The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy
Author: Sheldon Kamieniecki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 783
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019974467X

Prior to the Nixon administration, environmental policy in the United States was rudimentary at best. Since then, it has evolved into one of the primary concerns of governmental policy from the federal to the local level. As scientific expertise on the environment rapidly developed, Americans became more aware of the growing environmental crisis that surrounded them. Practical solutions for mitigating various aspects of the crisis - air pollution, water pollution, chemical waste dumping, strip mining, and later global warming - became politically popular, and the government responded by gradually erecting a vast regulatory apparatus to address the issue. Today, politicians regard environmental policy as one of the most pressing issues they face. The Obama administration has identified the renewable energy sector as a key driver of economic growth, and Congress is in the process of passing a bill to reduce global warming that will be one of the most important environmental policy acts in decades. The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy will be a state-of-the-art work on all aspects of environmental policy in America. Over the past half century, America has been the world's leading emitter of global warming gases. However, environmental policy is not simply a national issue. It is a global issue, and the explosive growth of Asian countries like China and India mean that policy will have to be coordinated at the international level. The book will therefore focus not only on the U.S., but on the increasing importance of global policies and issues on American regulatory efforts. This is a topic that will only grow in importance in the coming years, and this will serve as an authoritative guide to any scholar interested in the issue.

Deliberative Policy Analysis

Deliberative Policy Analysis
Author: Maarten A. Hajer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2003-05-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780521530705

What kind of policy analysis is required now that governments increasingly encounter the limits of governing? Exploring the new contexts of politics and policy making, this book presents an original analysis of the relationship between state and society, and new possibilities for collective learning and conflict resolution. The key insight of the book is that democratic governance calls for a new deliberatively-oriented policy analysis. Traditionally policy analysis has been state-centered, based on the assumption that central government is self-evidently the locus of governing. Drawing on detailed empirical examples, the book examines the influence of developments such as increasing ethnic and cultural diversity, the complexity of socio-technical systems, and the impact of transnational arrangements on national policy making. This contextual approach indicates the need to rethink the relationship between social theory, policy analysis, and politics. The book is essential reading for all those involved in the study of public policy.

Collaborative Governance Regimes

Collaborative Governance Regimes
Author: Kirk Emerson
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2015-10-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1626162530

Whether the goal is building a local park or developing disaster response models, collaborative governance is changing the way public agencies at the local, regional, and national levels are working with each other and with key partners in the nonprofit and private sectors. While the academic literature has spawned numerous case studies and context- or policy-specific models for collaboration, the growth of these innovative collaborative governance systems has outpaced the scholarship needed to define it. Collaborative Governance Regimes breaks new conceptual and practical ground by presenting an integrative framework for working across boundaries to solve shared problems, a typology for understanding variations among collaborative governance regimes, and an approach for assessing both process and productivity performance. This book draws on diverse literatures and uses rich case illustrations to inform scholars and practitioners about collaborative governance regimes and to provide guidance for designing, managing, and studying such endeavors in the future. Collaborative Governance Regimes will be of special interest to scholars and researchers in public administration, public policy, and political science who want a framework for theory building, yet the book is also accessible enough for students and practitioners.

Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy

Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy
Author: Christopher J. Koliba
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2010-07-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1420071270

What do public administrators and policy analysts have in common? Their work is undertaken within networks formed when different organizations align to accomplish some kind of policy function. To be effective, they must find ways to navigate complexity and generate effective results. Governance Networks in Public Administration and Public Policy describes a variety of trends and movements that have contributed to the complexity of these systems and the challenges that must be faced as a result. Providing a theoretical and empirical foundation in governance networks, the book offers a conceptual framework for describing governance networks and provides a holistic way to conceive their construction. The text details the skills and functions of public administrators in the context of networked relationships and presents the theoretical foundations to analyze governance networks. It identifies the reforms and trends in governing that led to governance networks, explains the roles that various actors take on through networked relationships, highlights the challenges involved in the failure of networked activities, and illustrates how policy tools are mobilized by these relationships. Be a part of building governance networks 2.0! The author’s website contains support materials such as PowerPoint® presentations, writable case study templates, and other useful items related to building the field’s capacity to describe, evaluate, and design governance networks using the framework of this book. You can post case studies of governance networks, draw on other’s case study materials, and learn about research and educational opportunities. Based on research and real-life experience, the book highlights the interplay between public actors and policy tools. The authors demystify this complex topic of governance networks and explore the practical applications of the conceptual framework. Practical and accessible, the book presents concepts in such a way that readers can engage in these ideas, apply them, and deepen their understanding of the dynamics unfolding around them.

Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta

Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2012-11-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0309256194

Extensively modified over the last century and a half, California's San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary remains biologically diverse and functions as a central element in California's water supply system. Uncertainties about the future, actions taken under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) and companion California statues, and lawsuits have led to conflict concerning the timing and amount of water that can be diverted from the Delta for agriculture, municipal, and industrial purposes and concerning how much water is needed to protect the Delta ecosystem and its component species. Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta focuses on scientific questions, assumptions, and conclusions underlying water-management alternatives and reviews the initial public draft of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in terms of adequacy of its use of science and adaptive management. In addition, this report identifies the factors that may be contributing to the decline of federally listed species, recommend future water-supple and delivery options that reflect proper consideration of climate change and compatibility with objectives of maintaining a sustainable Bay-Delta ecosystem, advises what degree of restoration of the Delta system is likely to be attainable, and provides metrics that can be used by resource managers to measure progress toward restoration goals.

The Challenges of Collaboration in Environmental Governance

The Challenges of Collaboration in Environmental Governance
Author: Richard D. Margerum
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2016-09-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1785360418

Collaborative approaches to governance are being used to address some of the most difficult environmental issues across the world, but there is limited focus on the challenges of practice. Leading scholars from the United States, Europe and Australia explore the theory and practice in a range of contexts, highlighting the lessons from practice, the potential limitations of collaboration and the potential strategies for addressing these challenges.

Planning with Complexity

Planning with Complexity
Author: Judith E. Innes
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2010-01-11
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1135194270

Analyzing emerging practices of collaboration in planning and public policy to overcome the challenges complexity, fragmentation and uncertainty, the authors present a new theory of collaborative rationality, to help make sense of the new practices. They enquire in detail into how collaborative rationality works, the theories that inform it, and the potential and pitfalls for democracy in the twenty-first century. Representing the authors’ collective experience based upon over thirty years of research and practice, this is insightful reading for students, educators, scholars, and reflective practitioners in the fields of urban planning, public policy, political science and public administration.

Interpretive Social Science

Interpretive Social Science
Author: Mark Bevir
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2018-12-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0192569368

In this book Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely set out to make the most comprehensive case yet for an 'interpretive' or hermeneutic approach to the social sciences. Interpretive approaches are a major growth area in the social sciences today. This is because they offer a full-blown alternative to the behavioralism, institutionalism, rational choice, and other quasi-scientific approaches that dominate the study of human behavior. In addition to presenting a systematic case for interpretivism and a critique of scientism, Bevir and Blakely also propose their own uniquely 'anti-naturalist 'notion of an interpretive approach. This anti-naturalist framework encompasses the insights of philosophers ranging from Michel Foucault and Hans-Georg Gadamer to Charles Taylor and Ludwig Wittgenstein, while also resolving dilemmas that have plagued rival philosophical defenses of interpretivism. In addition, working social scientists are given detailed discussions of a distinctly interpretive approach to methods and empirical research. The book draws on the latest social science to cover everything from concept formation and empirical inquiry to ethics, democratic theory, and public policy. An anti-naturalist approach to interpretive social science offers nothing short of a sweeping paradigm shift in the study of human beings and society. This book will be of interest to all who seek a humanistic alternative to the scientism that overwhelms the study of human beings today.