Anthem EnviroExperts

Reviewed by Leah Stokes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Biermann and Pattberg examine how international institutions for the environment are changing with time due to new actors, new mechanisms and growing fragmentation.

Global Environmental Governance Reconsidered, by Frank Biermann and Philipp Pattberg, Eds., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 320pp

Global Environmental Governance Reconsidered, edited by Frank Biermann and Philipp Pattberg, summarizes ten years of collaborative research on global environmental institutions. The book identifies three global governance trends: first, new actors are participating at the global scale; second, new private governance mechanisms are paralleling international treaties; third, new fragmentation in rules and institutions is occurring, both horizontally and vertically. These three concepts create the architecture for the book’s three sections and taken together they point to a decline in the state’s role in global environmental governance. The criticisms of private governance mechanisms, including poor implementation and a lack of capacity building, highlight problems in moving away from state-centered environmental institutions. However, as the chapter on market-based transnational governance experiments argues, increasing fragmentation in governance, while undermining multilateral negotiations, is a process likely to expand in the future.

The book is an interesting compilation of research projects, yet it has some weak points. While it examines international bureaucracies and transnational businesses, it does not focus enough on environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) or the role of the state. We know from earlier work that ENGOs are critical to raising awareness and transforming public opinion on environmental issues, catalyzing state action. In addition, the book’s focus on high-level institutional analysis eliminates some of the rich policy details that explain outcomes in specific cases, for example differences in genetically modified organisms (GMO) regulations, and causes for ambitious renewable energy policy. Nevertheless, the book provides an excellent summary of a collaborative, long-term study and should provide new material for debates on the use of science, the role of neoliberalism and the relevance of power in international environmental negotiations.

Review by Masahiro Matsuura, University of Tokyo

Reviewing approaches to the use of scientific evidence in regulatory governance, this book provides a new perspective on the role of science in global environmental policies.

Science and Risk Regulation in International Law, by Jacqueline Peel, Cambridge University Press, 416pp

In recent policy-making processes, ‘science’ is often a crucial element of controversy that has to be resolved by decision-makers and stakeholders, not just by scientific experts. For instance, environmental policy problems are subject to controversy over the interpretation of scientific analysis; Ozawa and Susskind (1985) characterized them as “science-intensive policy disputes.” Nowadays, the significance of science in public policy has increased as strategic actors in policy processes submit ‘scientific evidence’ in order to promote their own preferred policy choices.

The trend of stressing the need for evidence before implementing new policies and regulations, which started in the field of medicine, has extended to a wide range of policy areas.International law is not an exception. Science and Risk Regulation in International Law, a recent publication by Jacqueline Peel, raises a question about the appropriate use of scientific information in risk governance on the global scale. The first half of the book provides a thorough review of approaches to regulatory governance and the use of science. Instead of simply criticizing strategic uses of sound science by industries and political parties, the author characterizes sound science and precautionary principle as competing risk regulatory paradigms.

By applying this framework to the analysis of disputes over World Trade Organization’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreement, and other controversies in the field of international law, the author reframes the issue from these competing paradigms to the democratization of science. Both sound science and precautionary principle rely on scientific information. The problem lies in how such information is produced and used. By drawing on literature in science, technology and society studies (STS), the author argues for different ways of incorporating scientific information in global regulatory governance. While its conclusion could be a little more empirical by drawing on practices of environmental policy in North America, such as joint fact-finding and negotiated rulemaking, the book provides a new perspective on the role of science in global environmental and regulatory governance.

Review by Sean Nolon, Vermont Law School

Joel Mintz’s work offers fascinating insights into changing approaches to environmental law enforcement in recent decades.

Enforcement at the EPA: High Stakes and Hard Choices, by Joel A Mintz, University of Texas Press, 323pp

This book presents a fascinating historical account of how EPA’s approach to enforcing environmental laws has changed over the last forty years. Fortunately, this book has many moments where the author brings a potentially dry topic alive through the use of quotes and personal accounts from agency insiders.  Professor Mintz has written an enjoyable and informative volume that follows in the tradition of great qualitative research such as Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.

This work is the product of many years of research and the author’s passion to make sense out of the tangled path that EPA has followed since being created by President Nixon in the 1970s. Professor Mintz reviewed EPA enforcement policy documents from 1970–2009 and interviewed over 190 present and former government officials. This behind-the-scenes presentation of how presidents from Carter to Bush II affect enforcement at the EPA is fascinating. Some of the highlights addressed are: EPA’s style of enforcement over the years; the effect of congressional oversight, including decentralized committees and budget authority on EPA’s ability to enforce; the relationship of political appointees to agency staff under different administrations; the decline of agency effectiveness in recent years; and an exploration of the threat and reality of agency “capture.”

By giving a thorough historical account of enforcement at EPA, readers will see more detail of the shadow under which many environmental negotiations take place. Readers with an interest in environmental regulation and those who enjoy the evolution of institutions and how they respond to changes in society will enjoy this volume.

Reviewed by W. Todd Jarvis, Oregon State University

Shafiqul Islam and Lawrence E. Susskind provide an interesting new framework that is both innovative and complementary to existing water negotiations frameworks.

Water Diplomacy: A Negotiated Approach to Managing Complex Water Networks, by Shafiqul Islam and Lawrence E. Susskind, RFF Press, 334pp

The days of groundwater problems being solved by hydrologists watching water move through well screens or across computer screens is quickly being replaced by the political melodramas typically found on the movie screen – negotiating over water use and reuse. This is where the new book by Shafiqul Islam and Lawrence Susskind is an important addition to the library of postmodern hydrologists. The objective of the book is to provide “a 21st century approach to water management that acknowledges the complexity and uncertainty of natural and societal systems, accepts the increasing interconnectivity and consequences of important decisions, and rejects the unquestioned authority of hierarchical governance structures.”

Water Diplomacy reads like three books under one cover. The first book develops the water diplomacy framework with an introduction to complexity theory, scale and networks through the clever use of a fable about a fictitious river basin, Indopotamia. The second book sets the stage for negotiations by examining a non-zero sum approach to water negotiations. Special features of the first two ‘books’ include many excerpts from selected journal articles related to each chapter topic, followed by short commentary by the authors.

The reader revisits Indopotamia in the third book, where a well-documented role play simulation is offered as a capacity-building exercise. I participated in this role play simulation during the 2012 Water Diplomacy Workshop. The book, the annual workshop and the role play are wonderful additions to the many other trainings and frameworks on negotiations over water resources.

Reviewed by Shafiqul Islam, Tufts University

This book presents a new theory of collaborative rationality to help make sense of the new practices.

Planning With Complexity: An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Decision-making, by Judith Innes and David Booher, Routledge, 256pp

In Planning with Complexity, this scholar-practitioner team looks at planning and public policy through the lens of complexity science. They explicitly recognize that many social policy, planning and management problems are “wicked” as defined by Rittel and Webber (1973). They argue that there is no consensus even on the definition of the problem, much less on goals to achieve. The uncertainty inherent in such complex systems means that even powerful actors and knowledgeable experts cannot predict how uncertainty in information, action and perception will manifest itself on a particular policy prescription. A central aspect of their argument is that for wicked problems, there is no solution that can be shown to be predictable and optimal.

They propose a new form of planning and policy called, collaborative rationality. This is a welcome departure from traditional instrumental rationality for decision-making. Their collaborative decision-making theory – Diversity, Interdependence, Authentic Dialogue (DIAD) – is based on three conditions embedded within it. It is theoretically elegant and grounded in the work of Habermas (1981) and the notion of communicative rationality. When all of the ordinary constraints on the free exchange of ideas (such as differences in status, power, etc) are lifted, Habermas believes that good faith discourse between individuals will allow them to reach a consensus about the truth. Authors explicitly recognize that collaborative rationality requires an equalization of power among all stakeholders (P. 111).

It is not clear, however, how pragmatic such an equalization of power is for planning and management of wicked problems. This is partly because rationality based on scientific method and positivist approach is a highly contested notion, while collaborative decision-making relies heavily on interpretive, pragmatic and experiential way of knowing. How to make these apparently dichotomous ideas into collaborative decision-making process in a politically real world is a practical challenge. Authors are pragmatic in acknowledging that “dialogues cannot directly change the deep structure of power (P. 110)” but actions can have second or third order effects. Their observation that planning has to proceed independent of trust  is somewhat puzzling. Recent literature on planning and management of common pool resources (Ostrom 2011, Susskind and Islam 2012) suggest creating trust and values to be fundamental in this regard.

To summarize, Innes and Booher have provided a fresh look and theoretical foundation on how to think about planning and managing wicked problems from complexity science perspectives. Hopefully, their future contribution will provide more insight on how to practically manage wicked problems within the context of collaborative rationality.