Book Reviews
Boundaries: A Casebook in Environmental Ethics by Christine E. Gudorf and James E. Huchingson. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 250; index. £19.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 8784 0134 2
Boundaries focuses on some of the most persistent environmental ethical problems, cases in which humans’ views and interests collide in multiple ways and it is difficult to decide about the right courses of action. The existence of such cases has been fundamental to the development of environmental ethics. Gudorf and Huchingson, both professors of religious studies, begin their book with an introductory essay on the main theories of environmental ethics and end with an appendix about how to make use of cases in teaching. Between the two theoretical essays the cases are presented. Each is organised in the same fashion; first the problem is outlined in a quasi-documentary dialogue and then the dialogue is commented on and analysed. Each case study ends up with a ‘Questions for Discussion’ section and a short list of relevant sources. Thus, the book is primarily meant to be used in a classroom situation, and the authors do not fervently put forward their views. In this respect, their approach differs from the approach that is typical to applied ethics, that is, to provide solutions to ‘sharp’ ethical problems. There is, however, an underlying tendency: the authors believe that people are likely to have interest in real-life cases and this could be used to promote environmental awareness more generally.
At a more substantial level, the structure of the book is timely and innovative. The book is divided into three main parts. In Part I, the cases have to do with preserving and managing ecosystems; Part II deals with cases in which human intervention in ecosystems has resulted in negative outcomes; and Part III considers three hot topics: ethical controversies surrounding genetically modified organisms, hunting and transferring organs from animals to humans. The dozen cases are carefully selected and cover large geographical areas, from Florida and Colorado to Madagascar, China, Indonesia and Peru. Moreover, it is a major strength of the book that cases are down-to-earth cases, rather than those widely reported on in the media.
As suggested in the book’s subtitle and the opening chapter, the two authors have chosen an ethical approach to these disputes. While this choice looks reasonable in the beginning, it turns out to be somewhat narrow. For example, chapter 5 deals with the control of flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia where actually the centre of attention is less on ethics than on the economics and politics of underdevelopment. This raises theoretical questions, such as how does ethics
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relate to politics, law and economics? Environmental issues are characteristi-cally very complex issues that can be approached from various perspectives. Accordingly, the authors should have provided an account of how and to what extent the problems discussed are ethical problems after all and how different frameworks might lead to different methods of finding solutions.
The cases are generally well written and based on up-to-date sources, but I am not certain about the usefulness of the book in teaching. First, the quasi-documentary parts point to the obvious; a film or a fresh article from a popular journal might serve the same purpose better. (Perhaps students of environ-mental journalism might find these discussions useful.) Second, when I teach environmental ethics, I often take for granted that students are aware of environmental issues and their empirical dimensions; as an ethicist, I prefer to concentrate on theory. This is not to say that Boundaries is not a valuable contribution to the discussion; certainly there are occasions when it is of great help.
MARKKU OKSANEN
University of Kuopio
Citizenship and the Environment by Andrew Dobson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. ix + 227; index. £20.00 (paperback). ISBN 0 1992 5844 9
Andrew Dobson’s latest book, in which he once again sketches out a new area of exploration for green political theory – citizenship, consolidates his position as a great ‘explorer’ of green politics mapping new areas for others to explore. Beginning by rightly rejecting conceptions of globalisation couched in terms of interdependence and interconnectedness – when the real issue is inequality and ‘asymmetrical globalisation’ – he proceeds to criticise cosmopolitan concep-tions of citizenship for being too ‘immaterial’ and too focused on dialogue and not enough on in/justice (p.22). For Dobson, this means that cosmopolitan citizenship elides the important distinction between political (justice-based) and moral (compassion) based duties. Equally, cosmopolitanism has a ‘thin’ theory of what connects individuals – ‘common humanity’ – rather than actual relations of harm/benefit.
Perhaps the most important part of Dobson’s argument and contribution to the emerging debates on ‘green/environmental/ecological citizenship’ is the notion of ‘ecological space’ as the proper political context of ecological citizenship (p.30). He uses the concept of the ‘ecological footprint’ (pp.99–106) to both flesh out the ‘asymmetrical globalisation’ (that is globalisation which connects the ‘powerful’ and the ‘vulnerable’ in relations of material harm) and to develop his conception of ecological citizenship as a form of ‘post-cosmopolitan’ and de-territorialised citizenship (pp.80–81). The concept of ecological footprint is directly related to issues of just and unjust distribution of
‘ecological space’ (pp.115–116). For Dobson, ‘justice’ rather than care or compassion is the primary source of the obligations of ecological citizenship, hence his overriding concern to maintain a strict distinction between the ‘political/historical’ and ‘moral’ community (p.123), and between the nature of obligations and their source.
Dobson’s analysis of the prospects for environmental sustainability in liberal societies rightly focuses on the central and contested issue of the neutrality of the state (and liberal theory), particularly in respect to concerns about the role of ‘values’ and ‘views of the good/lifestyles’ as barriers to the realisation of sustainability. Dobson offers a very good overview and introduction to the interplay between the dominant ‘scientific’ (and economic) manner in which liberal democratic states interpret and frame ‘sustainability’ and how this is being challenged by the normative concerns which lie at the heart of sustainability as not simply a ‘technical’ problem to be solved, but a deeply political and ethical dilemma to be negotiated and deliberated upon.
While in broad agreement with the thrust of Dobson’s arguments and motivations, there are a number of (hopefully constructive) criticisms one can articulate. Dobson’s critique of the ‘civic republican’ tradition and forms of citizenship is woefully inadequate. To define civic republican citizenship as based on duties/responsibilities (contractual), public sphere, ‘masculine’ virtue, territorial (discriminatory)’ elements (p. 39) in contrast to ‘post-cosmopolitan-ism’ which is based on: ‘duties/responsibilities (non-contractual), public and private spheres, ‘feminine’ virtue, non-territorial (non-discriminatory) elements (p.39), is inconsistent with a more comprehensive understanding of the evolution and recent development in civic republicanism. Indeed, using the work of republican thinkers such as Phillip Pettit or Richard Dagger there is, in my perception, little problem in the characteristics ascribed to post-cosmopolitan-ism being associated with a civic republican conception of green citizenship. The problem seems to be that Dobson’s conception of civic republican citizenship is overly historicised and based largely on the republicanism of Machiavelli and the Renaissance. To criticise this historically specific example of civic republicanism is not only to make a category mistake, but is also rather like criticising democracy on the grounds of its sexist, xenophobic and elitist beginnings in ancient Athens. The non-territoriality of post-cosmopolitan ecological citizen-ship, can, as Pettit has argued, be easily accommodated by a republican conception of citizenship. This is not to say that civic republicanism cannot be criticised on ecological grounds, simply to point out that Dobson has failed (in this book) to advance a complete or compelling case.
The book is frustrating in some ways. While Dobson integrates the work of others – Held on globalisation, Linklater on cosmopolitanism, and so on – he spends insufficient time and space on developing his own reactions to these theorists and the integration of the work of others into a more developed ‘Dobson’ theory of ecological citizenship. The book overall has a curiously ‘unfinished’ (or rushed) character, reflective perhaps of the statement in the Acknowledgement that this book points ‘towards work that lies beyond the
scope of this book’. In other words, at least for this reader, this book reads more like a draft rather than the fully finished version, and it is to be hoped that there is more from Dobson on this topic.
JOHN BARRY
Queen’s University Belfast
Liberal Democracy and Environmentalism: The End of Environmentalism?edited by Marcel Wissenburg and Yoram Levy. London: Routledge, 2004. Pp. xxii + 219; index. £65.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 4153 2195 6
Although the very possibility that environmentalism could be facing its end must be somewhat shocking, that is precisely the fascinating subject explored by this important book. To some extent, the evolution of green thinking has arrived naturally to such a melodramatic question. Has environmentalism as we know it reached some kind of final stage? The answer might, and should be, yes: the transformation of green political thinking during the last decade has been a quiet revolt against the burden imposed on it by the naturalist and radical foundations of early environmentalism, in which ecocentrism and deep ecology dominated. Such a critique has led to further thinking about many green assumptions concerning nature and society, the main principles of environmental ethics and, lately, about the very relationship between liberal democracy and environmentalism. Thus environmentalism has become less ideological, more political and less grounded on consequentialism and naturalism. Such a turn should be welcome, for the alternative is a melancholic irrelevance – a rather sad ending.
However, what does the end of environmentalism exactly mean? Although the editors offer an almost scholastic set of distinctions between different endings, all of which are reflected in the book’s contributions, a much simpler statement can be made: environmentalism would end if liberal democracy proves able to be ‘green’. Yet if that is the case (a matter of discussion in itself) it isradicalenvironmentalism which ends, not a version of green politics willing to adapt to a liberal institutional framework. Thus Levy argues ‘the object of environmentalism should be the conflict between different human conceptions of the good and green society, and not the traditional task of adapting human society to the requirements of an independent non-human world’ (p.48). Nature-society relationships are then accepted as political constructions, as Wissenburg notes, hence reducing the influence of deep ecology and ecocentrism in environmentalism. The outcome, as Mills and King’s chapters suggest, is a ‘theoretical pacification’ by which green concerns are explored in a more conventional way, even though the debate about its content is far from finished. Gayil Talshir explains this ‘pacification’ as a success on the part of green philosophers in showing that ‘there is no choice but to see green’ (p.10). The end would thus actually be a new beginning. As long as green politics is to
follow the liberal-democratic path, the relationships between democracy, sustainability and citizenship will become central, as the contributions by Graham Smith and Mathew Humphrey so convincingly show. On the other hand, democratisation of science becomes an important part of any green democratic project, and this possibility is explored in Karen Ba¨ckstrand’s chapter.
The balance between liberal tenets and environmentalism is further explored by Marius De Geus, Meira Hanson, Dorothy Horstko¨tter and Michael Wallack in their respective contributions. They make clear that agreement is still difficult, as green thinking and liberalism so often clash due to matters of principle and implementation: questions about freedom and lifestyles, precautionary principle, pluralism and future generations are all debated. Is there then no choice for greens but to ‘see liberally’? Not necessarily. To Barry, radical environmentalism is well and truly alive, as the anti-globalisation movement shows. Its normalisation would be equal to self-deception. Blu¨dorn denies that liberal democracy has been able to integrate and solve environmental concerns, hence the transformation of environmentalism is but a capitulation. Be that as it may, a transformation seems to be under way, as the editors conclude, and a new, stronger green politics may be emerging from this debate.
This is a book which any person concerned with green political theory and environmentalism at large should read. It combines deep analysis with a provocative subject for once not exhausted in the act of provocation. And it addresses a current, fascinating moment in the development of a body of political thinking whose periodic crises are but a reminder of its vitality.
MANUEL ARIAS-MALDONADO
University of Ma´laga, Spain
Environmental Governance Reconsidered: Challenges, Choices, and Opportu-nities edited by Robert F. Durant, Daniel Fiorino and Rosemary O’Leary (American and Comparative Environmental Policy Series). Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2004. Pp. xviii + 560; index. £ 45.95 (hardback); £ 22.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 2620 4218 5 and 0 2625 4174 2
In a column for the newspaper The European, Sir Peter Ustinov pointed out that ‘there is absolutely no point in [scientific] findings if they do not cast doubts on previous findings, thereby giving the individual the democratic right of choice’. The most valuable contribution of the book edited by Durant and colleagues is to point out the framework as well as the problems related to make those choices in the field of environment policy and management. In contrast to the often somewhat random nature of edited volumes, Environ-mental Governance Reconsideredstands out as a well-structured and coherent collection covering the major aspects of environmental governance, focusing
on what the editors call a ‘third way approach’, ‘one that focuses on building a
results-based(or outcomes-based) sense of common purpose as an antidote to the shortcomings of conventional bureaucratic, command-and-control, proce-dure-based, and adversarial approaches to [environmental] protection’ (p.2, emphasis in original).
But how do we achieve such a ‘common purpose’ if many commentators fundamentally disagree about the nature of the problem? While the global interdependence of environmental problems and possible solutions for managing common resources have gained wider acceptance, the more controversial issues discussed in the first part concerns two often used, more often abused and hardly ever accurately defined concepts which are cornerstones of modern environment rhetoric – sustainable development and the precautionary principle. The second part covers democratic aspects of environmental governance, stressing ‘the idea that effective environmental governance depends on valuing, promoting, nurturing, and extending
deliberative democracyof the greatest possible extent in [environmental] policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation’ (p.12, emphasis in original). This includes not only the question whether public or group-based participation can contribute more effectively to a results-based approach but also issues of generational justice and the resolution of environmental conflicts by over-coming the adversarial nature of regulatory systems in many countries.
This discussion relates closely to the book’s redefinition of administrative rationality away from the pursuit of individual self-interest and collective irrationality summarised in Garret Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’. The chapters once more take up themes already mentioned throughout the book such as devolution of decision-making, flexibility in approaching environ-mental problems, and prevention instead of pollution clean-up. Sound familiar? Just pick up the book and read it anyway! This volume is decidedly not ‘easy reading’ but it is certainly among the best collections on environmental governance I have come across recently. Given the background of the authors from both academia and public service the book (not surprisingly) caters for practitioners as well as more theoretically-minded readers. It provides an interesting mixture of theoretical discussions with a great depth of empirical examples, thus allowing comparison of the theoretically optimal solution with the pragmatically possible model.
Is there a ‘most interesting’part of the book? That obviously depends on personal taste, but I strongly recommend at least chapters 1 and 3 on sustainability and the precautionary principle, two concepts often invoked but definitely lacking any sort of consensus on what they mean to their respective users. The editors hope this collection provides readers with ‘a better appreciation of environmental governance as a combination of important, interrelated and complex issues, involving environmental policy, economics, democratic theory, political science, and public administration’ (p.483). They are successful on most counts. The important question remains whether reforms leading to such a results-based approach are successful and sustainable
rather than simply being grafted onto current command-and-control regula-tion. It is certainly ‘too early to tell’ but Durant and colleagues have provided an excellent set of essays that helps us think about how to deal with the uncertainty of complex problems, and be more informed about the different democratic choices to be made.
BERTRAM WELKER
University of Greifswald
Environmental and Technology Policy in Europe: Technological Innovation and Policy Integration edited by Geerten J.I. Schrama and Sabine Sedlacek. Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. Pp. 240. £56.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 4020 1583 6
This book explicitly aims to stimulate ‘the adoption of environment-oriented innovations by industry’ (p.1) in Europe by investigating and analysing the developments over the last four decades in six European Union (EU) member states by expert academics in each respective state. The six selected are: Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United King-dom. These accounts are complemented by two contributions from the joint editors, an introductory and a concluding chapter. The volume has no index. The brief given to each set of contributors is roughly the same, requiring them to give a historical account of the policies as well as their orientation, implications and evolution from the 1970s to the present. Given such a brief, each contribution is necessarily confined to developments within its own national boundaries. A final comparative analysis, however, shows that the six countries may, by and large, be divided into three categories – Austria, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands in one group, while Denmark and the United Kingdom differ respectively from this grouping (see chapter 8). In the major group, environ-mental and environment-oriented technology policy was rooted in the dominant command and control mode from the 1970s into the 1980s; however, in the 1990s, a radical shift to the management-oriented mode occurred. Denmark has never subscribed to the command and control mode but has preferred the strategic and target group approaches, while the United Kingdom appears to have shifted from the approach of mandatory regulation to market-driven and target group approaches. Whatever their historical stance, today, all six countries rely on the management-oriented approach. However, there is no attempt in the concluding editorial chapter to account for this convergence.
The book’s structure has merits as it is able to show clearly the historical differences as well as the similarities in orientation in these two important fields of environmental policy and environment-oriented technology policy in certain European countries. However, it does seem to have one severe limitation – its intended focus on the national level to the virtual exclusion of the EU level. This is odd as the six countries selected for special attention are all member
states of the EU. While EU and indeed even United Nations (UN) policy in these two domains and in the area of sustainability are briefly mentioned in the editorial opening chapter, the implication of EU policy for its member states is totally ignored in the national studies. There is neither an account nor assessment of EU policies in any of the member states studies. One should, however, point out that this flaw is an editorial rather than an authorial one. Perhaps contrary to common understanding, in reality, the EU input is insignificant, and therefore, of no consequence for the shaping and develop-ment of national policies in these areas; but, if so, the reader should be given evidence of and argument for such a view. One would also like to know whether the convergence on management orientation in the six countries chosen for study is due to EU pressures or in spite of them, or indeed, due to some other wider global source. However, on these and similar issues, the volume leaves the reader in the dark.
KEEKOK LEE
University of Lancaster
New Environmental Policy Instruments in the European Union: Politics, Economics, and the Implementation of the Packaging Waste Directiveby Ian Bailey. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2003. Pp. x + 219; index. £52.50 (hardback). ISBN 0 7546 0888 3
Over recent decades, traditional regulation-based environmental governance within the European Union (EU) has become increasingly criticised because of the continued degradation of the environment in Europe. Consequently, there have been calls, principally by environmental economists, for the wider use of New Environmental Policy Instruments (NEPIs) (for example, eco-taxes, tradable pollution permits, eco-labelling) alongside regulatory frameworks. The intention of such instruments is to better integrate environmental considerations into the workings of the economy and society. As such, NEPIs are now being more extensively used by states to pursue their environmental programmes and policies.
In his book, Bailey argues that while there are many theoretical accounts of the design of NEPIs, there are few detailed empirical inquiries that examine their actual use, particularly in complex multilevel polities such as the European Union (EU), where there is both a supranational quest for common EU policies alongside attempts by member states to promote their national agendas. This volume, therefore, examines the actual application of NEPIs within the EU. Firstly, it provides an overview of the implementation toolkit available to policy-makers, giving both an outline of environmental policy and the use of NEPIs in the EU. It then offers a detailed empirical examination of the use of NEPIs by member states for implementing the EU’s Waste Packaging Directive. This analysis draws on an in-depth comparative study of the UK’s
and Germany’s implementation of the directive, in which similar NEPIs were employed (for example, voluntary agreements and negotiated producer targets, among others), but to different ends. For instance, the UK used NEPIs to attempt to reduce the economic costs of implementing NEPIs in a market-based strategy, while Germany used them to ease the implementation difficulties associated with its pursuit of high-level environmental targets as part of its command-and-control strategy. Finally, based on the research findings, the future of the EU’s environmental governance strategy is evaluated, with particular attention paid to the implications of EU enlargement.
Bailey’s richly detailed and interesting account illuminates some critically important issues regarding the use of NEPI’s in the EU. The book clearly demonstrates that NEPIs provide innovative approaches to better integrate environmental considerations into the operations of economic markets. More significantly, it reveals how NEPIs have helped to propagate co-operation between regulators and to harmonise the development of standards, methodologies and implementation timeframes. However, despite these seemingly positive impacts, it is argued that changes in the behaviour of industry have not primarily been associated with the influences of NEPIs, but instead are linked to the more traditional regulation practices employed alongside NEPIs. Notably, Bailey effectively demonstrates that this under-performance is more concerned with flawed instrument design and ineffective monitoring and enforcement by regulatory bodies, rather than the economic theory underpinning NEPIs. Rather less surprisingly, Bailey suggests that there is immense scope for the modification of EU environmental policies during implementation by member states. As a result, he argues that the use of NEPIs continues to be dominated by national governments, with only stuttering progress being made at the EU level, which leads to the risk of fragmentation within the EU’s environmental programme.
Overall, this book would be especially suitable for a specialised academic readership including lecturers, researchers and postgraduates in the fields of environmental economics, environmental politics and waste management.
DUNCAN RUSSEL
University of East Anglia
Labor and the Environmental Movement: The Quest for Common Ground by Brian K.Obach. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2004. Pp. x + 301; index. £43.95 (hardback); £17.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 2621 5109 X and 0 2626 5066 5
It is traditionally assumed that relations between organised labour and the environmental movement are characterised by suspicion and distrust. Conflicts between the priorities of job creation in environmentally-destructive industries and those of conservation, differences in mobilising strategy based on class
cultures and different organisational structures are among the types of explanation that have been advanced to account for the history of antagonism between the two movements.
Brian Obach makes a compelling case that in actual fact there is much that unites the two movements and there is increasing evidence of sustained and effective co-operation between unions and environmental groups over issues such as workplace health and safety, the right to know and trade liberalisation. Though alliances are often fragile, he shows how – from the 1990s onwards – developments within North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have served to bring groups together more effectively than previous alliances to fight the roll back of social and environmental regulation in the Reagan years, for example. This renewed engagement has occurred despite ongoing differences over particular issues such as how to tackle global warming, the (CAFE) fuel efficiency standards for cars, and the question of mining in the Arctic where ‘jobs vs environment’ trade-offs appear acute.
Obach draws on a vast and impressive range of literatures on social movements, from political economy, rational choice and coalition theory through to organisational sociology in order to carefully dissect the validity of arguments about when and how the two movements are able to come together and what prevents them from doing so more frequently. The case studies are US state-based and reflect years of work in this area as an academic and activist. Obach weaves together personal accounts of activists about their experiences of collaboration and conflict with a sophisticated handling of the theoretical approaches mentioned above. He combines reflection on well-known cases, like the controversy over the feared job losses for timber industry workers in the Pacific Northwest if measures were imposed to save a threatened species of owl, with new material on less well-known cases in New York, Wisconsin and Washington. He also highlights the role of industry-funded groups in trying to exacerbate divisions between workers and environmentalists as a divide and rule strategy. The wise use movement has been important in this regard, helping to create the perception that workers are opposed to environmental regulation.
While not abandoning them entirely, Obach argues persuasively for looking beyond models which seek to explain patterns of conflict and co-operation instrumentally in terms of overlaps or differences of material interest. He suggests that models which seek to explore change, learning and the importance of organisational culture are better placed to capture the more personal and sociological elements that ultimately shape perceptions of common agenda and the possibilities of joint action. The greater degree of hierarchy in many organised unions and their different cultures of work, in contrast to more personal and de-centralised ways of working which characterise local environmental groups at least, have proved to be barriers to collaboration in the past. This is his point of departure for arguing that through experiential learning and attempts to challenge prejudices and caricatures that the movements construct of one another, new and more
effective alliances will be possible. Perceptions of common agendas are key to this process as groups ultimately have to justify to their membership and supporters that there is a value added for labour and environmental struggles respectively to join forces either on a strategic and temporary basis or through longer-term patterns of engagement.
This is a well-researched, carefully written and important book that will be of interest to academics from labour and environmental studies and sociology as well as to the activists whose histories and potentiality the volume examines so thoroughly.
PETER NEWELL
Institute of Development Studies University of Sussex
Green Giants? Environmental Policies of the United States and the European Union edited by Norman J. Vig and Michael G. Faure (American and Comparative Environmental Policy Series). London: The MIT Press, 2004. Pp. xiii + 398; index. £43.95 (hardback); £17.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 262 22068 7 and 0 262 72044 2
In trying to characterise complex phenomena, simplifications or even caricatures may be unavoidable. Much received opinion about European and American environmental policy can be distilled into three axioms:
. The EU is virtuous; the US is not.
. The EU is fundamentally committed to environmental protection; the US is not.
. The environmental policies of the EU and US are diverging rapidly.
Climate change policy is an obvious example which confirms the axioms. Unfortunately, while that case is significant, it may not be representative of the breadth and complexity of environmental policy and law.
Green Giantsoffers some useful correctives to the overly simplistic view; it provides a more complex, more ambiguous picture of the true state of affairs. The 16 contributors compare the environmental policies of the European Union and the United States in order to answer the questions: How do American and European environmental policies compare? Are these policies converging or diverging?
On the first question, the editors prudently conclude that it is very difficult to draw any conclusion. They note ‘It is probably impossible to say whether, in looking at the entire context of environmental law and administration, the EU or US is more protective or ‘‘precautionary’’ than the other’ (p.352). It is really only possible to draw these distinctions when talking about very specific policies or issue areas.
The answer to the second question is similarly ambiguous. As with climate change, there is evidence of divergence but there are also numerous examples of convergence. With regard to enforcement, both the EU and US have moved to supplement command and control regulations with other tools, in part because they have shown themselves unwilling to impose penalties to ensure compliance. There are numerous examples of mutual learning, particularly when it comes to policy tools, such as negotiated agreements, where the US has innovated a tool that originated in Europe.
The book’s principal contribution lies in offering a survey of the current state of affairs and trends in American and European environmental policy. As such, the book will be of interest to policy-makers, because it addresses issues relevant to environmental policy in any developed country, such as enforcement and the management of risk. It will also be of interest to scholars who work on comparative and international environmental policy, although the book does not break significant ground in developing theories in these areas. Some of the explanations offered for policy outcomes seem quite simplistic and do not reflect insights from broader literatures in comparative politics or international relations.
Oddly enough, the first two axioms listed above seem to be accepted unquestioningly by a number of the authors. Several authors offer rather contorted arguments to support claims of the greater virtuousness of the EU. Much is made of the inclusion of the precautionary principle and sustainable development in the EU’s constitution (pp.352–353). Some authors claim this proves that the EU is, on an existential level, ‘greener’ than the US because it is committed to theideaof sustainable development. The same chapter, however, observes that the principles of sustainability have had little impact on EU policies, such as transport and the Common Fisheries Policy. The authors state ‘. . . when analysis moves from exploration of the European Union’s constitutional and declaratory commitments to its implementation efforts . . . a different and altogether more pessimistic picture emerges . . .’(p. 286–287). If the policies and practices of the EU and its member states are not actually more sustainable than US policies, does that make the EU more virtuous or simply more hypocritical?
INGER WEIBUST
Carleton University
Die Europa¨isierung von Umweltorganisationen: Die Umweltbewegung auf dem langen Weg nach Bru¨ssel (The Europeanization of Environmental Organisa-tions) by Jochen Roose. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag., 2003. Pp. 311. e29.90 (paperback). ISBN 3 5311 3897 9
This important, well-researched book looks at how European environmental organisations with membership in only one country are dealing with the
displacement of environmental policy-making to Brussels. Specifically, Roose seeks to identify factors that influence the level and types of EU-directed political activity they undertake. Based on a careful review of the social movements literature, Roose argues that the most obvious answer to this question – political opportunity structure – falls short. It assumes that organisations adapt to existing opportunities either by rational choice or by gradually evolving successful strategies; however, the dynamic EU environ-ment makes rational planning difficult and rules out evolutionary adaptation. Other social movement theories, including resource mobilisation, new social movements, framing, and the collective identity and contentious repertoire approaches, also fail to offer a comprehensive model. Roose turns instead to Giddens’ structuration theory as an overarching framework because it acknowledges that social actors both shape and are shaped by social structures and focuses on how actors’ perceptions of existing rules and resources lead to both the reproduction and modification of structures. Incorporating insights from social movement theories into this framework suggests six factors likely to influence an organisation’s efforts to influence EU policy.
Roose’s major data source is interviews with representatives of 14 German and 18 British environmental organisations judged likely to be active in efforts to influence the EU. The organisations are heterogeneous in size, substantive emphasis, and strategy, but most of the largest are included. Additional data come from interviews with EU officials and staff members in EU-wide networks of environmental organisations, from coding newspaper reports about environmental protest, and from EU records.
Following overviews of the German and British environmental scenes and EU environmental policy-making that merit reading for their own sake, Roose looks at the prevalence of these groups’ political influence attempts directed toward the EU in the 1990s. This densely written analysis, based on indicators like the number of protest events and complaints filed with EU bodies, does not prove very informative because of data limitations, absence of uniform trends over time, and lack of clearly patterned differences between the two countries. Much more useful is Roose’s use of interview data to place the organisations in five categories according to the level and nature of their influence attempts. Both the British and German organisations are spread relatively evenly over the full range, from those with almost no activity to those for which efforts to influence the EU are a key part of their political program.
Roose then examines the effects of the six factors identified in his theoretical analysis on the organisations’ EU-activity. In brief, he concludes:
(1) the perceived importance of EU policy-making has little effect because almost all the organisations view it as important;
(2) knowledge of EU issues and procedures is a good predictor, but is probably as much a consequence as a cause;
(3) evaluation of chance of success is not an important predictor, probably because organisations fight the good fight even when they expect little success;
(4) perceptions of organisational mission and appropriate strategies held by staff and supporters, and resistance to changing existing resource allocations strongly condition how much EU activity an organisation undertakes;
(5) organisations that try to influence EU policy through lobbying are more prevalent than those that emphasise protest, because lobbying is more efficacious in Brussels; and
(6) work within EU-wide networks of environmental organisations has both costs and benefits, and organisations that rely solely on the European Environmental Bureau are less likely to be EU-active.
Despite my admiration for this book, I do have two criticisms. First, Roose defines his organisations as social movement organisations, largely ignoring the fact that many of them can just as reasonably be characterised as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or interest groups. Consequently, he arrives at insights that would emerge directly from organisation theory perspectives, such as the institutional approach, only after long and complex argumentation. Second, Roose sometimes interprets crosstabulation tables (for example, 7.2 and 7.4) with relatively large percentage differences as showing only weak relationships. Nevertheless, this book is a valuable contribution to research on an important and heretofore largely neglected topic. Readers whose German is rusty will also appreciate Roose’s clear, direct writing style.
WILLIAM T. MARKHAM
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Institutional Change for Sustainable Development by Robin Connor and Stephen Dovers. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Pp. x + 264; index. £59.95 (hardback) 1 8437 6569 1
Connor and Dovers have written an ambitious study of institutional change for sustainable development. The book’s empirical reach is wide, covering the activities of national councils for sustainable development, property rights, resource management, and strategic environmental policy. Its geographical focus is primarily on Australia and New Zealand, although the book also provides a case study of EU environmental policy. Its conceptual reach is also wide: the authors provide a rich synthesis of different literatures to approach the question of institutional change and sustainable development.
The study is not only ambitious, but ambitiously normative. The authors begin with the claim that ‘sustainability, as a newly recognized strand of the moral fibre by which we propose to survive and prosper in a full world,
requires urgent practical development within our institutional systems’ (p.1). I wonder if the book’s normative ambitions sometimes obscure its empirical aims. Not everyone agrees with the moral ‘rightness’ of sustainability. By assuming the universal embrace of sustainable development, the authors miss one of the major hurdles to achieving it: its contested and varied meanings.
The authors are chiefly interested in institutional change, by which they mean alteration in the ‘underlying, durable pattern of rules and behaviour’ (p.10). They view institutional change as a prerequisite to policy change, and draw on institutionalist and new institutionalist writers to help frame their study. Adopting a modified new institutionalist framework, Connor and Dovers suggest that individual action is ‘fundamentally constrained by institutional system’ (p.14). But they also suggest that cultural and individual beliefs matter, and they focus throughout on the normative dimension of policy change, the importance of policy ‘learning’ and the role of actors involved in that process. Less clear is which matters more: beliefs (agency) or structure (institutions), or some particular mix of both.
The key concept of ‘learning’ itself could do with more clarification and more systematic application. Although several different dimensions and types of learning are usefully outlined in chapter 2, the actual application of the concept in the case study chapters is patchy and disappointing. In particular, there is inadequate coverage of how learning actually occurs, and the authors sidestep the vexing but important issue of distinguishing policy change that results from ‘learning’ from policy change due to some other source. Similarly, the concept of sustainable development is carefully dissected early in the book, but in later chapters the term is used to mean very different things, and indeed the terms sustainabililty and sustainable development seem to be used interchangeably.
Despite these areas of confusion (perhaps inevitable in a book as wide ranging and ambitious as this one?) this study is valuable. It is chock-full of different cases, different anecdotes, different interpretations and different views. While not always an easy read the book reveals clearly the enormity of the challenge sustainable development represents to current practices and institutions. Connor and Dovers make a convincing case that progress toward any ideal of sustainable development will require not just marginal commitments but a fundamental change in individual and collective beliefs and patterns of behaviour.
ELIZABETH BOMBERG
University of Edinburgh
Survival for a Small Planet: The Sustainable Development Agenda edited by Tom Bigg. London: Earthscan/James and James, 2004. Pp. xxiii + 352; index. £22.95 (paperback). ISBN 1 884407 077 8
Depending on the audience, the World Summit on Sustainable Development or WSSD (the Johannesburg 2002 follow-up to the Rio conference) might
provoke yawns of boredom, howls of despair, or even measured enthusiasm. Whichever, a recurring criticism has been the lack of real progress since Rio and the absence of concrete decisions and action plans. Conscious of these problems Tom Bigg, of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), turns the focus ofSurvival for a Small Planet‘very much on future challenges’ to ‘build on the successes of Johannesburg and also salvage renewed direction and purpose from the summit’s shortcomings’ (p.20). The result is a critical and constructive analysis of the post-WSSD prospects for sustainable development, which highlights the problems of the current system. The accompanying CD provides a wealth of background information in a convenient format. Produced by IIED in collaboration with the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) it includes the final WSSD report and all the position papers from civil society groups (over 500 from 80 countries), providing a rich research resource.
The book covers five broad themes, the first two being global governance, national and local governance. The former examines the problems of the Kyoto Protocol and the trade-environment debate (amongst others) and Simon Upton documents the difficult role of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), particularly in maintaining the interest of politicians beyond their national election timetables. The national and local governance section is disappointingly brief, but considers national sustainable develop-ment strategies and in doing so itemises the difficulties caused to aid recipients when donor nations and institutions produce their own (potentially conflicting) sustainability plans (p.109). The tension between equity and sustainable development is explored next with the aim of finding ‘new ways of working’ with the twin problems, for example, by adopting a rights-based or gendered approach. More specifically, having astutely summarised the current power relationships in development policy, Charles Secrett suggests that the Climate Convention should become a working model for international policy and that this would remove Northern bias from the decision–making processes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Even more ambitiously he envisages a Tobin Tax to fund their future work. Yet Secrett’s ‘best example’ of international implementation of the Rio declaration still lacks the support of the US, and the Tobin Tax is a very long way from being a reality.
The fourth theme is the relationship between poverty reduction and resource management, and the chapters offer much in the way of regional and national examples. Making clear the links between the needs of the poor and careful resource use explodes the myth that only the rich can afford to worry about the environment. For many smallholder farmers for instance, maintaining the immediate environment is not a luxury but a necessity. Finally,Survivalturns to another pressure point in the debate, the relationship between markets and sustainable development. Roberto Bissio makes an excellent, succinct critique of the market-linked poverty definition of a dollar-a-day, while other contributors consider mining, tourism and agriculture.
Produced by a variety of authors (the majority with current or past links with IIED) the book makes interesting reading. The value of such a work is, as usual, not so much in the detail but in the breadth of opinion and argument. However, the very fact that the editor and authors are trying to look for nuggets of hope for sustainable development post-WSSD is perhaps testimony to the failure thus far of the official process. The overwhelming impression is the absence of strong political will and regulation and a reliance on voluntary measures. The alternatives offered are proposals that have been on the table for some time or ones which would require massive power shifts, so progress is likely to be very slow. Given that the foundation of trade- and growth-led development is oil, perhaps fuel price increases as reserves dwindle, or become harder to access, will force changes in industrial practice that the international policy community seems unable or unwilling to realise.
MARY MORRISON
University of Southampton
Nature in the Global South: Environmental Projects in South and Southeast Asia edited by Paul Greenough and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 428; index. £78.00 (hardback); £18.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8232 3150 0 and 3147 7
When the northern environmentalism of the 1960s and the 1970s eventually reached the South, it took a limited form, favouring northern conservation priorities like ‘saving’ tigers, ‘rescuing’ elephants, and ‘protecting’ biodiversity. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, southern environmental movements began to articulate a new agenda: villagers organised themselves to resist the enforcement of national and international development plans, and ‘tribal’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘traditional’ peoples became important actors in rural struggles. In the last decade of the twentieth century effective resistance became possible as local communities linked themselves to national and international elites.
Nature in the Global South discusses how concerns with conservation emerged from colonial interest in observation and administration, but also how the environment-making and environment-destroying practices of develop-mental states go hand in hand. The book is largely based on discourse analysis, as it is the interplay of discourse and counter-discourse that produces environments and human welfare concerns. The essays attune readers to both the social and natural elements of landscapes by presenting historical episodes. The first set of chapters locates and analyses knowledges and practices through which social and natural landscapes in south and south-east Asia are created, maintained and transformed. Some of them develop a historical view of the scales, logics and agents that have shaped these landscapes. For instance, one chapter examines shifts between nineteenth- and twentieth- century scientific
views of the south-east Asian landscape. Whereas nineteenth-century European naturalists recognised the hustle and bustle of markets within Indonesian natural landscapes as well as in the trade that brought their products to Europe, twentieth-century conservationists segregated sacred nature and market-driven culture, demanding cordoned-off reserves in which nature could operate free from human influence.
The second part of the volume takes these insights about the making of rurality, science, scale, and local knowledge into examinations of environ-mental campaigns. Some chapters explore the importance of the state in setting agendas for making rural landscapes; for instance one chapter compares two 1970s Indian state campaigns to manage species diversity: the campaign to save the tiger and the campaigns to eradicate the smallpox virus. The landscapes in question lay in forest reserves (realm of the tiger) and in the human body (realm of the virus). Despite the fact that the rhetoric of each campaign stressed benefits for humanity and nature, both campaigns turned to a similar set of coercive tactics, involving the containment and resettlement of villagers. The author highlights the bad compromises found in state management of environmental causes. The issue of bad compromises and ‘uneasy alliances’ is even more explicit in the final chapters, which explore the collaborations through which environmental mobilisations make claims over social/natural landscapes and commodities. An example is the coalition between activists and tribal people that emerged out of the campaign to save the Narmada river: activists maintain their commitments to environmental sustainability even when tribal people offer other developmental models.
What environmental politics and environmentalism can learn from anthro-pology is the way it tackles things that seem obvious. Nature in the Global South confronts us with uneasy questions, contests taken-for-granted grand narratives, and shows the historical and cultural specificity of science. It is these qualities, as well as its vivid style, that makeNature in the Global Southa piece of anthropological scholarship at its best.
HEIN-ANTON VAN DER HEIJDEN
University of Amsterdam
Extractive Reserves in Brazilian Amazonia: Local Resource Management and the Global Political Economy by Catarina A. S. Cardoso (Ashgate Studies in Environmental Policy and Practice Series). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002. Pp. xiv + 259. £42.50 (hardback). ISBN 0 7546 1724 6
The Extractive Reserve model provides a prime example of a national policy aimed at integrating natural resource conservation with sustainable development. Developed by the Brazilian government, in consultation with local resource users, national and international NGOs and other interna-tional actors, the model represents an innovative approach to land and
resources management which challenges some of the more traditionally held beliefs about the source or cause of environmental degradation in Amazonia. It is then, a very worthwhile area of study for this text to consider. Cardoso’s text aims to investigate the effectiveness of these regimes in terms of ensuring socially, economically and environmentally sound (that is, sustainable) development. The author does this with particular reference to the Extractive Reserve Chico Mendes (ERCM) in southern Amazonia as a case study.
Following a lengthy analysis of the development of ‘Common Property Institutions’ and their ‘robustness’ (chapter 1), the second chapter offers an account of the national and international developments which have impacted upon Amazonia’s people and institutions. There is an interesting section here considering the impact of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environ-ment and DevelopEnviron-ment conference held in Brazil, along with the less well-known G7 ‘Pilot Programme’ on Brazilian rainforests also established in the early 1990s. Subsequent chapters discuss the evolution of rubber tappers’ property regimes and both the informal and formal institutional arrangements relating to Extractive Reserves in particular.
Chapter 6 offers the text’s main conclusions, although there is a further brief chapter advocating certain policy reforms and development. In short, the author finds that the Extractive Reserve model has proved ‘robust’ due to the synergy between the formal and informal institutional arrangements encoun-tered within it. The protection of tappers’ property rights and the provision of adequate resources to establish co-operatives are also highlighted as of importance. The request for, and governmental consideration of, the establishment of many more Extractive Reserves is offered as evidence of the success of the model.
For me, the most interesting elements of the text were the detailed accounts of the activities of local resource users (for example, chapter 5), the international contextualisation of this resource use, and the related political activities (chapter 2). The mid-level analysis of national activities and the relation of the issues to the wider theoretical context (which takes up the majority of the book) were far less engaging and convincing. This analysis was not aided by the writing style, and the text contained a number of typographical errors which detracted from its flow. At several points the language used was unconvincing and the reader was left feeling that the author herself remained dubious of the strength of the argument made. One also felt that the structure of the volume could have been improved and presented in a more readable fashion. An index would certainly have been useful. These are all issues which could have been identified at the editorial stage, and it would serve publishers well to remember that professional academics like to enjoy reading texts as much as everyone else.
This is a research monograph and as such will be of interest to researchers involved in either Brazilian environmental policy or theoretical consideration of common property resources. Its wider application seems, to me, limited.
Combined with its sometimes difficult and frustrating style of writing, this work is thus unlikely to be of interest to a general student readership.
NORMAN DANDY
University of Leicester
Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Changeedited by Peggy F. Barlett and Geoffrey W. Chase (Urban and Industrial Environments series). Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2004. Pp. ix + 327; index. £38.95 (hardback); £15.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 262 02560 4 and 0 262 52422 8
In light of what many consider a disastrous 2004 presidential election result for the environment (in the US) and more recent, catastrophic, environmental events, it may seem inopportune to publish a volume on relatively modest successes in advancing sustainable thinking and practices at US institutions of higher education. Nevertheless, I would suggest this publication is welcome.
Sustainability on Campus is a collection of stories – about battles to introduce sustainability into university curricula, implement recycling pro-grammes on campus, design and build environmentally-sensitive structures and fundamentally change the protocols of decision-making to include sustain-ability as a core principle – told by individuals who have taken on often entrenched bureaucracies and won. The authors are mostly academic faculty, but there is wide acknowledgement of the importance of students and other university campus members to the success of sustainability initiatives. Indeed, a number of authors are at pains to acknowledge the extent of support and to name supporters involved in bringing a given project to fruition. It is perhaps this acknowledgement which saves the book from what might in places seem to be its self-congratulatory air. The American style of self-promotion is evident, sure enough, but it is also apparent that most of the authors have taken substantial professional risks by spending time on curriculum review projects, obtaining grants for native-species re-landscaping, conferences, community development work, and so on, rather than prioritising research publication.
The collection’s most moving piece recounts a community project which enlisted college students to work with elementary school children to raise interest in the natural world. In a closing paragraph, the author, Paul Faulstich, presents the words of one of the teachers whose class of 12-year-olds have just visited the college’s field station programme:
And then he held her hand. Ben Lopez (pseudonym) cannot work in groups. He is intelligent, but only cares about his grades . . . I have never seen him help someone . . . Shy Nataly Yen (pseudonym) started to climb over a ten-foot mound of dirt to get to the other bank of the pool. Following Ben, her feet were slipping in the mud. No words were spoken,
but Ben stood on top of the mound and held out his hand. Hers slipped into his. Gently, Ben helped her to the top . . . (pp.225–226).
For the most part, however, the text is less evocative and more solidly descriptive of project processes. Repeatedly, authors report putting their case to faculty meetings, sending emails to important administrators, the formation of ‘ad hoc’ committees and subcommittees, the importance of support from ‘above’ and ‘below’. Some bemoan student (and faculty) apathy, others are impressed with the level of commitment on campus. All, however, demonstrate
howsustainability projects, big and small, can be accomplished. While this is a text written by academics, it works well as an inspirational activists’ notebook – a ‘how-to’ of embedding sustainable practice. Richard B. Norgaard of UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group explains that,
When challenged as to how one can be an academic and an activist, we respond that not being an activist is a political statement too – an endorsement of the status quo . . . We question the system . . . because our energy, environmental, and social systems are systematically going the wrong way (p.118).
Perhaps it is the time at which I write this review, but I cannot help feeling relief to hear voices like this coming from the US – relief and encouragement. By cataloguing a variety of activities and accomplishments at a range of colleges and universities across the United States, the editors have done a service to those who have struggled to promote sustainable institutional change. They have also provided a text of encouragement for those who might yet dare to do the same at their own institutions.
WENDY MAPLES
The Open University, UK
Conserving Words: How American Nature Writers Shaped the Environmental Movement by Daniel Philippon. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2004. Pp. 356 + xv; index. £30.95 (hardback). ISBN 0 8203 2576 7
This book looks at five American nature writers and activists involved in the formation and development of a major environmental organisation. These range from Theodore Roosevelt and the Boone and Crocket Club (1887), Mabel Osgood Wright and the National Audubon Society, John Muir and the Sierra Club (1892), Aldo Leopold and the Wilderness Society (1935), and Edward Abbey and Earth First! (1980). Conserving Words is an interdisci-plinary work, and Philippon skilfully weaves literary criticism, environmental history and biographical studies into a very readable text. Each writer, he maintains, understood ‘nature’ through a particular metaphor that best fitted
their time, place and personal history. For nineteenth-century writers such as Roosevelt, a big game hunter and western rancher, it was the frontier; for Wright, a bird lover and suburban New Yorker, it was the garden; and for Muir, a hiker and worshipper of the untouched scenery of the Sierra Mountains, it was the (national) park. For twentieth- century writers, the emphasis was different and more abstract: about protecting global ‘nature’ rather than preserving particular locations or species. For Leopold, a mid-western forester and farmer, it was about protecting the diminishing tracts of ‘wilderness’ from mass tourism and development, while for Abbey, a romantic and lover of the south-west deserts, it was about creating islands of ecological ‘utopia’ – refuges from the destruction wrought by the ‘military industrial complex’ and the forces of urbanisation.
Philippon seeks to understand the nature of influence, in particular how literature and art act and react upon one another. He believes that influence circulates in a complex system resembling an ecosystem, ‘an ‘‘ecology of influence’’ that could be said to encompass all authors, readers and texts (broadly defined) at all times in all places’ (p.4). It is therefore not enough, he writes, to ask how nature writing has influenced people’s attitudes and behaviour, because such writing is but one component in the vast web of relationships that compose this ecology of influence. Thus we need ‘to consider the wide range of connections that exist between particular authors, readers and texts at particular times—and most importantly—in particular places’ (p.4).
The introductory chapter sets out Philippon’s theoretical structure of analysis, using the notions of discourse and frame analysis to explain his ideas on the ‘ecology of influence’. He argues that metaphor is the central figure of speech at work in ‘the discursive frames that enable these groups to succeed’ and that these metaphors ‘offer points of convergence around which individuals and organisations can rally’ (p.5). He believes that these metaphors gain currency because they carry weight, and that they ‘describe ideal states of human relationship with the nonhuman world . . . [and] are thus vehicles for our worldviews, carriers of our visions of the good’ (p.5).
Thus it is no surprise that the book concludes its selection of writers with Edward Abbey and his visions of the good life, based on a melding of anarchism and (desert) environmentalism. The chapter on Abbey discusses the utopian tradition in environmental thought as well as the morality and effectiveness of Abbey’s concepts of ecosabotage and ecoterrorism – popularised by him as ‘monkeywrenching’. The morality of violence, Abbey believed, ‘depends not on the existence of a ‘‘critical situation’’ but also on a vision of the good life that is threatened by such a crisis’ (p.262).
The volume concludes with the chapter entitled ‘The Island as Metaphor’, and suggests that the island, with its utopian connotations, is the future metaphor for the environmental movement. As Philippon writes: ‘Although the metaphor of nature is no more true or accurate than any other metaphor, it may well turn out to be more useful, particularly because it reminds us that
islands have limits; they cannot be endlessly exploited’ (p.271). Overall this a fine book, well written, with copious endnotes, a good bibliography and index. Philippon demonstrates well that nature writers have much to contribute to our understanding not only of the origins of the environmental movement, but also of its future direction. Nature writers also provide insights into current concerns over the morality of violence in achieving utopian goals.
HORACE HERRING
Open University, UK
Ulrich Beck: A Critical Introduction to the Risk Society by Gabe Mythen. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2004. Pp. vii + 216; index. £45.00 (hardback); £14.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 7453 1815 0 and 0 7453 1814 2
The impact of Ulrich Beck’s earlierRisk Society: Towards a New Modernityin social theory cannot be ignored. Since the publication of the English translation (1992) of this seminal work, the risk society perspective has been the recipient of many criticisms but also endorsements by prominent contemporary social theorists, most notable amongst them Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. As Gabe Mythen rightly highlights in his book, there is little doubt that ‘the risk society perspective has been pivotal in the evolution of cross-discipline debate between sociology, cultural studies, politics, geography and environmental studies’ (p.6). Surely, regular readers of Environmental Politicsmust have noticed the increasing number of works dealing with various social aspects of the environmental problematique that – even at the most rudimentary level – make reference to Beck’s perspective. This attention is to be expected given Beck’s prolific writings which encompass some of the most potent areas of current sociological inquiry: family, work, globalisation, the future of democratic politics and, of course, risk and ecological politics. This multifaceted engagement and the critique it has attracted have increased Beck’s status as a ‘zeitgeist sociologist’ (p.6). The ‘spirit of the times’ or Zeitgeist seems to have been an unavoidable provisional stage of affairs for sociological inquiry since the days of the classic fathers of sociology. Equally unavoidable is that the scholarly community expresses disquiet over Zeitgeist claims, and subjects them to intense pressure until what is valuable and solid stays behind intact. This is, no doubt, the underlying commitment of the volume under review. Mythen’s aim is to fill a lacuna in the literature by embarking on a systematic deconstruction of Beck’s risk society perspective (p.7), and he does so in a very effective way indeed.
The book consists of eight chapters, each dealing in great depth and breadth with key aspects of the risk society thesis such as risk perception, the mediation of risk, risk and the environment, changing employment trends and patterns of political engagement. Without losing any of its academic quality the book is written in a very lively and engaging fashion. Chapters are organised in a way
that allow for selective reading but my recommendation to prospective readers would be to read it in its entirety. Although Mythen has not intended his text as a reader/reference guide to Beck’s work, its extremely accessible style and detailed literature review can be of great value to those wishing to understand the risk society thesis but disenchanted by the, admittedly, not very approachable prose utilised by Beck and some of his fellow travellers. In the same vein, this critical study can be employed by lecturers wishing to introduce undergraduate students to the work of one of the leading sociologists of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries.
All in all, the book fulfils its main aims. As promised, it provides a concise coverage of Beck’s work coupled with a succinct critique, while locating it within the context of other theorists of risk. Furthermore it has the capacity of stimulating further research on the risk society and the enhanced relationship between environmental sociology and politics.
JOHN KARAMICHAS
