Module description
This module provides students with the analytical means to identify environmental governance processes, diagnose their failures and successes, and provide actionable recommendations concerning how to overcome the failures and leverage the successes across different contexts and different governance scales (local, regional, national, global).
An environmental governance process is a deliberative process whereby different actors – from government to business, from local communities to environmental non-governmental organisations – gather in order to make decisions about managing an environmental resource and/or deal with a specific environmental issue (e.g. regulating carbon emission levels, addressing the consequences of technologies such as hydraulic fracturing, planning for adaptation in a local community) that affects them all, and which none of them can address on their own. The process typically unfolds over time, has a name (e.g. partnership, initiative, forum), has a minimal structure (e.g. meeting schedule, agenda items, working groups) and produces outputs (e.g. meeting minutes, policy reports and the like).
The goal of environmental governance processes is achieving consensus-based decisions among the different actors concerning which course of action to take. This consensus is typically translated into policy. Environmental governance processes take place at all governance scales, from international to national to local.
Assessment details
2,800-word essay (80%) & 1,200-word reviewer report (20%)
Educational aims & objectives
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Understand the key features of environmental governance processes across governance scales (international, national, local);
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Identify the interdependencies that exist between different governance actors (governmental and non-governmental) involved in environmental governance processes;
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Recognise environmental governance challenges across different contexts;
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Formulate recommendations concerning how to understand and explain environmental governance challenges.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this course students will be able to:
- Diagnose problems and failures in environmental governance processes and articulate actionable recommendations for improvement;
- Recognize and evaluate the aims and potential outcomes of different governance arrangements for environmental issues;
- Professionally communicate policy advice in the form of policy briefs to government, policy-makers, and environmental governance stakeholders.
Teaching pattern
The module comprises two parts. The first part (weeks 1-5) focuses on four key components of environmental governance processes: social capital; distributional implications; science and expertise; and issues of power and environmental justice.
These discussions set the stage for the second part of the module (weeks 6-10), which uses the four components as a roadmap to examine environmental governance issues at different scales (international, federal/regional, national, and local).
The module ends with a review of the concepts and issues tackled in class and a reflection on ‘where do we go from here?’.