“垃圾战争”的环境政治学分析

中国社会面临着越来越严重的“垃圾围城”窘境,地方政府和企业处于自身利益的考量,正在把垃圾焚烧（发电）作为处理生活垃圾的新方向。但由于政策决定过程中的民意缺失,随之引发了居民抗争运动。中国环境恶化的原因与政治体制改革的相对滞后密切相关,是一个典型的政治经济复合型的产物。因此需要超越环境工程学、以及环境经济学的视角,在”环境政治学”的视野下寻找解决问题的出路。     

政治·社会·自然

借助于生态学的方法,政治生态理论克服了传统政治学封闭的、孤立的思想方法,从大局观的、开放的、整体的思想方法出发,从政治体系与其环境的相互关系中研究政治现象的产生、发展与演变规律。以整体性思维为根本的政治生态理论,其相关特性正好为民主政治体制的完善提供智力支持。     

读书

《环境政治国际比较》郇庆治著,山东大学出版社2007年7月第1版,20.00元本书是一部基于比较政治学方法探讨当代国际环境政治中观念创新和制度性回应实例的环境政治学专著。全书分别讨论了20世纪90年代中期以来影响广泛的生态政治理论流派,例如可持续发展、环境安全、生态现代化与环境公民权,以及环境运动与环境全球管制和欧美绿党政治所取得的最新进展。本书对主要是西方环境政治理论与实践的解读,能够为处在重要转折阶段的中国生态环境保护事业与环境政治学发展提供一些理论参考。     

《当代西方绿色左翼政治理论》

郇庆治编北京大学出版社2011年12月本书汇集了中外学者论述当代西方绿色左翼政治理论与实践最新进展的专题论文。全书分为3大部分和14章,分别阐述了生态马克思主义/生态社会主义、绿色工联主义、社会生态学、包容性民主理论,生态女性主义和生态新社会运动理论等欧美"红绿"政治理论流派,以及它们自21世纪以来取得的重要进展及其面临的问题。本书不仅有助于促进环境政治学三大     

环境信息公开与环境政治治理

环境类群体性事件的兴起标志着中国"环境政治"的登场,同时也表明原有的环境政治治理模式的式微。原有模式以管制型政治文化资源与制度技术为主要特征,无法适应现实挑战。单纯的"压力政治"和"民粹政治"不是真正的民主政治,民意需要置于一个公共理性的制度结构中加以权衡。环境信息公开在此类事件的进展中已经获得了某种理解与运用,但其完整的治理逻辑尚未成为共识。环境信息公开,是中国环境政治治理乃至于整体性的现代政治转型的起点步骤和有效动力。     

浅议环境问题的政治属性

伴随着人类社会经济的高度发展，生存环境问题日益严重。环境恶化给各国和各地区进一步发展造成的损失和障碍以及围绕环境进行的利益和责任的分配和分担已使环境问题的政治属性极为显著。环境问题是关系国家政治稳定的重要因素环境问题之所以影响政治稳定主要因为环境变化危及了当地人民的基本生存。一般说来，那些既承受着生态环境的压力，同时又表现出人文脆弱性的地方，是潜在的不安定地区。环境问题既可能是自然因素导致的又可能是人为造成的，即所谓“天灾”与“人祸”。自然因素如洪水、地震、火山爆发和干旱等环境灾害在任何情况下都…     

环境文化内涵之浅析

环境文化是倡导生态经济、尊重自然法则的先进文化,是通过法律和道德体系来保障实现的。发展环境文化是为发展社会主义民主政治奠定基础,弘扬环境文化是对中华民族团结稳定的奉献。文章从环境文化与经济关系、环境文化与法治德治、环境文化与政治文明、环境文化与民族精神四个方面阐述了环境文化的深刻内涵。     

浅议美国的环境公正

从环境公正的起源、内涵、法律依据等方面，对甍国环境公正的法律体系做了较深入地分析，探讨了一个社会学和政治学或伦理学概念顺应时代要求进入法律体系的必要前提和机制。     

环境治理的竞争性话语和基本策略

澳大利亚堪培拉大学教授德赖泽克在其著作《地球政治学:环境话语》中,对过去40多年来主导国际环境政治与政策的竞争性话语和基本策略做了系统而清晰的评述,揭示了生存主义、可持续发展、生态现代化、绿色激进主义等多重竞争性话语之间的对立互补关系,对于我们看透西方发达国家的环境主张和治理策略,理解环境治理的复杂性和紧迫性,反思环境保护运动的曲折性和新常态,审视我们自己的环境治理行动和政策,具有重要启示。     

绿色政治：环境保护的新挑战——对近年来环境公共事件的初步观察

近年来．环境公共事件呈高发、频发态势,标志着中国正在进入绿色政治时代。究其原因,有环境问题的普遍性,也有网络信息技术的推波助澜,二者共同改变着中国的环保政治格局。绿色政治时代的到来,既可以成为推动环境保护的新动力,同时也存在政治失序的可能。如何应对绿色政治带来的挑战,是思考中国环境保护良序运行的新课题。     

Environmental Justice 2.0: new Latino environmentalism in Los Angeles

This paper presents the results of ethnographic research conducted with several environmental justice (EJ) organisations in Latino communities of Los Angeles, California. Traditional EJ politics revolves around research and advocacy to reduce discriminatory environmental exposures, risks, and impacts. However, I argue that in recent years there has been a qualitative change in EJ politics, characterised by four main elements: (1) a move away from the reaction to urban environmental “bads” (e.g. polluting industries) in the city towards a focus on the production of nature in the city; (2) strategies that are less dependent on the legal, bureaucratic, and technical “regulatory route”; (3) the formation of a distinctive “Latino environmental ethic” that offers a more complex consideration of the place of race in EJ organising; and (4) a spatial organisation of EJ politics that moves away from hyperlocal, vertical organisation towards diversified city-wide networks that include EJ organisations, mainstream environmental groups, nonprofits, foundations, and entrepreneurs. This shift in EJ movement politics is shaped by broader political-economic changes, including the shift from post-Fordist to neoliberal and now green economy models of urban development; the influence of neoliberal multiculturalism in urban politics; and the increasingly prominent role of Latinos in city, state, and national politics. New spaces of Latino EJ also reflect the ambitions of Los Angeles as a global city, with urban growth increasingly framed in an international discourse of sustainability that combines quality of life, environmental, and economic development rationales.     

Chilean congressional politics under President Lagos: environment and politics in Chile 2000–2006

Little is known about the legislative process and in particular how this relates to environment in Latin America. This article attemps to partially close this gap by discussing the dynamics of congressional environmental politics in Chile under former President Lagos (2000–2006). At first, this article discusses the role of the executive branch in the legislative process, congressional authority and environmental policy. This sometimes uneasy relationship is explored, and its consequences over environmental politics are discussed. The second part of the article attempts to explain legislator's choices in the area of environmental policy, developing and testing four main hypotheses that eventually help to explain why legislators support/reject laws of positive/negative environmental relevance. Finally, this article draws general conclusions on Chilean congressional politics and environmental policy, to then propose some recommendations on how to improve the process of creating environmental policy in Congress.     

Perverse Incentive Structure and Policy Implementation Gap in China's Local Environmental Politics

The obvious paradox within China's environmental politics is the big gap between the central government's policy and its implementation outcomes at local levels. Despite concerns about implementation at the local level, much about the role of central governments in China's local environmental politics is still poorly understood. This article examines how the incentive structure set by the central authorities affects the policy implementation gap at the local level. Drawing on fieldwork and document analysis, this article argues that the incentives set by the central government regarding environmental policy implementation at local levels are perversely structured, meaning that the central government provides much more incentive for local governments' non-implementation or poor implementation of its environmental policies than it provides for full implementation. The central government's failure to encourage—politically, financially, as well as morally—local government officials to appropriately implement environmental policies can partly explain the production of the policy implementation gap at the local level. This implementation gap cannot be overcome by efforts at the local level unless the central government takes significant measures to address the perverse incentive structure embedded in the overall structure of China's local environmental politics.     

Strategic environmental assessment in China: motivations, politics, and effectiveness

This paper examines how strategic environmental assessment has been practiced at the national level in China through 2005 and why it has been practiced in the manner observed. Based on literature reviews and interviews carried out in 2005 and 2006, we find that bureaucratic politics between environmental and nonenvironmental ministries has limited the legislation and implementation of strategic environmental assessment to environmental assessment (EA) for a set of government plans defined in the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment Law. Interviewees from environmental and nonenvironmental ministries and key research institutes have reported that few planning EAs have been performed at the sectoral level. Nonenvironmental ministries have either evaded the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment Law and have not undertaken required planning EA or have organized planning EA on their own without participation by the State Environmental Protection Administration. The rising tension between the environmental and nonenvironmental ministries has limited the role of planning EA as a participatory decision-making tool. In addition to bureaucratic politics, we find that weak public participation and underemphasis on social analysis in planning EA may have further compromised the utility of planning EA.     

关于低碳经济的环境国际政治经济分析

从环境政治经济视角分析低碳经济发展路径问题。认为发达国家率先提出低碳经济等概念的背后隐含着重大的政治图谋,即突破气候变化公约的"共同但有区别的责任",引导建立利己的全球环境政治经济新秩序。中国等发展中国家发展低碳经济,应结合本国环境状况和经济发展等国情,科学选择低碳经济路径。同时,应联手应对美欧等国提出的"碳关税"措施,维护广大发展中国家公民的环境政治经济权益。     

Lead astray: scale,environmental justice and the El Paso smelter

Residents in Paso del Norte (El Paso, Texas; Sunland Park, New Mexico; and Juárez, Mexico) have been concerned about heavy metal contamination in their communities since the 1970s, when high blood lead levels were found in children living in Smeltertown – a company town for the local metals smelter. After the smelter's closure in 1999, and throughout onsite and offsite cleanup efforts, residents have continued to express concerns about these contamination issues. Using a politics of scale framework and analysing ethnographic data and government, media and scientific documents, this paper identifies a set of major disjunctures between the scales of heavy metal contamination and the scales at which that contamination is regulated. These disjunctures exacerbate regional environmental injustice by complicating public participation, neglecting vulnerability and displacing hazards to new communities. Consequently, applying a politics of scale framework to this case study highlights regulatory and policy failures to address environmental justice.     

Implementation and Participation in China's Local Environmental Politics: Challenges and Innovations

With its recently published 12th Five-Year Plan (FYP, 2011–2015) China's leaders have set ambitious national environmental targets and goals for developing a more sustainable economy and society. Past records, however, show that ambitious goals and regulations too often fail due to shortcomings in local implementation and civil society participation. At the sub-national level, economic, political, and social interests continue to dictate the political agenda and the participation of non-state actors remains limited. This article analyses these implementation and participation gaps and reviews recent innovations and experiments to address these gaps in local environmental politics in China. Although many ongoing experiments and new institutional arrangements can be identified, these projects and initiatives remain limited in scope and geographical spread. Further advances in policy enforcement and in opening up policy design to citizens and other non-state actors at the local level are needed in order to turn the article ambitions of the 12th FYP into reality.     

Legitimacy for climate policies: politics and participation in the Green City of Freiburg

Cities are crucial to mitigating climate change and can serve as sites for innovations, providing examples of ways to conduct effective politics in transport, energy and land-use. What does it take to become a model for climate politics? This article argues that a few innovative measures will not suffice. A common vision based on broad legitimacy is crucial to achieving this position. Using a theoretical framework on input and output legitimacy with the City of Freiburg as the case, this article explores the political dimensions of the climate innovative city. The study shows that a specific kind of “green conservative” politics and a consensual view on climate issues across parties have been very important to creating political legitimacy. This has been supported by extraordinary and extensive citizen engagement in combination with the actual output, i.e. what environmental policies have delivered. The legitimacy for the Green City model also means that Freiburg is viewed as a highly livable city, in turn, creating self-enforcing dynamics that challenge its innovative potential.     

Contesting neoliberal knowledge politics in restoration governance: the restorationist’s dilemma

ABSTRACT

The success of ecological restoration efforts is tightly coupled with the effectiveness of many U.S. environmental policies. Yet scholars have raised questions about the ability of restoration to produce intended results. We use a case study of tidal wetland restoration planning in Oregon to examine how neoliberal environmental governance exercises influence through a set of knowledge politics that produces subpar outcomes. We present three main findings: (1) restoration policies produce a restoration economy based on a conception of wetland as commodity (2) practitioners in this restoration economy exhibit competitive behavior resulting in a piecemeal rather than a landscape approach to restoration; and (3) limited monitoring prevents changes to existing policies. Practitioners offer insight into the challenge of treating wetlands as a commodity and call for more monitoring to challenge the assumptions of hegemonic knowledge practices that reinforce a neoliberal environmental governance regime. The divergent ideas of reflexive practitioners, though not yet manifest as action, show where changes to restoration governance might be possible.     

PROBLEM OF NONPOINT SOURCE AGRICULTURAL WATER POLLUTION: TOWARD A HYPOTHETICAL FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE SOLUTION1

ABSTRACT: A conceptual framework of politics is set forth in relation to the federal environmental legislative process. This framework for analysis is then related to a hypothetical public problem -ground water pollution from agricultural chemicals. The public problem from the perspective of political analysis is found to involve several different types of difficult issues with which the legislative process must deal if legislation is to be enacted.