Toward a New Governance Paradigm

8/11/2019 Toward a New Governance Paradigm

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10.1177/0095399703256968ARTICLE

ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / January 2004Durant et al. / NEW GOVERNANCE PARADIGM

TOWARD A NEW GOVERNANCE

PARADIGM FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ANDNATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

ROBERT F. DURANT

American University

YOUNG-PYOUNG CHUN

Daegu University

BYUNGSEOB KIM

Seoul National University

SEONGJONG LEE

Sungkeunkwan University

Dissatisfaction with conventionalregulatoryapproaches has led to an emergingnew gover-

nance paradigm (NGP) in environmental and natural resources (ENR) management. This

NGP is premised on a need to reconceptualize ENR management regimes, reconnect with

stakeholders, and redefine what constitutes administrative rationality in the public and pri-

vate sectors. The ultimate fate of the NGP is in doubt, however. This essay argues that the

NGP is best appreciatedas an effort to graft managerial flexibility onto an otherwise inflexi-

ble regulatoryregimeaneffortthat hasleft a halfway,halting,and patchworked regulatoryregimein its wake.ApplyingJohnGaussnotionof theecology of public administrationas an

analyticalframework, the essayaddresses three questions:(a) Whatwere the sociopolitical,

technological,and economic factors propelling anddelimitingthe NGP overthe lastquarter

of the 20th century; (b) how likely are they to endure; and (c) with what consequences for

ENR managers, regulators, and regulatees in the 21st century?

Keywords: environment; natural resources; governance; public management

In her book,Longitude, Dava Sobel (1995) wrote a fascinating account

of John Harrisons 40-year quest to wrest recognition from the British

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ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY, Vol. 35 No. 6, January 2004 643-682

DOI: 10.1177/0095399703256968

2004 Sage Publications


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Crown for inventing a timepiece capable of determining the positions of

ships at sea. Prior to Harrisons efforts in the 18th century, Sobel said, the

dominant paradigm forsailors wasan approach known as deadreckoning.

As she described this process, sea captains relying solely on latitudinal

readings would throw a log overboard and observe how quickly the ship

receded from this temporary guidepost to determine their distance east

and west of home port (Sobel, 1995, p. 13). Then, factoring inocean cur-

rents, fickle winds, and errors in judgment (Sobel, 1995, p. 14), the cap-

tain determined the ships longitude. The rub, of course, was that captains

routinely missed [their] mark, searching in vain for the island where

[they] had hoped to find fresh water, or even the continent that was [their]

destination (Sobel, 1995, p. 14).

Since the environmental decade of the 1970s, the United States andother nations have embarked on their own 30-year quest to reckonthereg-

ulatory ship of state toward a destination of effective, efficient, equitable,

and accountable environmental and natural resources (ENR) manage-

ment. Their latitudinal bearings have been ascertained by a so-called first

generation of regulation that is heavily bureaucratic, prescriptive, and

adversarial in nature. What is more, their quest has been animated by a

regulatory philosophy focused on single-pollutant, single-media, single-

pathway, command-and-control, technology-driven, and end-of-pipe

solutions to ENR problems.

More recently, however, reformers have (in effect) argued that these

latitudinal bearings alone are incapable of getting them to their destina-

tion. Andwhat is perhaps most politically significant about this critique is

that it is offered by many of the architects of first-generation approaches

(Fiorino, 1996; Ruckelshaus,1995). Their argument hasbeen less a prod-

uctof thefailure of theearlier regulatory paradigm that they helpedto cre-

ateand more a realization that theenvironmentalproblemsthat remainare

largely beyond its abilities to address efficiently, effectively, equitably,

and accountably. In the United States, after all, air quality has improved

significantly in almost every major city since 1970 with emissions of the

sixprinciplepollutants regulated under theClean Air Act decliningabout

644 ADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / January 2004

AUTHORS NOTE: The authors wish to acknowledge and express their gratitude for the

financial support of the Korea Research Foundation made in the program year of 1999 as

well as the Thailand-UnitedStates Educational Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and

the JohnF.KennedyFoundation (Thailand). Theyalso wish to thankRosemaryOLeary and

Daniel Fiorino for their comments on an earlier draft; Thanit Boodphetcharat of the

Research and Development Institute, Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, for her

research assistance on genetically modified foods in Thailand; and Jennifer Durant for her

technical assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.


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25% (Gugliotta, 2003; Portney, 2000). So, too, have modest improve-

ments occurred in aggregate measures or national averages of water qual-

ity with major progress made in various locales (Freeman, 2000). The

Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA) reported, for example, that94%

of Americans in 2002 were getting their drinking water from systems that

met health standards (up from 79% in 1992). In addition, although eight

billion pounds of toxic chemicals still were released into the environment

in 1999, there was a 46% decrease in these releases since 1986 (Lazaroff,

2001).1

Nonetheless, traditional command-and-control approaches are now

widelyperceivedas ill-suited forENRproblems causedby small,diverse,

and numerous nonpoint sources of pollution like greenhouse gas emis-

sions, toxic pollution runoff from urban and rural nonpoint sources, andemissions of ozone-depleting chemicals. The EPA reported in 2003, for

example, that 28%of local lake acreage is under fish consumption adviso-

ries (including the Great Lakes). Similarly, 133 million Americans

breathe unhealthy air during parts of any year, the rate of land develop-

ment is increasing significantly (a 150% increase between 1982 and

1997), and thenumberof beach closings is risingbecause of ocean dump-

ing. But when used to address these kinds of second-generation pollution

problems, traditional first-generationapproachescanbe impractical, inef-

ficient, and unsustainable politically. They also can be problematic

because they fail to recognize that many ENR risks are inherently cross-

border, multimedia (i.e., they arise in or affect air, water, and/or land),

interactive, multiple pathway (i.e., polluters can enter the body from dif-

ferent sources), and cumulative in nature. To treat them otherwise is to

encourage media shifting of problems (i.e., they meet regulatory require-

ments in one medium by shifting waste streams to other media), costly

administrative burdens, and skepticism by the public.

Traditionalapproachesalso tendto discouragebehaviorsdeemed criti-

cal for addressing ENR problems more cost-effectively in the long run.

Most notable among these more virtuous behaviors are innovation, pro-

cess redesign, and pollution prevention strategies.2 Moreover, even when

first-generation approaches areapplicable(e.g., whensingle point-source

polluters are involved), diminishing marginal returns on technological

investments (e.g., scrubbers on smokestacks) make building on earlier

ENR successes decidedly cost-ineffective.

To cope with these shortcomings, an alternativeor new governanceparadigm (NGP)has emerged to challenge conventional ENR manage-

ment approaches (Durant, Fiorino, & OLeary, 2004; Durant, OLeary, &

Durant et al. / NEW GOVERNANCE PARADIGM 645


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Fiorino, 2001).3 This NGP canbe synthesized into three major challenges

facing ENR management in the 21st century that reformers believe must

serve, in effect, as longitudinal meridians for policy makers. Otherwise,

efficient, effective, equitable, and accountable ENR governance will

elude them. First, success depends on reconceptualizing ENR manage-

ment regimes in ways that better reflect ecological and publichealth risks

and interdependencies. Second, these reconceptualized regimes must

reconnect with stakeholders in the development, implementation, and

assessment of any policies that are pursued, and they must conscien-

tiously consider vertical andhorizontal equityboth withinand acrossgen-

erations. Third, not only must ENR management become more cost-

effective, risk-based, and results-oriented, but doing so requires funda-

mentallyredefining what constitutes administrative rationality in both thepublic and private sectors.

In turn, a set of interrelated concepts have informed and affected the

impact of the NGP to date worldwide. The challenge to reconceptualize

ENR regimes, for example, posits that many pressing ENR problems

emerge or have impacts on a regional or global scale that transcend the

authority of traditional nation-states to solve. Resolving problems like

ozone depletion, deforestation of old growth forests, desertification,

globalclimatechange, depletionof fishstocks, andthe spreadof long dor-

mant and dangerous tropical diseases like malaria and dengue fever

requires regional or international cooperation. It also requires societies to

promote economic development in environmentally sustainable ways, to

integrate single-media statutes into multimedia approaches to regulation,

to devolve federal ENR responsibilities to subnational governments, and

to promote self-organizing and self-governing grassroots institutions that

regulatetheuseof common-pool resources (e.g., land,irrigation, and fish-

eries communities in developing nations).

The challenge of reconnecting with stakeholders, in turn, envisions

successful ENR management as dependent on valuing, promoting, and

extending deliberative democracy to the greatest extent possible in the

ENR policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation processes. The

NGP values deliberative democratic models that offer early, informed,

and substantively meaningful stakeholder participation in ENR decision

making. Included among these deliberative approaches are regulatory

negotiations (reg-negs), environmental dispute resolution, effective risk

communication, and cooperative rangeland conservation agreements forcritical habitat preservation. Moreover, participation must include those

previously marginalized by race, class, ethnicity, or gender so that



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environmental justice can prevail. Equally valued are collaborative part-

nerships with public, private, and nongovernmental organizations

(NGOs), as well as with ordinary citizens (e.g., partnerships to reduce

perfluorocompound emissionsfromthesemiconductor industry, preserve

local open space, protect regional watersheds and ecosystems, and pro-

mote sustainable city initiatives).

Reconnecting with stakeholders also incorporates civic environmen-

talism (John, 1994) and protecting property rights. Proponents of civic

environmentalism argue that top-down, federally driven regulation may

be adequate and appropriate when pollution sources are readily identifi-

able, exhibit relatively uniform behavior, and are few in number. How-

ever,when theoppositeof theseconditions prevails(e.g., nonpoint-source

runoff from cities and farms), alternative grassroots approaches like eco-nomic incentives, technical assistance to volunteer groups and citizens,

andpublic educationare likelyto be more appropriateandeffective.Good

husbandryof theplanets ENRheritageto property rightsadvocates, how-

ever, also means respecting the rights of individuals to profit from and

enjoy the resources they own. Yet critics of this philosophy argue that

property owners, in turn, must appreciate that part of their properties

value comes from public investments. As such, government has a duty to

ensure development consonant with public health, safety, and environ-

mental protection.

Finally, the challenge of redefining conventional notions of adminis-

trative rationality involves giving greater flexibility to both regulators and

the regulated community. Emphasized amid the thrust to create risk-

based, stakeholder-sensitive, and geographicallyfocused ENR regulatory

regimesaremarket andquasimarket alternativesto command-and-control

regulation (e.g., emissions trading, halon banks, and forestry and habitat

conservation incentive programs). Also favored are information-based

strategies like the Toxics Release Inventory in the United States and inte-

grating environmental accounts into Systems of National Economic

Accounts in Europe.

These are joined by other flexibility enhancing initiatives, including

recognition (e.g., the U.S. EPAs 33/50 program) and ecological labeling

programs (e.g., the U.S. EPAsgreen lights, Germanysgreen dot, and

Francesgreen diskprograms). Valued, as well, are pollution prevention

efforts (e.g., the United Nations Development Program for cutting green-

housegases), accountabilityfor results rather thanprocedural compliance(e.g., EPAs performance partnership program with states), and certifica-

tion standards for ENR management systems (e.g., the International



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Organization for Standardizations 14000series, theEUs HabitatsDirec-

tive, and the Forest Sustainability Convention). Meanwhile, other propo-

nents stressing market solutions to enhance flexibility while preempting

pollutionproblems emphasizeeither free-market environmentalism (e.g.,

creatingproperty rights for individuals andgroups) or ecological modern-

ization (e.g., nations investing in more efficient and pollution-reducing

technological advances).

The ultimate fate of this emergent NGP, however, is unclear at this

point. Traditional regulatory regimes have proven obdurate in the face of

these external pressures for reform with the NGP best appreciated to date

as an effort to graft flexibility onto parts of a[n] inflexible whole

(Fiorino, 1999). Given the economic, social, and political stakes for soci-

ety of ENR issues in a globalized, interdependent, and volatile world ofsovereign nations, perhaps nothing less could be expected. Yet these

developments pose three important questions that anyone trying to dis-

cern thefuture of theNGP must answer. First,what sociopoliticalandeco-

nomic factors have driven the NGP to date? Second, what forces have

madea fundamental reconstitutionof existing regulatory regimes so diffi-

cult, andhow likelyarethey to continue in theforeseeablefuture? Finally,

how enduring, as a result, is the NGP likely to be in the future?

To shed light on these questions, this essay adapts John Gauss (1947)

ecological framework to explore the political economy that has both

driven and constrained the adoption of this NGP worldwide. Analysis

suggests that the fundamentals of the political economy that have pro-

pelledthe NGPandtheperspectives informingit arelikely toendure(viz.,

the need to reconceptualize regimes, reconnect with stakeholders, and

redefine administrative rationality). Consequently, the NGP also is likely

to endure and evolve as the 21st century progresses. However, any evolu-

tion that takes place in the future must contend with the same formidable

constraints on reconstituting existing regulatory regimes imposed by the

highly pluralistic (even hyperpluralistic) and conflict-ridden political

context that has characterized ENR management over the last quarter of

the 20th century.

THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE NGP

Writing perceptively in 1947 about the ecology of public administra-tion, political scientist John Gaus argued that changes in people (e.g.,

aging), place (e.g., urbanization), physical technology (e.g., automobiles),



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social technology (e.g., corporations), and philosophy (i.e., wishes and

ideas), as well as catastrophes or crises, explained the ebb, flow, and sub-

stance of activist government in the United States.

CHANGES IN PEOPLE

Threeprofound demographic changes have affected, and will continue

forthe foreseeable futureto affect, thepolitical economy of ENRmanage-

ment everywhere. As such, they portend the continuing salience of the

NGP and the politics that have propelled and constrained its evolution to

date. These changes are (a) exponential growth in theworlds population,

(b) expected declines in work-age populations in many nations, and (c)

demographic changes in class, partisan, and ecological divides in theUnited States.

The globalpopulation explosion. It took allof humankinds history for

the Earths population to reach a billion persons in 1800. It then took an-

other century for the worlds population to top 1.7 billion persons. Yet

only 100years later, sweeping mortalitydeclines causedby penicillin and

other antibiotics catapulted the worlds population past the 6 billion mark

as the21st century dawned (U.S. CensusBureau, 2001). Notsurprisingly,

these exponential growth rates triggered Malthusian alarms that reached

their apex in popular culture in 1972 with publication of the Club of

Romes Report,The Limits to Growth(Meadows, Meadows, Randers, &

Behrens, 1972).

Partisans stridently disagree about the ultimate validity of Malthusian

claims like these. Uncontested, however, is the havoc that the distribution

of this exponential growth has had on the Earths ecosystems, public

health and safety, and ethnic, regional, and national conflicts. To be sure,

the Census Bureau reports that population growth is slowing. Yet the

world still is adding the equivalent of a new Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the

West Bank plus Gaza each year (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). Moreover,

world population is expected to soar to 8 billion persons by 2025 and to

9.3 billion persons by 2050. In addition, 90% of the global natural

increase in population (the difference between birth and deaths) is antici-

pated tooccur in theworlds poorest countries. In turn, thepoor healthand

sanitation conditions rampant in these less-developed countries (LDCs)

mean higher rates of infantmortality, more appeals for international aid, and

increasing politicalresistanceby theirgovernmentswhenever theyexpectthat international ENR agreements will stunt economic growth (e.g.,

LDCs reactions to the Kyoto Protocols limits on carbon emissions).



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Nor in a global economy will the ENR problems spawned by condi-

tions like these be confined locally. Absent alternatives, forexample, sub-

sistencefarmers left toeke outlivingson marginal croplandswill continue

toentertain burning as a way toenrich soils and clear forest lands. So, too,

are cash-strapped governments and profit-seeking private companies

likely to find legal and illicit clear-cutting of tropical rainforests attractive

andprofitable. As such, threats like soil erosion, deforestation, anddeser-

tificationwillcontinue apaceto energizenationaland internationalbodies

and NGOs to pressure governments and private actors for redress.

In their wake, otherwise, may come further alteration of weather pat-

terns and water supplies, the spread of disease-carrying insects into new

climes, themelting of polar icecaps at unprecedented rates, and the trans-

port of choking smoke and haze into neighboring regions and nations(e.g., smoke wafting from Indonesian forest fires into Southeast Asia in

1997 and 1998). Equally consciousness raising and conflict engendering

will be the continuation of brown hazes like those afflicting the entire

Asian continent and Indian subcontinent during the tropical dry season

each year. A mixtureof pollutants generatedby fossilfuelcombustion and

rural biomass burning (e.g., soot, nitrates, sulfates, organic particles, fly

ash, andmineral dusts), brown haze is linked to profound negative effects

on regional health, crop yields, and rainfall patterns affecting half the

worlds population.

In the process, a continuing sense of global interdependence should

grow apace, along with crossborder, crossregional, and international ten-

sions over the negative externalities theseactivities occasion. In response,

resentment by LDCs of outside interference into their domestic affairs

(e.g.,with regard tohalting deforestation in thetropics)and threats to their

economic or food security will continue apace (e.g., over perceived

threats of corporate patenting of genetically modified [GM] cash crops

like Thai jasmine rice and Indian basmati rice, as well as over indigenous

plants discovered during bioprospecting by pharmaceutical companies).

These feelings canbe attenuated to an extent by programs linking debt

relief to ENR reforms (e.g., the U.S. Tropical Forest Initiative). Other

promisingways to reduce tensions on thefood security front include shar-

ing patent rights withaffectedLDCs; sharing agrobiotechnological infor-

mation with them(e.g., the International RiceResearch Institutessharing

of the rice genome); and building public-private partnerships with LDCs

to improve their capacity to play a role in biotechnological research, toenter these markets, or to protect their export markets from competitors

with more advanced biotechnology abilities (e.g., the International



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Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications). Yet, as long as

these types of negative externalities continue, national and international

NGOs andorganizations (e.g., theU.N. Environmental Program, theU.N.

Food Program, and the Rockefeller Foundation) are likely to continue

putting pressure on governments, regionalbodies (e.g., theEU), andcom-

panies to end them.

Among other things, Green reformers are likely to continue pursuing

direct command-and-control regulation, a better integration of environ-

mental values into international trade agreements, economic boycotts,

calls for sustainability, and nonregulatory alternatives (e.g., subsidies for

crop diversification, protection of tropical and old-growth forests, and

education). Meanwhile, at a microlevel, indigenous, self-organizing, and

self-regulating institutions are likely to remain attractive in some situa-tions for protecting common-pool resources. This is likely to be the case

whether governments help provide resources and incentives to encourage

these efforts (or at least to not hinder their development) or if political

stalemates preclude national or subnational efforts.

Declining work-age populations. A second set of aging, fertility, and

mortality trends alsopromises to continueputting additional, albeit some-

times indirect, stress on the protection of ecosystems worldwide. These

trends include theexistence of a globalagewaveknown as thegray dawn,

below replacement fertility rates in more than half of the worlds nations,

andmortalityspikes. Together, these are likely to undermine the financial

abilities of governments to rely extensively on conventional command-

and-control ENRmanagement approaches, even if theywant to.With effi-

ciency and effectiveness more critical than ever, approaches stressing

partnerships, shifts to market-based alternatives, devolution, flexibility,

certification standards, and results are likely to remain options that gov-

ernments will consider, industry will lobby for, and many regulators and

environmentalistswill look on askance as these approaches aregrafted on

existing regulatory systems.

Thegray dawn refers to theaging of populations. Over thenext several

decades, demographers project that countries in thedevelopedworld will

experience an unprecedented growth in their elderly populations and a

precipitous decline in the number of their youth. By 2003, for example,

20%of Italys population will exceed age65, whereas Japanhits that mark

in2005 and Germany in2006. Theyare followed by France and Britain in

2016 andthe UnitedStates andCanada in2021 and2023, respectively. Anaging population, of necessity, means increasing health care and pension

costs. Experts estimate, for example, that developed nations will have to



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pay anywhere from 9 to 16% of their respective gross domestic products

(GDPs) over the next quarter century just to meet existing pension com-

mitments (Durant, 2000).

Meanwhile, low and declining fertility rates prompted by trends

toward smaller familiesin many countriesfurther render taxbasesshortof

funding for health care costs and pensions. Demographers project

subreplacement fertility patterns in 83 nations as disparate as the United

States, Guadeloupe, Japan, Thailand, Tunisia, and most of Europe

(Eberstadt, 2001).Affectingnations with nearly44% of theworlds popu-

lation, these depopulation trends mean a precipitous decline in the work-

ing age populations (viz., 15- to 64-year-olds) necessary for funding pro-

grams as the gray dawn accelerates over the next 25 years. In China, for

example, 200 million Chinese will reach age 65 by 2025, making itsmedian age slightly higher than that projected for the United States.

Perhaps the most ominous trend that demographers see stretching into

the 21st century is a downward spike in life spans in more than 50 nations

and territories worldwide. Affected by this mortality spike is approxi-

mately one sixth of the worlds populationmany of whom live in sub-

Saharan Africa and suffer from the HIV-AIDS pandemic (Joint Efforts

Neededto Fight HIVandTB, 2001).But this mortalityspikeis not solely

the result of the HIV-AIDS pandemic. As Gro Harlem Brundtland, direc-

tor general of the World Health Organization, stated, poverty, homeless-

ness, ethnic conflicts, poor nutrition, and overcrowded living conditions

are culprits, as well (Joint Efforts Needed to Fight HIV and TB, 2001).

Nor, like subreplacement fertility rates, is the mortality spike limited to

sub-Saharan Africa. The HIV-AIDS pandemic is afoot in other nations,

especially on theAsian continent. Whatever their cause, however, declin-

ing life spans signal both deteriorating ENR conditions in nations as well

as deteriorating abilities to pay for the remedial and prospective costs of

ameliorating them.

Class, partisan, and ecological divides. Practitioners and researchers

alsosuggest thatcitizensgeneralvalue orientations towardENR manage-

ment are affectedby their incomeand educational levels. One of the most

prominent yet controversial theoretical perspectives on public opinion

formation in this regard is political scientist Ronald Ingleharts (1990)

postmaterialism thesis. Inglehart argued that asilent revolutionin value

orientationshasoccurred that corresponds to levels of theeconomic afflu-

ence and physicalsecurity of nations. As a rule, the higher the incomeandeducationlevelsof a nation, thegreater thelevelof concern that itscitizens



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haveabout ENR risks and the more prone they are to support initiatives to

reduce them.

Many have applied Ingleharts (1990) postmaterialism thesis to

account forENR politicsaround theworld. In theUnited States, forexam-

ple, Jeffrey Berry (1999) employed it to explain what he called the rising

power of citizen groups pursuing a new liberalismagenda. His analysis of

congressional voting at three different time periods revealed that these

groups increasingly haveenjoyed success in getting Congress to incorpo-

rate quality-of-life concerns like the environment into legislation. Also

reflecting postmaterialist values is the participation of Green parties in

governments and the impact of NGOs on government policy throughout

Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Consider recent trends in the United States. For decades, conventionalpolitical wisdom in the United States was that the higher the educational

andincomelevels of Americans, themore likely they were to vote Repub-

lican. Yet a new fault line differentiating voters in the 2000 elections was

consonant with Ingleharts (1990) postmaterialism thesis (Edsall, 2001).

Following a decade-long and accelerating realignment trend, well-edu-

cated, higher income, and non-church-attending White professionals

(e.g., academics, doctors, lawyers, and scientists) are now among the

DemocraticPartys mostreliablevoters. In contrast, lower income Whites

without college degrees who attend church regularly are among the most

reliable Republican voters.4 Moreover, among the postmaterialist con-

cerns animating this reversal of partisan fortunes (e.g., gun control, abor-

tion, and gay rights) are ENR issues.

Former vice president Gore, for example, enjoyed a 38% advantage in

support among voters who were concerned about ENR protection. Also

significant was the strength of candidate George W. Bush in rural areas

and in oil, gas, timber, coal, and other hard rock mining states in the Sun-

belt, the Rocky Mountains, and Alaska. Not surprisingly, the new Bush

administration almost immediately took a variety of pro-use anddevelop-

ment ENR actions designed to reconsider the more aggressive

proconservation stance taken by theClinton administrationin the logging,

mining, andutility industries. Various of these actions, in turn, were pillo-

ried by congressional Democrats vowing to fight them, by many Green

NGOs as evidenceof perfidy, andby environmental ministersin theEuro-

pean Union (EU), Japan, Indonesia, and the Southern Pacific who were

worried over the fate of the Kyoto Protocols.With a nation increasingly divided demographically and politically on

thebasisof postmaterialistvalues like ENRpolicy, thepolitical stage isset



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in the United States for a continuation of conflict and the political econ-

omy that both has propelled and constrained the NGP to date. Moreover,

when thesedevelopments are contrasted with the evolving politicalecon-

omy of ENR management globally and regionally in the world, the prog-

nosis is similar for the international arena, as well. In Germany, for exam-

ple, the Greens have been junior partners in a coalition dominated by

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeders center-left Social Democrats, with the

Greens holding the important foreign policy portfolio in the government.

Likewise, in France, they have been part of a Socialist-Communist-Green

coalition and have held the environmental portfolio in that government.

International political tensions, as such, are likely to continue over

issues like sustainability, international governance regimes, environmen-

tal justice, and market-based solutions to ENR management problems.So, too, are disputes over property rights and regulatory takings likely to

remainsalient in theWesternUnitedStates, insuburban andpastoralareas

slated for development, and whenever the U.S. Congress is reauthorizing

statutes like the Endangered Species Act. At the same time, both

postmaterialist and materialist values are likely to continue arousing the

passions of NGOs to incorporate environmental (and labor) values into

trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Meanwhile, at the

local level, both sets of valuesplus political stalemates at the national

levelare likely to stimulate the furtherance of self-organizing and self-

regulatory institutions so that indigenouspeoples alreadycalling for polit-

ical empowerment can better manage common-pool resources for

sustainability.

CHANGES IN PLACE

Gauss (1947) framework also suggested that changes in place create

demands for government intervention or changes in philosophy. Some of

the most salient changes in place that shed light on the past and future of

the NGP include changes in the location of populations, industries,

workplaces, energy demands, and anthropogenic impacts on food pro-

duction. Present indications arethat trendsin these factors will continue to

put political pressure on governments worldwide for ENR intervention,

render conventional command-and-control solutions problematic, and

continue to energize pluralist (and often polarizing) conflicts over howbest to address them.



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Suburbanization. Automobiles and superhighway development have

allowed persons worldwide to live far from their jobs in suburban,

exurban, and country settings. Yet the internal combustion engines that

run automobiles produce carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen

oxides that pollute theair, threaten publichealth, anddiminish theaquatic

vitality of waterways. In South Korea, for example, 85% of Seouls air

pollutionis attributed to automobile exhaust (85 PCT of Seouls Air Pol-

lution, 2001). Likewise, on the other side of the globe, commuters from

23 surrounding incorporated cities and 32 unincorporated areas adjacent

to Phoenix, Arizona, commonly experience air pollution alerts (Murphy,

2000).

Relatedly, the highways built for these automobiles not only promote

suburban sprawl but prompt higher gasoline consumption, traffic conges-tion, critical habitat destruction, and fragmentation of ecosystems.

Together, thesenegative externalities of otherwise positive technoscience

advances induce battles between developers, environmentalists, and

NGOs over what constitutes prudent land-use planning. They also reveal

howexistingsingle-pollutant,single-media,andsingle-pathwaystatutory

approaches pose formidable obstacles to resolving metropolitan land-use

issues that require holistic approaches (Larence, 2001). Consequently,

calls for integrating these kinds of statutes and pollution prevention are

unlikely to abate in many U.S. cities (California Unified Environmental

Statute Commission, 1997). These approaches help avert the media-

shifting that todays fragmented statutory regime promotes by creating

perverse incentives for polluters to transfer pollution from water to air to

land and vice versa. For example, the greatest source of airborne volatile

organic compounds in the Philadelphia region in the mid-1980s was a

wastewater treatment plant.

Further complicating matters, even innovative mass transit systems

developed decades ago to shuttle workers into downtown areas more effi-

ciently are finding their systems inadequate for todays more common

suburb-to-suburb commute to work (e.g., the Metro system in Washing-

ton, D.C.). As a result, new suburb-to-suburb transit lines and carriers are

needed. Indeed, the American Public Transit Association says that more

and more cities in the United States are turning to rail systems with

approximately 262systems nowin operationor invarious planningstages

(Murphy, 2000). Yet choosing transit routes often pits preservationists,

neighborhood groups, developers, property rights proponents, and envi-ronmental justice groups against each other as they joust to protect their

respective interests.



14/40

High population densities in metropolitan areas also mean solid and

hazardous waste disposal problems as well as ever-increasing demands

for new energy power plants. Nuclear power plants to meet these energy

needs offer the promise of clean power productiona promise that sev-

eral nations areseizing. In Japan, for example,power companies envision

cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 18% below 1990 levels by

2010 (Japan Power Companies to Cut Emissions, 2001). They will do

so by increasing thenations reliance on nuclear power from 34%to 40%.

Even in Great Britain, where the Blair government plans to develop 18

wind farms to help meet CO2reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol,

thechairman of the Royal Society says these goals cannot be metwithout

new nuclear power plants (UK to Get 18 Wind Farms, 2001).

In the United States, of course, nuclear power has long been anathemato most environmentalists for a variety of reasons, including the techni-

cally and politically formidable dilemma of nuclear waste storage. More

recently, resistance has also mounted in Europe as Green parties and

NGOs have rallied against nuclear power with some success. In Germany,

for example, NGOs held major and sometimes violent demonstrations in

2001 against the rail shipment of nuclear waste from France after Ger-

many had shipped it to La Hague for reprocessing (Anti-Nuclear Protes-

torsAttack German Railways, 2001). The protestorsaim was topressure

the German government to accelerate its policy to phase out nuclear

power plants by 2025. Meanwhile, in both Japan and Great Britain, the

cause of nuclear power hassuffered serious setbacks recently after a spate

of accidents and scandals (e.g., see Six Sentenced Over Japans Worst

Nuclear Accident, 2003; UKBalks at Building New Nuclear Reactors,

2002).

Even when nonnuclear sources of energy are involved, controversies

over site locationscan produce thesamepassions andnot-in-my-backyard

reactions that controversies over solid, toxic, and hazardous waste dis-

posalhave occasioned(Gerrard,1994). Produced among elected officials,

in turn, are strong predispositions to locate these plants in lower income

andminorityareas. Theyanticipate that thepoliticalwherewithal and eco-

nomic incentives to resistare lower in these areas.These efforts,however,

frequently run pell-mell into an increasingly resistant, vocal, and some-

times litigious environmental justice movement. When the New York

PowerAuthority, forinstance, announcedplans tobuy or install 11natural

gas-fired turbines at sevenplantsnear New YorkCity, New YorkLawyersfor thePublic Interest filedsuit to halt these plans on (amongother things)

environmental justice grounds (Disavino, 2001).



15/40

Energy conservation, of course, is an obvious approach to resolving

supply dilemmas, especially if the true social costs of producing electric-

ity can be incorporated into prices (e.g., carbon taxes) or if precepts of the

ecological modernizationmovementbecome widespreadin business.But

carbon taxes like those proposed in the United States by the Clinton

administration in the early 1990s proved politically unpalatable and have

faded in salience on political agendas in America. Moreover, with excep-

tions in some corporations, conservation efforts in the United States typi-

callyebband flow with crises. For example,when rolling power blackouts

occurred during the summer of 2001 in California, high-tech companies

in Silicon Valley immediately found ways to become more energy effi-

cient. Still, this commitment dissipated, as is typical in the United States,

once energy pressures were off (Kahn, 2001).Government financingfor energy efficiency and renewable energy has

varied sharply over the last 2 decades. Highest at the end of the Carter

administration when the nation faced a severe energy crisis, funding for

these purposes reached its nadir during the Reagan administration. Fund-

ingthen increasedduringboth theGeorge H. W. Bush andClinton admin-

istrations, but it is again facing cuts by President George W. Bush (albeit

with an emphasis on hydrogen power that hasyetto be followedby signif-

icant funding commitments for research). Presently, total federal govern-

ment spending for energy efficiency and renewables (in constant 1998

dollars) is still only about one third of what it was in 1980. Consequently,

thefutureof conservation efforts, as well as the largerecological modern-

ization movement in the United States and abroad, depends on whether

political leaders persistently embrace, NGOs promote, and business lead-

ers see competitive advantage in such efforts.

Crossnational and subnational regional migration. Regional popula-

tion migrationoccursboth within(e.g.,migrationinto theSunbelt andout

of Frostbelt states in the United States) and across borders (e.g., refugees

fleeing warfare or oppressive governments or workers seeking economic

opportunities in other countries). Nor are these migrations likely to abate

in the future. The end of the Cold War unleashed a variety of pent-up eth-

nicstruggles that span hundreds of years (e.g., in theBalkans, Eritrea, and

the Middle East). Moreover, struggles over the control of natural re-

sources often are marbled within these conflicts. When combined with

factors like subreplacement fertility rates in Europe and elsewhere, it

seems likely that migratory impacts on the political economy that havehelped drive the evolution of the NGP will continue apace.



16/40

The ethnic diversity that results from immigration in many countries

today in the long run affords the kinds of new skills, talents, work ethic,

and cultures that always have leavened and advanced economic and

national security interests in countries like the United States. In the short

run, however, migration places unaccustomed tax, service delivery, envi-

ronmental, sanitation, and regulatory burdens on governments that can

strain their ability to respond effectively. These shortfalls, in turn, can

have dour political consequences. In countries such as France, Germany,

Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia, right-wing political forces have

ebbed andflowed in their electoralprospectsdepending on their ability to

stoke nativist worries about the effect of immigration on jobs. These par-

ties also incite neopopulist opposition to globalizationopposition

shared by many Green Party members who oppose trade agreements thatdo not protect environmental values.

Nor are the political implications of within-nation population move-

ments limited to the regions affected. Population migration, for example,

from the countryside into London and its suburbs is already diminishing

the landed gentrys political power in Britain as the governments han-

dling of the countrys bout of hoof-and-mouth disease scandal reflects.

Likewise, migrationinto theSunbelt in theUnited Stateshas enhanced the

electoral and policy clout of politicians from that region in presidential

and congressional politics. It also has joined with the demands of the

global economy (see below) to catapult a more socially conservative and

economically neoliberal philosophy to national and subnational promi-

nence.That philosophy is partiallymanifested in a desireto address social

ills with market and quasimarket rather than bureaucratic solutions by

deeming the latter less efficient, effective, responsive, and accountable.

Financial scandals in 2002 involving ENRON, WorldCom, Xerox,

Arthur Andersen, and other corporations may take some of the luster off

proposals for business self-certification of environmental management

systems (like ISO 14001). But even where progressive ENR philosophy

still prevails, thevehicle most popular forrealizing policy ends tends tobe

the Third Way movement championed by leaders like Bill Clinton in the

UnitedStates, TonyBlair in Great Britain, andGerhard Schroeder in Ger-

many during the 1990s (Giddens, 1998). This movement still seeks an

activist role for government in issues like ENR protection but one that is

lessprescriptive, centralized, and bureaucratic thanconventionalprogres-

sive strategies. Moreover, with the most politically viable opposition tothis philosophy coming from center-right parties in recent elections (e.g.,



17/40

in Germany), the turn to market and quasimarket solutions to socialprob-

lems seems enduring.

Ironically, in the United States, this postbureaucratic agenda also

reflects a regional migratory success story that the administrative state

helpedfoster: themigration of minorities into thesuburbs (orethnoburbs)

(Booth, 1999). Public opinion pollsters persistently identify a more cen-

trist and postmaterialist orientation in suburban residents than that which

propelled therise of theadministrative state (Berry, 1999). Meanwhile, as

corporate workplaces, state legislatures, and government agencies in the

United States have begun to reflect this diversity in their own leadership

positions and membership, management and ENR issues related to fair-

ness have grown more salient. For example, some of the strongest sup -

porters in Congress for former president Clintons ENR initiatives weremembers of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Anthropogenic changes in place related to food production. As noted

earlier, demographers and scientists see tremendous strains being placed

on food supplies over the next 30 years. The conundrum, however, is that

yields must soar at the same time that arable land, agricultural labor, and

water supplies are diminishing, as are yields from the green revolution of

the 1960s (Vidal, 2001). Scientists thus see six major and accelerating

anthropogenic impacts as cause for great food security concerns and con-

flicts in the 21st century (Lubchenco, 2002). First, ecological systems on

which societiesworldwide depend(e.g., clean airand water)for food pro-

duction arebeingdamagedas a resultof large-scale transformationsof the

earths landscapes. Second, carbon emissionsfromhumanactivities (e.g.,

from power plants and automobiles) are contributing to global warming,

which canlead toshiftsin food production potential. Third,becauseof ag-

ricultural runoff from factory farms, theamount of fixednitrogenhasdou-

bled since 1992 leaving (among other things) approximately 50 dead

zones of algae blooms that have stifled other life forms. Fourth, human-

kinds consumption of the water needed for food production is now ap-

proaching 50% of available supplies with agriculture accounting for

nearly 70% of consumption. Fifth, anthropogenic habitat degradation

(e.g., from logging, farming, and dam building) and overpopulation are

resulting in a loss of biodiversity (including food diversity) with some

claiming that we are entering the sixth mass extinction event (Leakey &

Lewin, 1996). Finally, two thirds of the worlds fisheries are now catego-

rized as either depleted, overexploited, or fully exploited.



18/40

CHANGES IN PHYSICAL TECHNOLOGY

Changes in physical technologies have also affected, and are likely to

continue affecting, the politicaleconomy underpinning theevolving NGP

of ENR management. Nor, given the stakes involved, are they likely to

attenuatethe valueconflicts that havedriven andconstrained thereconsti-

tution of ENR management to date. A long and fabled history exists of

technicaland scientific advances that eitherhaveor mayyetbringpositive

ENR benefits to humankind. Other advances create additional problems.

These either require governments to attenuate or to remedy them, or they

test their will, resources, and acumen to exploit. Among these trends are

technological breakthroughs for assessing ENR risks globally as well as

for finding andextracting natural resources from theplanet. Important, as

well, are advances in communications technology that can reduce the

costs of information sharing and NGO mobilization nationally and inter-

nationally. Neither can one ignore the technological advances that have

allowed global financial markets to constrain the taxing and spending

capacities of governments worldwide. These put additional strains on

individual nations abilities to meet ENR responsibilities solely on their

own.

Advances in risk identification. Without question, technological abili-

ties to detect toxiccarcinogens improved immenselyduring the last quar-

ter of the 20th century. Research from the human genome project is also

identifying toxicity mechanisms that have long baffled scientists. It also

may help them discern whether endocrine disrupters really are affecting

reproduction rates and whether electromagnetic force fields from high-voltage wires really are threats to public health, safety, and the environ-

ment. Advances in technological prowess also allow more accurate data

readings to go into global modeling and ecosystem tracking efforts. For

example, satellite data covering changes in the Earths outgoing long-

wave radiation spectrum over a 27-year period suggest that a greenhouse

gas effect has accelerated in recent decades (Greenhouse Effect Con-

firmed Over 27 Years, 2001). Made easier, as well, by improvements in

computer technologyand microprocessing is themodeling of complex in-

teractions of natural processes like these.

Yet a paradox frequently accompanies technological advances. The

greater the improvements in risk identificationthat theseadvances afford,

the more heated the political controversy surrounding their findings.

Many NGOs, for example, condemn the statistical standards of proofinforming modern risk analysis as too conservative (i.e., they make it too

difficult to prove adverse effects from epidemiology studies) (Brown,



19/40

1993; Mazmanian & Morell, 1988). They also assert that clusters of can-

cer outbreaks are sufficient to prompt regulatory relief. Conversely, skep-

tics and proponents of deregulation in the United States excoriate as too

conservative thedefault standards that regulators use to informrisk analy-

sis (e.g., see Breyer, 1993; Foster, Bernstein, & Huber, 1994), and they

lament that costs do not play a role in these determinations. Meanwhile,

proponents worry about, and opponents criticize, the lack of understand-

ing of true causal mechanisms in explaining the etiology of, for example,

cancerous tumors. Both, in turn, are uncomfortable for different reasons

about making inferences from animal studies about health threats to

human populations. Other skeptics want to see regulators shift their focus

from risk reduction to risk tradeoffs (Graham & Wiener, 1995).

Further fostering political conflict, critics wanting more aggressiveENR management complain that risk analysis focuses inordinatelyon the

effects of single agents. They want legislation requiring regulators to

focus more on the interactive (or synergistic) and cumulative effects of

multiple agents over time. They also want regulators to consider more

than thedirect(or primary) effects of hazardous and toxic agents on the

present generation. Deemphasized toofacilely, theyargue, are the indirect

risks andcosts to both present andfuturegenerations.Norare thesecritics

content with studies that focus on single rather than multiple pathways for

agents to enter the body or when risk from low-level exposures is

downplayed. Especially problematic for them are studies that do not

assess multiple exposures to the same chemical agent from multiple

sources such as air and water or food, as well as studies thatdo not investi-

gate the relative source contribution of each of these pathways.

It is also possible, of course, that the future will bring technoscientific

advances that might address these risk assessment and management con-

cerns. Arguably, however, these will only raise a new set of challenging

legal, ethical, and scientific questions that will become the grist of politi-

cal conflict among various stakeholders. Perhaps the most promising yet

potentiallyconflictiveadvance in this vein today is thenascent butemerg-

ing field oftoxicogenomics. As defined by the National Institute of Envi-

ronmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), toxicogenomics strives to take

advantageof recentresearchon gene sequencing from thegenome project

to study scientifically how genomes respond to environmental stressors/

toxicants (NIEHS, 2001, p. 1).

Regulators relying on toxicogenomic research might be able to con-duct toxicological studies that identify and profile gene expression in a

cell or tissue (NIEHS, 2001, p. 1) based on various exposure levels to



20/40

pollutants andother toxicants. Here, twoof themost promisingsources of

genome data to date involve gene expression and identification of

polymorphisms related to either decreased or increased susceptibility to

environmental toxicants. With these data, regulators might be able to

determine the precise mechanism causing harm (e.g., tumors) and thus

predict whether particular exposures in humans will result in healthprob-

lemsin particularsubpopulations(e.g.,childrenwithparticular gene traits

rather than children as a whole). Conversely, genomic data showing char-

acteristic gene expression changes from stressors could facilitate decid-

edly less expensive, more effective, and much earlier toxicity screening

than conventional screening today.

Allof this, however, only raisesadditional questionsfraught with chal-

lenges for ENR management (see Marchant, 2002, for an excellent andmore extensive treatmentof these issues). For example,shouldENRregu-

latory standards apply to those subpopulations that are genetically most

susceptible to harm? Should disproportionate genetic risk replace dispro-

portionate exposure as the criterion for evaluating environmental justice

claims? Should todays generic regulatory standards (e.g., x-parts-per-

million or billion exposure levels) be replaced partially by more informa-

tion-based regulatory approachespredicated on individuals knowing their

genotype for relevant genes and avoiding exposure to products (e.g.,

chemicals) that express (i.e., turn on or off) that gene? Might citizens with

particular genetic disorders (e.g., a genetic disorder known as Alpha-1

makes persons more highlysusceptible to emphysemaandother lung dis-

eases when exposed to smoke or dust) go to court demanding more strin-

gent regulation (e.g.,of particulate matter)?Couldtoxicogenomic studies

create political pressure to eliminate present assumptions that there is a

threshold level of exposure below which no harm occurs?

Certainly, these questions only begin to scratch the surface. But

whether toxicogenomic research becomes the wave of the regulatory

future or not, the nature of risk assessment means continuing conflict for

ENR managers. Science, of course, is an inherently iterative process with

controversy and uncertainty doggedly prodding advances in knowledge

throughouthistory (foran excellentsummaryof the inherentuncertainties

of risk analysis, see Bates, 1994). For laypersons paying only fleeting

attention to complex ENR issues, however, controversy often begets con-

fusion, skepticism,andpolarization. Nor is this tendencyhelpedas propo-

nentsand

opponents of aggressive ENR protection selectively use com-peting findings to advance their disparate policy ends.



21/40

Those touting deregulation, forexample, frame controversy as a signal

to go slow lest polluters make unnecessary financial investments. Con-

versely, those toutingmoreaggressiveENR effortsframedisparate results

as signals for applying the precautionary principle: Whether harmful

effects of activities are demonstrable or not with scientific certainty, the

harm thatcouldresult from them, if proven true, requires immediate pre-

ventive action (e.g., global warming). Or, put differently, activities (e.g.,

GM food production) are presumed harmful to public health or the envi-

ronment until proven otherwisethe obverse of traditional regulatory

approaches. Regardless of the validity of either argument, however, pres-

sure continues to mount on ENR agencies to weigh the costs versus the

benefits of regulations,examine their interactive and cumulative effectsat

low and high doses, make tradeoffs among risks based on local circum-stances andcosts, andpress for the integrationof statutes that make trade-

offs difficult in practice.

Advances in mass production and transportation. With the historical

lessons of the Great Depression firmly in mind, the United States and its

allies were determined after World War II to advance international trade

on an unprecedented scale. The results of these efforts in pure economic

terms were striking, producing a five-fold increase in international trade

over the next 20 years (Madrick, 1995, p. 65). Theyalsohad profound im-

plications for the international distribution of wealth. With mass produc-

tionboostingproductivity rates immenselyin industrializedcountrieslike

Germany, Japan, France, and the United States, gaps in national wealth

grew ever more pronounced between the developed and developing

worlds.

LDCs also grew increasingly dependent on cash rather than subsis-

tence crops for feeding their people and on allowing either state-owned

enterprises or multinational corporations to mine and export their miner-

als. In the process, they also grew increasingly dependent on economic

development loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary

Fund(IMF)loans that tended to favor large-scale infrastructure projects

that considered environmental impacts only marginally, if at all (Hamil-

ton, 2001). Moreover, because these nations did not have ENR regulatory

regimes that were anywhere near as developed or stringentas in theindus-

trializedworld, practicesthat would notbe toleratedin thelatter were pur-

sued in the former (e.g., poisoning local water supplies with arsenic and

cyanide runoff from gold-mining operations). This is not to suggest thatpositive benefits did not accrue from many of these consumptive



22/40

initiatives. It is to suggest, however, that these benefits were inordinately

slanted toward the developed world at the expense of developing nations

and that the latter bore a disproportionate share of the ENR costs.

Today, the results of these technological advances continue to produce

both positive and negative externalities that are distributed unevenly

across humankind and that simultaneously offer challenges, choices, and

opportunities to international regulatory regimes. For example, 10 global

companies dominate the worlds wood and wood-fiber industry.

Although concentrations of capital in this market may disturb some, they

also offer tremendous opportunities for saving the worlds forests. The

World Wildlife Federation, forexample,estimates that if those 10 compa-

nies adopted the Forest Stewardship Councils process standards for

effective management, growing world demands for forestry productscould be met by approximately one fifth of the worlds forests (Just Ten

Companies Can Help, 2001). Embracing certification standards gener-

ally, however, has not proven easy.

Nor is an end in sight to ENR challenges like these. The U.S. Energy

Department, for example, projects that world oil demand will increase

56% by the year 2025 with most of that demand related to transportation

costs (Doggett, 2001). Consequently, the drilling and transportation of

carbon-based fuels is likely to continue to produce oilaccidentsand spills

like those occurring in 2001 off the coasts of Brazil (by Petrobras) and

Denmark (e.g., seeOil From Holed Tanker Hits Danish Beaches, 2001;

Rocha, 2001). Meanwhile, Russia considers taking advantage of new

technology to build a floating nuclear power plant in the turbulent White

Sea,whereas a Norway-based environmental group(Bellona)monitoring

Russias energy industry trumpets the risks internationally(RussiaPlans

Floating Nuclear Plant, 2001). All this, and more, forebodes continuing

confrontations between consumptive users and conservationists or

preservationists the world over.

Technological advances in food production. Technological advances

affecting the worlds food supply are also Janus-faced. In rural areas, for

example,pesticides havehelpedto multiplycrop yieldsthus raising hopes

of attenuating hunger and nutrition problems worldwide. During the first

35 years of thegreen revolution,globalgrain production doubled. Yet that

increase in chemical agriculture worldwide comes at a high price. For ex-

ample, researchers at the University of Essex have demonstrated how

costly farming can be to the environment (Pretty, 2001). They found thatsubsidies from the British government tend mostly to support methods of

farming that rely on chemicals. Yet the negative externalities that British



23/40

chemical-based agribusinesses produce cost approximately 2.34 billion

pounds annually inwater pollution, soil erosion, andhabitat loss. With the

identity of polluters frequently unknown, obvious ENR damage delayed

for years, and farm prices not internalizing these negative externalities,

calls for revamping market incentives should continue to mount.

Relatedly, so-calledfactory farms (e.g.,poultry farms) or concentrated

animal feed operations (CAFOs) offer economic and supply advantages

to farmers and citizens. Yet the inordinate amounts of fetid waste runoff

from these farms prompt calls for regulatory relief from those living

downwindanddownstream from them. Other critics contend that CAFOs

aremuch tooconducive to outbreaks of disease. Thousands of genetically

uniform animals are raised in unhygienic warehouses where dangerous

microbes can breed. Factory farms then recycle animal manure andslaughterhouse waste as feed for the animals. Meat processing done at

breakneck speed follows, often in the presence of blood, feces, and other

contagions. Long-distance transport of food then offers additional oppor-

tunities for contamination.

Nor, many critics claim, does it help that farm animals consume

roughly 10 times as many antibiotics as do humans. Antibiotic overuse in

factory farms has led to drug-resistant microbes, includingSalmonella,E.

coli, andCampylobacter. Still, industrial animal farming is the fastest

growing form of animalproduction worldwide, increasing by a third since

1990 and contributing to nearly half of the worlds meat production.

Though concentrated in North America and Europe, feedlots are sprout-

ingup near urban centers inBrazil, thePhilippines, China, India,andelse-

where in the developing world where demand for meat and animal prod-

ucts is soaring.

Building up, as well, is strong resistance to bioengineered (i.e., GM)

food production among Europeans, various Arab nations, the Japanese,

and some Americans. This promises continuing political conflict among

leading GM-food producing nations (e.g., theUnited States, Canada, and

Argentina) and potential GM-food importing nations (e.g., in the EU and

many LDCs) as increasing shares of many vital food crops are

bioengineered.5 Indeed, acts of civil disobedience involving destruction

of GM-crop field tests have occurred in such geographically dispersed

nations as Great Britain, Scotland, New Zealand, France, and the

Philippines.

To proponents of bioengineered foods (including seven national acad-emies of science, the UN Development Programme, the UN Food and

Agriculture Organization, and a slew of Nobel Prize winners), GM foods



24/40

are a necessary component in meeting the food security challenges noted

earlier. They see it as offering thepromise of vastly higherandmore nutri-

tionally enriched food yields. For example, studies in India and China

show crop yields improving two to three times over conventional meth-

ods, and scientists talk of bioengineeringnutraceuticals to deal with mal-

nutrition in LDCs (e.g., enriching rice with higher levels of iron and beta-

carotenea precursor of vitamin Ato prevent premature births and

blindness in children, respectively). Proponents also cite research show-

ing that GM food production will be more environmentally benign than

conventional methods. The former, they argue, requires significantly less

useof pesticides andherbicides, requires less land, produces less soil ero-

sion than conventional tillage, and preserves more biodiversity because it

is less land-intensive. They also tout the potential of biotechnology forreducing some of the LDCs most pressing health threats, including

malaria anddengue fever, through theproduction of ediblevaccines (e.g.,

vaccines in bananas) or genetic reengineering of mosquitoes and other

disease carriers.

But opposition to bioengineering, as well as GM food production and

commercialization (led by France and Italy in the EU but with strong

resistance elsewhere), has placed the futureof GM food in jeopardy. Still,

by mid-2002, five of the seven leading agribusinesses originally involved

in biotechnological research either had abandoned these efforts or had

been merged into other companies. And by mid-2003, the United States

had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) chal-

lenging as illegal a de facto ban since 1998 on imports of GM products

into the EU. In a still evolving situation in 2003, the EU prepared to drop

this ban but only as it had proposed earlier after tightening its labeling

requirements. It also imposed regulations on traceability (reporting

requirements), segregation (of GM from non-GM products), and pro-

cessed foods (previous regulations had not applied to these) that the

United States considered unacceptably costly, unrelated to health con-

cerns, and protectionist in motivation.6 As of this writing, the United

States expects EU markets to open to GM products that are labeled but

worries that EU countries will implement these regulations in unaccept-

able ways (e.g., by labeling GM foods with words that imply they are

unsafe in the absence of scientific proof).

In the extreme, and despite millions of their citizens facing starvation

by the end of 2002 as the result of 2 years of severe drought and (some-times) agricultural mismanagement, several sub-Saharan nations (e.g.,

Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique) initially refused to accept



25/40

shipments of grain from the United States because of their GM content.

Less extreme,a host of fears andmotives animate this growing worldwide

resistance to genetically engineered products. Included among these are

the potential that opponents see them posing for genetic pollution, dam-

age to food webs, economic harm to small farmers, the creation of new

allergies or toxins, and the global domination of world agriculture by a

small group of multinational corporations (Paarlberg, 2001).

The validity of these fears and motives aside, countries like Japan,

Australia, and New Zealand, as well as the EU, are now passing (or have

passed) legislation setting zero tolerance for imports containing unap-

proved GM products (Japans New Rules for Biotech Crop Imports,

2001). Others, like Thailand, have reversed earlier policy and currently

ban the field-testing of GM crops despite efforts by the nations Agricul-ture and Science and Technology ministries to lift the ban in 2003. Only

allowed by the Thais is the importation of GM plants for research, for ani-

mal feed, or in products where outright bans on import would either hurt

domestic industries or be nonimplementable (e.g., corn and soy). Mean-

while 24 nations presentlyuseGM food labeling forvarious levels of GM

content across all or certain products.

Although recognizing legitimate health concerns, the United States

nevertheless sees most of theseefforts as attempts tousethe precautionary

principle as a nontariff trade barrier. Depending on the nation involved,

trade rivals are trying to protect domestic products and producers, buy

time for their own scientists to catch up with the United States in biotech

research, or impose such heavy costs on corporations that they will aban-

don commercialization altogether (S. Sriwatanapongse, interview,

August 7, 2002; J. Y. Yun, interview, August 8, 2002; A. M. Zola, inter-

view, August 7, 2002). Nor is there any question that opponents of GM

foodsprincipled or otherwiseare using the Cartagena Protocol on

Biosafety, the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures

of the WTO, and the Codex Alimentarius Commission to make the

precautionary principle the basis for international biosafety and trade

regulations.

Consequently, political pressures on governments to block GM foods

from entering their countries are not likely to ebb soon. Greenpeace, for

example, has mounted an international campaign to warn nations like

Wales,New Zealand, andthePhilippinesthat they will lose world markets

if they pursue a pro-GM policy. Nor are they likely to abate on the propo-nentsside as thedemands on food supplies noted earlier spiral. Some sci-

entists project, for example, that feeding the world will require the



26/40

conversion of natural ecosystems covering an area larger than the size of

the United States including Alaska (Tilman et al., 2001). Some even esti-

mate that harvesting these lands to meet supply needs will rival the effect

that greenhouse gases have on global environmental change unless a

switch is madefrompetroleum-based (chemicalpesticides) to gene-based

agriculture (Tilman et al., 2001). Yet biotechnology research is rapidly

taking root in only a few LDCs (e.g., Brazil, China, Egypt, India, and

South Africa) with most research being done by a handful of market-

driven private corporations that focus largely on agricultural benefits in

industrial countries where profits can be maximized (Andersen, 1999).

JosephYun,economic counselorat theU.S. embassy in Bangkok, puts

thedilemma for LDCs in geopolitical perspective: They will continue to

be a battleground as the U.S. and Europe sort out their battleover the pre-cautionary principle for yearsif not decadesto come (interview,

August8, 2002).Some countriesmaydecideor already havedecided

to declare themselves GM-free countries to avoid boycotts of their prod-

ucts and (hopefully) to gain competitive advantage in world markets. But

most must hedge their bets by pursuing research on biotech because

they fear a loss of markets and competitiveness to their neighbors and

trade rivalswho arepursuingGM researchandcommercializationaggres-

sively (most notably, China) (J. Donavanik, interview, June 26, 2002;

B. Poocharoen, interview, July 29, 2002; Sriwatanapongse, 2002; J. Y.

Yun, interview, August 8, 2002; A. M. Zola, interview, August 7, 2002).

Meanwhile, withinLDCs, governments arelikely to be splitover the issue

with agricultural and scientific technocrats favoring continuing develop-

ment and commercialization, and environmental and public health tech-

nocrats urging caution. But whatever direction individual LDCs pursue

on the issue, a multistakeholder participatory process involving

governments, technocrats, NGOs, and academics will be a critical

element for making progress (N. Damrongchai, interview, August 7,

2002; Damrongchai, 2002; S. Prasartporn, interview, July 26, 2002;

S. Sriwatanapongse, interview, August 7, 2002; A. M. Zola, interview,

August 7, 2002).

Advances in telecommunications. Advances in telecommunications

also are likely to continue trends that in the past have advanced the NGP

agendaworldwide. Three of these advances areespecially salient: therole

of telecommunications in advancing the globalization of markets,

prompting 24-hour news cycles and the so-calledCNN effect

, and reduc-ing thecosts of ENR information gathering, sharing, andpoliticalmobili-

zation.



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heated and polarized rather than measured and informed debates ensue.

Typically underrepresented, if not lost, in these dueling expert formats is

the consensus position of the scientific community on the issues dis-

cussed.

Neither does the rise of advocacy research help this situation, espe-

cially when it is represented in the mediaas objective research. Typically,

the findings of these studies are not disseminated unless they reflect the

interests of those paying for or sponsoring the research. Nor is the

research usually peer-reviewed, whether it is done in-house by interest

groups (e.g., the World Wildlife Federation, Friends of the Earth, or

Greenpeace), contracted out by them, or produced by think tanks spon-

sored by the combatants (e.g., the Competitive Enterprise Institute).

Indeed, so dysfunctional to ENR policy deliberation has this tendencybecome that the prestigiousNew England Journal of Medicinehas called

for scientists, the media, legislators, and regulators to distinguish

between scientific evidence and hypothesis, and not allow a paparazzi

science approach to [resolving] these problems (Safe, 1997, p. 1303).

At the same time, funding for primary and peer-reviewed research

done or contracted outby ENRagencies as an antidote to these tendencies

has not been well-funded by Congress or state legislatures (for a list of

resources making this point, seeDurant, 1995). Nor does it help good sci-

ence that various agencies have tended to downplay funding for different

aspects of ENR research. Although trying to broaden its focus in recent

years, for example, the U.S. EPA has focused largely on public health

rather than on natural resource management issues (Landy, Roberts, &

Thomas, 1994). Nor did the EPA release its first guidance document on

doing ecosystem risk assessments until 1998. Similarly, the overwhelm-

ingly prodevelopment cultures of the U.S. Energy, Interior, and Agricul-

ture departments have focused their research efforts on advancing the

consumptive uses of farmlands, timber, oil, gas, and coal.

Reduced costs of information sharing and political mobilization. Tele-

communication advances have also dramatically lowered the costs of

gathering and sharing ENR information, communicating concerns, and

organizing political movements the world over (Berry, 1999; Wilson,

1989). In 2001, for example, theU.N. Food andAgriculture Organization

used its Forest Information System to assess the overall health of the

worlds silviculture. Likewise, advances in direct-mail solicitation,

telemarketing, the Internet, and CNN permit the sending of vivid mes-sages and riveting images almost instantaneously to targeted or mass au-

diences around theworld.These, in turn, have helped tocreatenew NGOs



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or helped existing ones communicate their concerns worldwide at little

cost.

The Internet and other telecommunicationadvances alsoallow contin-

uous interaction among widely scatteredaudiencesonce they arearoused.

This facilitates the arranging, planning, coordination, and implementa-

tion of grassroots strategies, movements, and demonstrations. Protesters,

for instance, coordinated activities via cell phones, pagers, and instant

messaging devices in demonstrations against the WTO in Seattle and

Washington in recent years. So, too, was the Internet effective in the anti-

GMO campaign mounted by Greenpeace (noted earlier), in demonstra-

tions in Quebec involving theFree Trade for theAmericas Treaty, and in a

successful international campaign to boycott lumber fromBritish Colum-

bia unless the Canadian province preserved large areas of the Great BearRainforest from harvesting (Canadian Rainforest Saved After Timber

Deal, 2001).

On a less confrontational yet no less important scale, the Internet also

allows government agencies and private companies to report and fre-

quently update toxic release inventories, air and water quality measures,

wetlands assessments, desertification measures, and other ecosystem and

watershed quality efforts (Citizens Can View Refinery Emissions Data

Online, 2001). As such, the use of information reporting strategies by

ENRagencies andprivatecompanies is quite attractiveas an alternative to

command-and-control regulation. Moreover, with no end in sight to tele-

communication advances in general, pressures from NGOs for progres-

sively greater transparency of corporate operations are unlikely to abate

soon. These, in turn, arelikely to continue elicitingcallsfrom thebusiness

community for more flexibility to produce improvements more cost-

effectively. As such, future struggles between these protagonists can be

expected over pollutionprevention, accountability for results, and market

and quasimarket alternatives to regulation. So, too, are calls likely to

accelerate for equity in the sharing of the benefits and burdens of eco-

nomic development as these data are analyzed in both the developed and

developing worlds.

CHANGES IN SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY

In addition to those globalization changes that have directly affected

ENR management, changes in financial markets also have helped shapethe political economy of ENR management indirectly. Critical among

these changes are a growing dependence by nations on financial markets



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to carry their debt or finance their investments. Further fostering these

trends have been thederegulationof these same financial markets, as well

as deflationary prices and tax migration.

These trends, in turn, have interacted with thechanges inphysical tech-

nology noted earlier to erode further the power of most national govern-

ments relative to markets. As Sir John Browne, chairman of British Petro-

leum, noted recently, Globalizationhas certainly increased the scale and

reach of companies. The 20 largest companies in the world have market

capitalizations greater than the GDPs of all but 20 of the members of the

UN General Assembly (Millar & Macalister, 2001, p. 1). Moreover, pre-

ciselybecause of thefinancial size andpower of multinationals relative to

many governments, Browne argued that the corporate world has to take

on responsibilities formally in the hands of government (e.g., ENR pro-tection) (Millar & Macalister, 2001, p. 1). Although his comment was a

plea for companies to become more socially responsible, many Greens

worry that such trends are precisely the problem and can be counted on to

resist them (sometimes violently) as blueprints for dystopia.

As noted, nations need investments in physical and social infrastruc-

ture to expand their economies and meet their social needs, including

ENRprotection. Butwith many governments eithersaddled with national

debt (e.g., the United States) or under pressure to balance budgets from

international lenders (e.g., the World Bank and the IMF) or regional

economic or political bodies (e.g., the EU), financial markets have

become a major source of investment capital. These changes in interna-

tional finance, in turn, have placed relentless pressures on nations to

reduce the size of their public sectors (e.g., see Friedman, 1999).

Nations, to besure, have an unprecedented opportunity tocapitalize on

the economic, social, and cultural opportunities that international finan-

cial markets offer. However, they first must convince international inves-

tors that their economy is healthy. This, in turn, means balancing budgets

and reducing national debt to prescribed proportions of GDP before

investments flow or admission to trade associations is allowed. Break-

throughs in telecommunications then allow financiers to, in effect, vote

daily on theperformance of governments by electronicallyshiftingcapital

across borders. As such, the low inflation and slower growth agenda of

these financiers is propelled around the globe, 24 hours a day, to inform

investment and policy judgments.

Nor are the downward pressures on the size of the public sector helpedby the abilities of multinational and transnational corporations to engage

in incometaxshifting (Greider, 1997). Theglobalization of product lines,



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for example, has afforded opportunities for corporations to claim deduc-

tions for any costly production expenditures they incur against the taxes

they oweto countries with higher corporate income tax rates.Conversely,

they can assess high profits to production facilities in other nations that

have lower corporate tax rates. Importantly, income shifting need not

occur for nations to feel downward pressures on the corporate tax rates

they legislate. Merely the potential for taxes to migrate to other nations is

sufficient.

Under these circumstances, national governments around the world

have embraced devolution of responsibilities to subnational actors, part-

nerships with other public- and private-sector actors, and calls for more

integrated, flexible, collaborative, and market-oriented approaches to

governance. To be sure, inherently good reasons exist for nations to pur-sue these elements of the NGP as alternatives to centralized, bureaucrati-

cally driven, command-and-control ENR management. Yet the political

economy driving theevolution of theNGP is also animated by fundamen-

talandenduringchanges in the social technologyof internationalfinance.

Thus, thesechanges insocialtechnology also afford a paradox of sorts:

The greater the power of international financial markets to place down-

ward pressures on the size of the public sector, the more important politi-

cal elections will become for ENR protection. Governments envisioning

the virtues of ecological modernization, for example, will continue to try

to leverage public investments to facilitate these efforts (e.g., subsidies

and other public-private collaborations like those discussed earlier).

Those that seezero-sum tradeoffs between ENRprotection andeconomic

development will do decidedly less.

Relatedly, globalization can also affect the discussion of environmen-

tal issues more generally, making them even more conflictive and vulner-

able to switches in political regimes. As politicalecology theory predicts,

the environment under these circumstances can become a legitimating

discourse consisting of a whole host of issues that otherwise might not be

discussed. In the process, debates over environmental issu

Documents

Toward a New Governance Paradigm