Science and Politics in the International Environment (review)

Complex interactions between science and politics cannot be explained by current theory. This volume does not claim to break new theoretical ground, but instead challenges its readers to become theory-builders themselves. Designed primarily for teaching purposes, this book will be a useful complement to conventional textbooks in courses on international environmental politics or science and decisionmaking.

In the case method tradition, the lengthy yet readable chapters offer awealth of details on topics ranging from local pollution problems to global climate change, purposefully raising more questions than they answer. As co- editor Harrison explains in the appendix, these chapters depart from the usual format of case studies that marshal data to test (or demonstrate) specific hypotheses. Instead, the contributors to this volume aimed to be "theory agnostic," presenting a wider "slice of reality" (p.352). Of course, writers must be guided by their own theoretical stances, stated or unstated, in choosing what facts to include when narrating any issue, but these scholars are indeed shooting with a wide-angle lens. Students accustomed to articles that neatly tie up theoretical loose ends may at first be frustrated by chapters that end only with unanswered questions, but such is the state of this complex and evolving field.

To begin the first of the book's four main sections, biologist Richard Brusca and co-editor Bryner, a political economist, team up for a discussion of biosphere reserves in the Sonoran Desert along the US-Mexico border, ranging from historical conflicts over water resources to the advance of scientific knowledge about the ecosystem and human impacts on its environmental quality. Theauthors offer ambiguous conclusions for students to consider: scientific evidence and local stakeholders were successful in spurring the establishment ofthe reserves, yet development planning and cross-border cooperation remain lacking. Political scientist M. Leann Brown follows with a comparison of the European Union's responses to two food safety challenges, the BSE (or "mad cow disease") crisis and the debate over the use of bovine growth hormones. Brown prods readers to ask how scientific uncertainty—a recurring theme in this field—muted the influence of scientists in shaping policy.

The second section consists of a pair of articles on climate change that trod similar ground but to different ends. Marvin S. Soroos provides a lucid general introduction to the problem of "global warming" and its probable consequences, covering its emergence as a topic of scientific inquiry and the history ofinternational negotiations to combat it. Harrison rehashes the same series of negotiations and scientific reports, but focuses on the changing presentation ofscientific uncertainty and the evolving political response. Soroos warns that,while scientific alarm about the threats of climate change has spurred agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, such regimes are as yet insufficient to counter those threats. Harrison, walking his readers through nine different possible explanations for the outcomes of interactions between science and politics, asks whether scientific uncertainty has actually retarded policy development.

Two chapters rather different in scope make up the third section under theheading of "Science and Precaution." Focusing on Ontario, Canada, Don Munton traces how, after years of mounting but scattered evidence, acid rain suddenly emerged as a problem in scientific and political consciousness, producing significant local and cross-border policy responses. His fellow political scientist Radoslav Dimitrov, on the other hand, chronicles a topic—global deforestation—where scientific knowledge remains rather incomplete and a political consensus has yet to emerge.

The final four case studies explore how the interplay of science and politics is mediated by "culture" in different settings. Returning to the topic of acid rain, Kenneth Wilkening frames his chapter in terms of three hypotheses about regional differences in scientific knowledge, political actors' use of science, and how science is situated in cultural contexts. Wilkening goes further than most of the contributors here in suggesting these new hypotheses, but his conclusions keep to the spirit of the book by raising still more questions. Another interdisciplinary duo, law and policy scholar Jeremy Firestone and...