frameworks of global governance. On the theoretical level, it draws on insights from the field of science and technology studies to enrich our understanding of environmental-development politics. On the pragmatic level, it discusses the design of institutions and processes to address problems of environmental governance that increasingly refuse to remain within national boundaries.The cases in the book display the crucial relationship between knowledge and power--the links between the ways we understand environmental problems and the ways we manage them--and illustrate the different paths by which knowledge-power formations are arrived at, contested, defended, or set aside. By examining how local and global actors ranging from the World Bank to the Makah tribe in the Pacific Northwest respond to the contradictions of globalization, the authors identify some of the conditions for creating more effective engagement between the global and the local in environmental governance.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"O'Rourke shows that even in the context of a poor market-socialist country whose state places the highest priority on attracting foreign investment in manufacturing, community-driven regulation can be surprisingly effective in reducing pollution and other forms of environmental degradation. Another important conclusion of his study that is relevant to both North and South is the critical role that citizen access to information on pollution emission standards and on how local firms compare to others across the country plays in such regulation."--Frederick H. Buttel, William H. Sewell Professor of Rural Sociology and Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"Pellow employs the notion of the 'treadmill of production' along with theoretical insights from race and ethnic studies to reveal the contradictions and complexities of the urban recycling and waste management economy. With the publication of Garbage Wars, David Pellow has established himself as one of foremost theorists and researchers on environmental inequalities and environmental justice."--Frederick H. Buttel, William H. Sewell Professor of Rural Sociology and Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison

From the Inside Flap

"This book makes an important contribution to an ongoing discussion of global environmental governance, and it is a wonderful balance to the many works that see globalization as both inevitable and mostly good. The picture of the global and the local that emerges is complex, nuanced, contextual, and very interesting. Its readability and accessibility to an interdisciplinary audience will make it highly attractive to graduate and undergraduate course adoption in a variety of disciplines."

--Helen Ingram, Professor of Political Science and Warmington Endowed Chair in the School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine

"The authors have undertaken nothing less than tracing and evaluating the links between global governance and environmental politics, with a clear-cut and original stress upon the ways in which local and global dynamics interact. Their conceptualization of these interactions is especially compelling, partly because the links are so crucial to the ways in which environmental issues are subjected to governance but mainly because they probe the links in highly creative and persuasive ways. Their stress on the relevance of science and knowledge, as well as their emphasis on the need to include the local in any analysis of global environmental problems, are recurrent themes that render the book especially distinctive." --James N. Rosenau, University Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University

"The strength of this book lies in the way it sets forth some of the insights and contributions of the sociology of science for understanding environmental politics and governance. It draws out the connections very nicely, and will be useful for both scholars in the sociology of science/scientific knowledge and in environmental politics and governance." --Frederick H. Buttel, William H. Sewell Professor of Rural Sociology and Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (March 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262600595
• ISBN-13: 978-0262600590
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,355,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, November 2, 2009

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This review is from: Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance (Politics, Science, and the Environment) (Paperback)

Doctor Sheila Jasanoff is my professor at Harvard for Environmental Politics, the lady irradiates peace and she is so caring for her ideas and teaching that is very inspiring!
This book provides an extraordinary place for any individual looking to understand not only the environment but also ethics and values.