Philanthropic foundations as agents of environmental governance:a research agenda

Philanthropic foundations play increasingly prominent roles in the environmental arena, yet remain largely under the radar of environmental governance scholars. We build on the small body of existing research on foundations in environmental governance to outline a research agenda on foundations as agents of environmental governance. The agenda identifies current understandings, debates, and research gaps related to three themes: 1) the roles foundations perform in environmental governance, 2) the outcomes of environmental philanthropy, and 3) the sources of foundation legitimacy. We call for more systematic and empirical research using diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. This research agenda will contribute to literature on agency in environmental governance by providing a more comprehensive picture of who governs the environment and how. Coming at a time when foundations are facing growing public scrutiny, it can also inform contemporary debates and offer practical insights for effective and equitable environmental philanthropy

Earth System Governance Project Report No. 1

This science plan elaborates upon the concept of Earth system governance, defined as the interrelated systems of formal and informal rules and actor-networks that are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating, and adapting to environmental change within the normative context of sustainable development. The notion of governance here refers to a less hierarchical and more decentralized system than traditional governmental policy-making, inclusive of non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations, indigenous communities, and international organizations

The Earth System Governance Project as a network organization: a critical assessment after ten years

The social sciences have engaged since the late 1980s in international collaborative programmes to study questions of sustainability and global change. This article offers an in-depth analysis of the largest long-standing social-science network in this field: the Earth System Governance Project. Originating as a core project of the former International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, the Earth System Governance Project has matured into a global, self-sustaining research network, with annual conferences, numerous taskforces, research centers, regional research fellow meetings, three book series, an open access flagship journal, and a lively presence in social media. The article critically reviews the experiences of the Earth System Governance network and its integration and interactions with other programmes over the last decade

Discursive Exit

Some women did not participate in the Women’s March, rejecting its claims of unity and solidarity because white women mobilize only in their self-interest. This is a form of exit with three features: (1) rejecting a political claim; (2) providing reasons to the power-wielder and the broader public; (3) demanding accountability both as sanction and as deliberation, which requires a discussion about the claim – in this case, the meaning of the group and the terms on which it understands itself. This combination of exit, voice, and deliberative accountability might accurately be called ‘discursive exit.’ Discursive exit addresses conceptual and normative limitations of standard accounts of exit, voice, and loyalty, in particular, when exit and voice are imperfect — because exit can be seen as disapproval of an entire cause — and morally problematic — because voice ‘from within’ implies that cause trumps disagreement, leaving people morally complicit in an unwelcome exercise of power

NGO Diplomacy The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations

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Climate change and environmental security: For whom the discourse shifts

This article explores the implications of the April 2007 United Nations Security debate on the security dimensions of a changing climate for international climate change politics. Specifically, our analysis focuses on whether and how security concerns have been addressed in past international political debates on climate change and considers whether the Security Council debate, which emphasized the threat of climate-related conflict, reflects a discursive shift. We elaborate on two general discourses on the relationship between environment and security, which we call environmental conflict and environmental security. Using content and discourse analysis, we demonstrate that both the historical climate change debate and the more recent Security Council debate have been informed by the environmental security discourse, meaning that a discursive shift has not taken place. We conclude by considering the possibility of a future discursive shift to the environmental conflict perspective and argue that such a shift would be counterproductive to the search for an effective global response to climate change. © 2009 International Studies Association

A Comparative Look at NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: Desertification and Climate Change

There is a need to better understand the significance of NGOs in global environmental politics. Addressing a number of weaknesses in the current literature on NGOs, we have developed an analytical framework for analysis of NGO influence in international environmental negotiations. This paper demonstrates the utility of our framework by applying it to two cases: the negotiations of the Desertification Convention and of the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Change Convention. We argue that the use of our research framework enables researchers to compare with confidence NGO influence across cases and that such comparison allows for a much needed examination of factors that explain variation in NGO influence in international environmental negotiations. Analysis of explanatory factors contributes to an improved understanding of the degree to which NGOs matter in global environmental policy-making. Copyright (c) 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.