Downie, David Leonard

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Fairfield University DigitalCommons@Fairfield Politics Faculty Publications Politics Department 11-2006 Book Review: Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment by Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergne David Leonard Downie Fairfield University, ddownie@fairfield.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/politics-facultypubs Copyright 2006 Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/glep Peer Reviewed Repository Citation Downie, David Leonard, "Book Review: Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment by Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergne" (2006). Politics Faculty Publications. 7. https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/politics-facultypubs/7 Published Citation Downie, David L. (2006) Review of Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergne, Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), in Global Environmental Politics 6(4): 128-130 (November 2006). This item has been accepted for inclusion in DigitalCommons@Fairfield by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Fairfield. It is brought to you by DigitalCommons@Fairfield with permission from the rights-holder(s) and is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@fairfield.edu. 128Book ReviewsBook ReviewsClapp, Jennifer, and Peter Dauvergne. 2005. Paths to a Green World: The Political Economyof the Global Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Reviewed by David DownieColumbia UniversityDavid DownieThis intelligent, well-written and informative book provides a fresh analysis ofglobal environmental politics and ªlls a soft spot in the literature by concentrat-ing explicitly and exclusively on its political economy. Clapp and Dauvergne usea typology of four worldviews—Market Liberals, Institutionalists, Bioenviron-mentalists, and Social Greens—as a framework to examine how forces in globalpolitical economy impact the environment. Each type will seem familiar tomany readers but they are rendered here in greater detail and to better effectthan in other texts.Market liberals focus on economic issues, believe in the positive power ofmarkets, and believe that poverty, weak economic growth, and poorly designedand intrusive government policies are the primary source of environmental deg-radation. Environmental problems that do exist can be addressed by fosteringeconomic growth and harnessing market-based incentives to promote new tech-nologies and corporate responsibility.Institutionalists believe that current levels of environmental degradationand underdevelopment reºect ineffective global cooperation and weak domes-tic and international institutions. Globalization is not a villain. A global envi-ronmental crisis could develop, however, if we do not build stronger and moreeffective global institutions, build state capacity, distribute technology andwealth to developing countries through appropriate channels, and effectivelyharness globalization so it fulªlls its potential to enhance human welfare.Bioenvironmentalists focus on ecosystems and ecological carrying capac-ity. They believe a global environmental crisis already exists, caused by humanoverpopulation, over-consumption, and excessive, unnecessary, and ultimatelycounter-productive economic growth. These problems are augmented by glob-alization, which drives unsustainable levels of natural resource consumption,pollution, debt and misplaced economic activity. With the earth’s carrying ca-pacity at or even beyond its natural limits, addressing environmental and eco-nomic problems effectively will require strong action to reform the global econ-omy, reduce consumption, limit population growth, and respect the value ofnon-human life.Global Environmental Politics 6:4, November 2006© 2006 by the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologySocial greens also believe a global environmental crisis already exists. Theysee the ultimate causes as industrialization and increasing globalization. Thesefactors, in their current form, lead to exploitation of the poor and less powerful,shift power and control away from local communities, undermine non-eco-nomic values, feed grossly unequal and unsustainable patterns of consumption,and cause unacceptable environmental degradation. Solutions must reject glob-alization and further industrialization, promote economic and ecological jus-tice, and empower local institutions and indigenous knowledge.The authors acknowledge that—as with all such divisions—this typologyrepresents a somewhat artiªcial and exaggerated categorization of what is actu-ally an interconnected spectrum of views. At the same time, however, it providesan accessible entry point to understanding different perspectives on the inter-play of international economic activity and the environment. Their approach isexactly right for the purposes of this volume. The typology can help students un-derstand and discuss these issues. As such, this book represents an excellentcomplement for courses that use other recent overviews of global environmen-tal politics which focus on politics, institutions and agreements—such as thoseby 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 is-sues in the political economy of the global environment. These include the eco-logical consequences of globalization; the links between wealth, poverty, con-sumption and the environment; trade patterns and trade agreements; globalinvestment; transnational corporations; patterns in environmental standards;and international ªnancing, multilateral lending and aid. Case studies and in-formative charts and graphs appear throughout the text and each chapter ex-plores the arguments in the context of current, real-world issues—not simply asabstract perspectives.In each chapter, Clapp and Dauvergne take care to explain the relevant un-derlying assumptions of the worldviews, their perspective on what each issue-area means—positively and negatively—for the environment, and what policyprescriptions they recommend. The authors also note how the perspectives,while sometimes contradictory, emphasize different aspects of the issues and, inmany cases, are not entirely mutually exclusive.This approach sends an important message to students, scholars and pol-icy-makers. Achieving real sustainable development (however one deªnes it)and averting or remedying a global environmental crisis will require not onlyproductive interaction among market liberals, institutionalists, bioenvironmen-talists, and social greens but also actual compromise and cooperation. Essentialsteps in this process likely include understanding the values and beliefs of thosewho see the world differently and integrating the best potential solutions frommore than one paradigm. By taking such care in explicating how four world-David Downie • 1291. Chasek, Downie, and Brown 2006; Axelrod, Downie, and Vig 2005; Switzer 2004; Lipschutz2003; and DeSombre 2002.views approach the political economy of the global environment, Clapp andDauvergne have helped us take a step in this direction.ReferencesAxelrod, Regina, David Downie, and Norman J. Vig, eds. 2005. The Global Environment:Institutions, Law, and Policy, 2nd Edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.Chasek, Pamela, David Downie, and Janet Welsh Brown. 2006. Global Environmental Poli-tics, 4th Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.DeSombre, Elizabeth R. 2002. The Global Environment and World Politics. London: Contin-uum.Lipschutz, Ronnie. 2003. Global Environmental Politics: Power, Perspectives and Practice.Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.Switzer, Jacqueline. 2003. Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions, 4th edi-tion. Belmost, CA: Thompson/Wadsworth.Goldman, Michael. 2005. Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice inthe Age of Globalization. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Reviewed by Tamar GutnerAmerican UniversityTamar GutnerPity the World Bank. The academic and policy literature on the Bank in general,and on its environmental behavior in particular, is dominated by critics who seeevery attempt by the Bank to reform itself and improve its behavior as ineffec-tive at best, and harmful at worst. There are a brave, hardy few who believe theBank has made signiªcant positive changes in improving its performance. In be-tween, where shades of grey lurk and the Bank’s efforts at reform may be seen asan uneven mix of successes and failures, there is a virtual vacuum.Sociologist Michael Goldman makes an eloquent contribution to the criti-cal side of the spectrum by focusing on how the Bank produces knowledge, andwhy its knowledge is so inºuential. He journeys “through the intestines of oneof the world’s most powerful institutions” to conduct a critical ethnographicstudy of how the Bank’s hegemony is constituted, resulting in a Bank that playsa key role in perpetuating a “highly inequitable global economy” (pp. xiii, 20).He writes, “ . . . I learned that one of the Bank’s greatest accomplishments hasbeen to make its worldview, its development framework, and its data sets theones that people around the world choose above others. This is one reasonwhy the Bank’s inºuence continues to grow, even with mounting pressure fromcritics” (p. xv).Goldman is speciªcally interested in the rise of the Bank’s “green hegemo-ny.” He argues that the Bank responded to widespread criticism of its environ-mental behavior by reinventing itself through the expansion of its neoliberaleconomic agenda to include environmental dimensions, and that this reinven-tion gave the Bank the means to expand the tentacles of its knowledge and130 • Book Reviews

Book Review: Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment by Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergne

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Book Review: Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment by Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergne

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