An Institutional Basis for Environmental Stewardship: The Structure and Quality of Property Rights (Environment & Policy, 35)

What is the role of government in environmental politics and policy? The answer to this question used to be relatively clear. Government was to regulate the environmental performance of state and non-state actors, to set standards, impose charges, and establish more or less stringent criteria of acceptable behavior. With the increasing appearance of the issues of globalization and global governance in the political science literature, however, the focus has turned to the role of non-state actors. Academic research and the popular debate have identified business, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and civil society as such as increasingly important and potentially powerful actors in the political arena. At the same time, some observers have proclaimed the influence of government to be declining. Others have argued that the role of government primarily is changing rather than declining. Those who adopt the latter perspective postulate that the new role for government in this changing political and socio-economic context is to set the framework for action. In this perspective, government is still of fundamental importance for the functioning of the society, the economy, and political decision-making, but its role is different in that government 'merely' provides the institutional framework facilitating desired outcomes.

This book explores an institutional framework for environmental governance. Starting from the assumption that governments can facilitate the sustainability of resource management by state and non-state actors through the structuring of decision contexts, the analyses combined in the book explore determinants of environmental stewardship with particular emphasis on the structure and quality of property rights. In pursuit of their objectives, the analyses build on previous research on determinants of environmental quality, critically examine findings and claims on the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve, and draw linkages to the literatures on government capacity and collective action. In addition, the book substantially extends the state of the knowledge on the environmental implications of property rights, integrating economic and political dimensions and establishing links between previously unconnected research areas in environmental politics, environmental economics, and resource management.

Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction....Pages 1-13 Determinants of environmental quality....Pages 15-42 Property rights and environmental stewardship....Pages 43-65 Assurance of property rights and environmental stewardship....Pages 67-88 The environmental desirability of government intervention....Pages 89-109 Conclusions....Pages 111-119 Back Matter....Pages 121-180