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'Why have GM Foods become so controversial? Comparing GM food politics in the US, Britain, and the European Union, Toke draws on insights from discourse analysis to help explain this basic political struggle of our time. By stressing the interplay between the material and discursive dimensions involved in the shaping of the conflict, the work offers a detailed account that enriches our political understanding of these 'Frankenfoods' on a variety of fronts, in particular the interplay between scientific expertise and citizens politics. Those interested in the 'risk society', both students and specialists, will find much to learn from this perceptive analysis.' Professor Frank Fischer, Rutgers University, USA The Politics of GM Food compares and explains how differing political outcomes have occurred regarding GM food and crops in the UK, USA and the EU, thus throwing light on the relationship between science and politics.

'Why have GM Foods become so controversial? Comparing GM food politics in the US, Britain, and the European Union, Toke draws on insights from discourse analysis to help explain this basic political struggle of our time. By stressing the interplay between the material and discursive dimensions involved in the shaping of the conflict, the work offers a detailed account that enriches our political understanding of these 'Frankenfoods' on a variety of fronts, in particular the interplay between scientific expertise and citizens politics. Those interested in the 'risk society', both students and specialists, will find much to learn from this perceptive analysis.' Professor Frank Fischer, Rutgers University, USA The Politics of GM Food compares and explains how differing political outcomes have occurred regarding GM food and crops in the UK, USA and the EU, thus throwing light on the relationship between science and politics.

In China, as elsewhere, the debate over genetically modified organisms has become polarized into anti- and pro-GMO camps. Given the size of China’s population and market, much is at stake in conflicts over regulation for domestic as well as international actors. In this book, Cong Cao provides an even-handed analysis that illuminates the tensions that have shaped China’s policy toward agricultural biotechnology in a global perspective. Cao presents a comprehensive and systematic analysis of how China’s policy toward research and commercialization of genetically modified crops has shifted that explains how China’s changing GMO stances reflect its evolving position on the world stage. While China’s scientific community has set the agenda, it has encountered resistance rooted in concerns over food safety and consumers’ rights as well as issues of intellectual property rights and food sovereignty. Although Chinese leaders at first sought to take advantage of the biotech revolution by promoting GMO crop consumption, Cao demonstrates that policy has since become precautionary, as seen in new laws and regulations grounded in concerns over safety and the deferral of...

This book examines the development and implementation of the EU’s legislative framework on the commercial release of GMO products as a case study of social regulation operating within a predominantly technical framework. The analysis and findings are based on an extensive documentary analysis and interviews with regulators, risk assessors, public interest groups and biotechnology experts at the national and European levels. It argues that in the case of the EU biotechnology framework, the particular institutional settings created for the formulation and interpretation of its provisions have been of decisive importance in elaborating a proceduralised ‘science-based’ prior authorization scheme as the preferred framework for granting commercial permits. This interdisciplinary work will appeal to EU lawyers, decision-makers and risk managers as well as academics working in the fields of EU studies, politics, law, risk governance sociology of science/risk and technology assessment. The book is based on a PhD thesis that was awarded with the 2008 UACES Prize for the Best Thesis in European Studies in Europe and with the EPEES 1st Prize for the Best Thesis written by a Greek...

A provocative history of the environmental movement in America, showing how this rise to political and social prominence produced a culture of alarmism that has often distorted the facts Few issues today excite more passion or alarm than the specter of climate change. In A Climate of Crisis, historian Patrick Allitt shows that our present climate of crisis is far from exceptional. Indeed, the environmental debates of the last half century are defined by exaggeration and fearmongering from all sides, often at the expense of the facts. In a real sense, Allitt shows us, collective anxiety about widespread environmental danger began with the atomic bomb. As postwar suburbanization transformed the American landscape, more research and better tools for measurement began to reveal the consequences of economic success. A climate of anxiety became a climate of alarm, often at odds with reality. The sixties generation transformed environmentalism from a set of special interests into a mass movement. By the first Earth Day in 1970, journalists and politicians alike were urging major initiatives to remedy environmental harm. In fact, the work of the new Environmental Protection Agency and a...

This book examines the political and legal challenges of regional governance of the 28 countries of the European Union and the 48 in the Council of Europe. The contributions, dilemmas, and moral hazards from this record of nearly seven decades of regional inter-governmental institutions has kept the peace, but produced episodes of crisis from overstretching jurisdictions, thematically and geographically. Polarization between nationalist and integrative forces has displaced the idealistic aspirations of prior decades to build the rule of law and deter violence. Academics and policy makers will learn from the various legal and political efforts to integrate supranational and inter-governmental agencies with national political systems.

This new collection from the leading journal, Environmental Politics, presents an excellent overview of the key themes found in contemporary green political thought since the early 1990s. Bringing together the journal's major work, this new book charts a fascinating period in which environmental politics developed from a marginal position in society and the academy, to its current place in the intellectual mainstream. Subdivided into clear sections on political theory, social movements, political economy and policy questions, and assisted by a contextualising introduction, this volume focuses on a set of clear themes: the character of green political theory relationships with other political traditions and theories origins and dynamics of contemporary environmental politics differences, similarities and tensions between the North and South the relationship of environmentalism to market economics and ecological modernization environmental aspects of distributive justice at the local, national and global levels the roles, value and valuing of nature in green theory and institutional practice. As a compilation, this book is unique. It delivers a snapshot of a variety of issues in the ...

Europe was told that it had no choice but to accept agbiotech, yet this imperative was turned into a test of democratic accountability for societal choices. Since the late 1990s, European public controversy has kept the agri-biotech industry and its promoters on the defensive. As some opponents and regulators alike have declared, ‘GM food/crops are on trial’. Suspicion of their guilt has been evoked by moral symbols, as disputes over whether genetically-modified products are modest benign improvements on traditional plant breeding, or dangerous Frankenfoods; and in disputes over whether they are global saviours, or control agents of multinational companies. This book examines European institutions being ‘put on trial’ for how their regulatory procedures evaluate and regulate GM products, in ways which opened up alternative futures. Levidow and Carr highlight how public controversy created a legitimacy crisis, leading to national policy changes and demands, in turn stimulating changes in EU agbiotech regulations as a strategy to regain legitimacy.

More than twenty years after the Bruntland Commission report, Our Common Future, we have yet to secure the basis for a serious approach to global environmental governance. The failed 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development showed the need for a new approach to globalization and sustainability. Taking a critical perspective, rooted in political economy, regulation theory, and post-sovereign international relations, this book explores questions concerning the governance of environmental sustainability in a globalizing economy. With contributions from leading international scholars, the book offers a comprehensive framework on globalization, governance, and sustainability, and examines institutional mechanisms and arrangements to achieve sustainable environmental governance. It: considers current failures in the framework of global environmental governance addresses the problematic relationship between sustainability and globalization explores controversies of development and environment that have led to new processes of institution building examines the marketization of environmental policy-making; stakeholder politics and environmental policy-making; socio-economic justice;...

Must freedom be sacrificed to achieve ecological sustainability - or vice versa? Can we be genuinely free and live in sustainable societies? This book argues that we can, if we recognise and celebrate our ecological embeddedness, rather than seeking to transcend it. But this does not mean freedom can simply be redefined to fit within ecological limits. Addressing current unsustainability will involve significant restrictions, and hence will require political justification, not just scientific evidence. Drawing on material from perfectionist liberalism, capabilities approaches, human rights, relational ethics and virtue theory, Michael Hannis explores the relationship between freedom and sustainability, considering how each contributes to human flourishing. He argues that a substantive and ecologically literate conception of human flourishing can underpin both capability-based environmental rights and a eudaimonist ecological virtue ethics. With such a foundation in place, public authorities can act both to facilitate ecological virtue, and to remove structural incentives to ecological vice. Freedom and Environment is a lucid addition to existing literature in environmental...

We are living in a climate of risk. Our way of life imposes risks on ourselves and others. We are causing climatic changes that have the potential to change radically the conditions under which both we – the present generation – and future generations will live. While we are now quite certain that climate change is happening, we are unsure of exactly what will happen and when, given different emissions and policy scenarios. We are therefore in a position where we must decide what to do about the risks climate change threatens in the face of a range of uncertainties In this book, Lauren Hartzell-Nichols provides guidance in the face of this uncertainty by offering an in-depth discussion of how and why we ought to take a precautionary approach to climate policy, namely by appeal to a Catastrophic Precautionary Principle and Catastrophic Precautionary Decision-Making Framework. By examining the way in which climate change is harmful, Hartzell-Nichols shows how precaution does have a meaningful role to play in moving climate policy forward if we reconsider what precaution is about before too quickly appealing to precaution as a reason or justification for action. A Climate of Risk ...

This book examines the development of a European environmental conscience through successive steps of European integration in energy policy. In the 1960s-70s, the world was slowly beginning to realise that environment degradation was not sustainable. With phenomena such as acid rain, it became clear that pollution did not stop at national boundaries and the European environmental conscience developed in parallel to such growing environmental concerns. The oil crisis in 1973 was a turning point in the integration process for both energy policy and environment policy, and while further integration towards the European energy policy failed; the environmental policies took shape in measures such as energy saving. The Commission incorporated both energy and environmental policies into the EU policy canon and built an institutional framework, responding to the insufficiency of national policy answers and the developing environmental conscience of the European people. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Integration, European Union politics and history and environmental politics and policy.

Climate migration, as an image of people moving due to sea-level rise and increased drought, has been presented as one of the main security risks of global warming. The rationale is that climate change will cause mass movements of climate refugees, causing tensions and even violent conflict. Through the lens of climate change politics and securitisation theory, Ingrid Boas examines how and why climate migration has been presented in terms of security and reviews the political consequences of such framing exercises. This study is done through a macro-micro analysis and concentrates on the period of the early 2000s until the end of September 2014. The macro-level analysis provides an overview of the coalitions of states that favour or oppose security framings on climate migration. It shows how European states and the Small Island States have been key actors to present climate migration as a matter of security, while the emerging developing countries have actively opposed such a framing. The book argues that much of the division between these states alliances can be traced back to climate change politics. As a next step, the book delves into UK-India interactions to provide an...

This book provides a comparative study of the role of international organizations in environmental governance. Whilst a growing body of literature considers global governance in a number of policy areas, this volume delivers one of the first comprehensive accounts of international organizations in relation to environmental policy. Providing the reader with key insights within this area of global governance, the book focuses on policies developing in relation to climate change, biodiversity and international environmental funding. Presenting a compelling and up-to-date account of developments within this burgeoning policy area, the volume: • includes a range of case studies including the World Bank, UNEP and the OECD • presents quantitative and qualitative research that advances understanding of international organizations in the field of international relations • delivers contributions from a range of internationally renowned academics and specialists within the field International Organizations in Global Environmental Governance will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations theory, international economics, environmental policy, organizational...

This new book explains why the international community has responded with a sense of fatalistic passivity to climate change. It presents a distinct critique of realism through the study of this topic, commonly overlooked in international relations. The author argues that the realist view rests on a dangerous contradiction; far from delivering security it serves to limit the way we think about the new generation of risks we face. The book also provides a detailed case study evaluating US climate politics under the Clinton and Bush administrations.

In this book, Benjamin Farrer explains how activists can influence the policies they care about, even when they are outnumbered and their issues are ignored. The solution lies in a surprising place: organizational choice. Different types of organizations will be more influential under particular democratic institutions. If they choose the optimal type of organization - given their institutional context - then even minority groups can be influential. Environmentalists are a key example of how small groups can sometimes punch above their weight. Environmentalists in different countries have made different organizational choices. These choices explain whether or not they succeeded in influencing policy. In the empirical chapters that follow, Farrer shows that environmentalists can sometimes be more influential if they form interest groups, but under other institutions, political parties are the optimal organizational choice. Although interest groups are often easier to create, national institutions can sometimes insulate mainstream politicians from niche interest groups. When institutions deny access to interest groups, activists are forced to send the stronger signal of party entry. ...

The environment inflames passions in people on all points of the political spectrum. Controversies over such issues as the rise of cancer in industrialized countries, climate change, and urban sprawl have skyrocketed as we recognize the impact that humans have on the environment. Many people become immersed in these controversies at a local level before they know much about the topic - the nuances of many environmental conflicts are often overlooked as the media focuses on the adversarial nature of the conflict. This reference resource provides students, teachers, librarians, and citizens as a whole with the necessary first step in understanding these hot-button issues. Each entry identifies the issue involved, who was holding various points of view or positions, where and when the conflict occurred, and explains the cultural, social, and political context and dimensions of the conflict. Battleground: Environment provides in-depth analysis of over 100 of the most controversial topics involving the environment, including childhood asthma, the Kyoto Summit and Treaty, smart growth, the Three Gorges Dam in China, and genetically modified food. Entries include descriptions of public...

This third volume in the SAGE Series on Green Society lays out the contours of the field of agri-food studies. It draws on scholars working in the fields of political ecology, rural sociology, geography, and environmental studies to paint a picture of the past, present, and future of agriculture and food. It provides readers with a basic understanding of the institutions, practices, and concepts to identify what is and is not a "green" food. Because food is so intimately connected to our daily lives, the food system offers perhaps the most promise to make change in a sustainable direction. This volume addresses what a sustainable and green food system might look like, what policies would help realize it, and what kinds of tradeoffs we face in deciding which paths to choose. Green Food: An A-to-Z Guide provides people interested in food and agricultural systems the basic analytical and conceptual ideas that explain why our food system looks the way it does, and what can be done to change it for the better. Roughly 150 entries discuss how to address issues related to a green food system, and vivid photos, searchable hyperlinks, numerous cross references, an extensive resource guide, ...

Culture has long been regarded as one of the most complicated concepts in the social sciences, possibly over theorized. Its ubiquity, tangled senses of particularity and the almost universal recognition of that assumed particularity require an extended vocabulary for framing the politics embedded in it. Cultural Practices, Political Possibilities attempts to explain the political significance and overlaps of cultural constructions as witnessed in global-local clashes, convergences of texts and contexts, within the state and community, identity and the self. Through various case-studies, concepts and interdisciplinary perspectives, the multinational group of authors from diverse academic backgrounds interprets cultural constructions of politics as factionalizing, identitarian, situational and particularistic in their links, affirmations and consequential divides. Each contribution, in its unique way explores the performative asymmetries and contradictions witnessed in diverse cultural interactions that shape new areas of political investigation. The book will be welcomed by students of international relations, environmental politics, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies.

There are very serious environmental problems facing the planet. Biodiversity loss has reached unprecedented levels. Climate change is progressing so rapidly that within this century we are likely to see substantial sea level rise. There has been dramatic loss of tropical rainforests. Plastic pollution is killing wildlife and polluting our oceans. Various movements old and new are addressing these green issues. Civil society activism has taken on new strategies with the emergence of new technologies and global networks of green activists have formed. A new generation of green activists are emerging and boldly criticizing the status quo. At the same time, in some parts of the world, green movements that looked like they were beginning to gain a political foothold or were even doing quite well are in retreat. The reasons are complex. Some suffer from lack of funding and hostile political and legal environments. Others are being attacked by populist politicians who see green activism as a threat. The second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Green Movement contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced...

Providing a comparison the most important instances of public engagement with biotechnology in Europe in recent years, this book provides a theoretically reflected and empirically grounded study of the opportunities and obstacles for a thorough democratization of technological development through processes of public engagement.

The term "culture wars" refers to the political and sociological polarisation that has characterised American society the past several decades. This new edition provides an enlightening and comprehensive A-to-Z ready reference, now with supporting primary documents, on major topics of contemporary importance for students, teachers, and the general reader. It aims to promote understanding and clarification on pertinent topics that too often are not adequately explained or discussed in a balanced context. With approximately 640 entries plus more than 120 primary documents supporting both sides of key issues, this is a unique and defining work, indispensable to informed discussions of the most timely and critical issues facing America today.

This book studies the extent to which nuclear safety issues have contributed towards the stagnation of nuclear power development around the world, and accounts for differences in safety regulations in different countries. In order to understand why nuclear development has not met widespread expectations, this book focusses on six key countries with active nuclear power programmes: the USA, China, France, South Korea, the UK, and Russia. The authors integrate cultural theory and theory of regulation, and examine the links between pressures of cultural bias on regulatory outcomes and political pressures which have led to increased safety requirements and subsequent economic costs. They discover that although nuclear safety is an important upward driver of costs in the nuclear power industry, this is influenced by the inherent need to control potentially dangerous reactions rather than stricter nuclear safety standards. The findings reveal that differences in the strictness of nuclear safety regulations between different countries can be understood by understanding differences in cultural contexts and the changes in this over time. This book will be of great interest to students,...

Agri-food bio-technology policy and regulation is transitioning from an early period focused on genetic engineering technologies to ‘next-generation’ rules and regulatory processes linked to challenges originating in a wide variety of new technological processes and applications. Can lessons learned from past and current regulatory oversights of agricultural biotechnology – and other high-technology sectors – help us address new and emerging regulatory challenges in the agri-food genetics sector? The expert contributors in this volume discuss the experiences of a wide range of North American, European and Asian countries with high technology regulation to address four key questions related to the past and future development of agri-food genomics regulation across the globe. how unique is agri-food biotechology regulation, and how can it be evaluated using the existing tools of regulatory analysis developed in examinations of other sectors? is a ‘government to governance’ model of regulatory regime development found in many other sectors relevant in this rapidly evolving sphere of activity? is a stages model of regulatory regime development accurate? And, if so, at...

First published in 1952, the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology) is well established as a major bibliographic reference for students, researchers and librarians in the social sciences worldwide. Key features: * Authority: Rigorous standards are applied to make the IBSS the most authoritative selective bibliography ever produced. Articles and books are selected on merit by some of the world's most expert librarians and academics. * Breadth: Today the IBSS covers over 2000 journals - more than any other comparable resource. The latest monograph publications are also included. * International Coverage: The IBSS reviews scholarship published in over thirty languages, including publications from Eastern Europe and the developing world. * User friendly organization: all non-English titles are word sections. Extensive author, subject and place name indexes are provided in both English and French.

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First published in 1952, the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology) is well established as a major bibliographic reference for students, researchers and librarians in the social sciences worldwide. Key features: * Authority: Rigorous standards are applied to make the IBSS the most authoritative selective bibliography ever produced. Articles and books are selected on merit by some of the world's most expert librarians and academics. * Breadth: Today the IBSS covers over 2000 journals - more than any other comparable resource. The latest monograph publications are also included. * International Coverage: The IBSS reviews scholarship published in over thirty languages, including publications from Eastern Europe and the developing world. * User friendly organization: all non-English titles are word sections. Extensive author, subject and place name indexes are provided in both English and French.

The analysis includes case-studies on the European BSE crisis, GM-food regulation, salmon and shrimp farming and food labelling.

This book investigates the emergence of organic food and farming as a social movement. Using the tools of political sociology it analyses and explains how both people and ideas have shaped a movement that from its inception aimed to change global agriculture. Starting from the British Empire in the 1930s, where the first trans-national roots of organic farming took hold, through to the internet-mediated social protests against genetically modified crops at the end of the twentieth century, the author traces the rise to prominence of the movement. As well as providing a historical account, the book explains the movement's on-going role in fostering and organising alternatives to the dominant intensive and industrial forms of agriculture, such as promoting local food produce and animal welfare. By considering it as a trans-national movement from its inception, aiming at cultural and social change, the book highlights what is unique about the organic movement and why it has risen only relatively recently to public attention. The author reports original research findings, focusing largely on the English-speaking world. The work is grounded in academic enquiry and theory, but also...

This is the 15th edition of this publication which takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore European integration and the development of the European Union, its institutions, laws and policies. Issues discussed include: European treaties, laws and institutions; stages of integration relating to the Customs Union, the Common Market, EMU and the potential for political union; citizens' rights and participation, cultural policies and consumer issues; as well policies relating to taxation and competition, the environment, regional development, industry and enterprise, research and technology, energy, transport, agriculture, external relations, commercial policy and development aid. Full references to EU official texts are given throughout.

Written in a clear accessible style, Dennis Kavanagh has produced this lucid analysis of the British political system, designed for anyone taking a first course in the subject.