In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment
  • David Downie
Clapp, Jennifer, and Peter Dauvergne . 2005. Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

This intelligent, well-written and informative book provides a fresh analysis of global environmental politics and fills a soft spot in the literature by concentrating explicitly and exclusively on its political economy. Clapp and Dauvergne use a typology of four worldviews—Market Liberals, Institutionalists, Bioenviron­men­tal­ists, and Social Greens—as a framework to examine how forces in global political economy impact the environment. Each type will seem familiar to many readers but they are rendered here in greater detail and to better effect than in other texts.

Market liberals focus on economic issues, believe in the positive power of markets, and believe that poverty, weak economic growth, and poorly designed and intrusive government policies are the primary source of environmental degradation. Environmental problems that do exist can be addressed by fostering economic growth and harnessing market-based incentives to promote new technologies and corporate responsibility.

Institutionalists believe that current levels of environmental degradation and underdevelopment reflect ineffective global cooperation and weak domestic and international institutions. Globalization is not a villain. A global environmental crisis could develop, however, if we do not build stronger and more effective global institutions, build state capacity, distribute technology and wealth to developing countries through appropriate channels, and effectively harness globalization so it fulfills its potential to enhance human welfare.

Bioenvironmentalists focus on ecosystems and ecological carrying capacity. They believe a global environmental crisis already exists, caused by human overpopulation, over-consumption, and excessive, unnecessary, and ultimately counter-productive economic growth. These problems are augmented by globalization, which drives unsustainable levels of natural resource consumption, pollution, debt and misplaced economic activity. With the earth's carrying capacity at or even beyond its natural limits, addressing environmental and economic problems effectively will require strong action to reform the global economy, reduce consumption, limit population growth, and respect the value of non-human life. [End Page 128]

Social greens also believe a global environmental crisis already exists. They see the ultimate causes as industrialization and increasing globalization. These factors, in their current form, lead to exploitation of the poor and less powerful, shift power and control away from local communities, undermine non-economic values, feed grossly unequal and unsustainable patterns of consumption, and cause unacceptable environmental degradation. Solutions must reject globalization and further industrialization, promote economic and ecological justice, and empower local institutions and indigenous knowledge.

The authors acknowledge that—as with all such divisions—this typology represents a somewhat artificial and exaggerated categorization of what is actually an interconnected spectrum of views. At the same time, however, it provides an accessible entry point to understanding different perspectives on the interplay of international economic activity and the environment. Their approach is exactly right for the purposes of this volume. The typology can help students understand and discuss these issues. As such, this book represents an excellent complement for courses that use other recent overviews of global environmental politics which focus on politics, institutions and agreements—such as those by Chasek, Downie and Brown; Axelrod, Downie and Vig; Switzer; Lipschutz; and DeSombre,1 among others.

After introducing the typology, successive chapters use it to explore key issues in the political economy of the global environment. These include the ecological consequences of globalization; the links between wealth, poverty, consumption and the environment; trade patterns and trade agreements; global investment; transnational corporations; patterns in environmental standards; and international financing, multilateral lending and aid. Case studies and informative charts and graphs appear throughout the text and each chapter explores the arguments in the context of current, real-world issues—not simply as abstract perspectives.

In each chapter, Clapp and Dauvergne take care to explain the relevant underlying assumptions of the worldviews, their perspective on what each issue-area means—positively and negatively—for the environment, and what policy prescriptions they recommend. The authors also note how the perspectives, while sometimes contradictory, emphasize different aspects of the issues and, in many cases, are not entirely mutually exclusive.

This approach sends an important message...

pdf

Share