Science and Politics in the International Environment

Reviews / Votes

Neil Harrison and Gary Bryner's edited book offers important insights into the interrelationships between science and politics concerning critical international environmental issues. The contributors address a wide variety of environmental policy problems and provide useful data and in-depth explanations about the reciprocal connections that exist between science and environmental policy. Environmental studies and policy students and international environmental politics and policy researchers will find the book extremely valuable and instructive. -- Sheldon Kamieniecki, University of Southern California A significant contribution to the field, this book is also very well designed as a teaching tool. The editors have selected a nice representation of case studies that convey strategies for policy analysis and the complex nature of blending science and policy. This is an excellent text for anyone interested in the science/politics interface, case study methodology, or international environmental politics. Summing Up: Recommended. CHOICE Compiled and edited by the team of Nekil E. Harrison and Gary Bryner, with a special focus upon the science surrounding environmental issues and controversies, Science and Politics in the International Environment is an original gathering of case studies linking environmental science and political policy-making, drawing on essays from all disciplines in the process of explaining how science and politics interact to create, determine, and influence policy structures. The result is an excellent collaboration between scholars from the natural and social sciences and a highly recommended addition to academic environmental studies collections and environmental activist reading lists. Library Bookwatch This book seeks to explain what "science" and "politics" are in the context of environmental policy making, and how the interplay of science and politics influences international environmental policy. It uses original case studies to explore the interaction of science and politics across a wide range of international environmental issues including climate change, transboundary conflicts, and international forest management. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society This text offers an original and accessible collection of case studies that focus on the critical yet often tenuous linkage between environmental science and policymaking. Particularly admirable are the interdisciplinary nature of the studies and the authors' commitment to letting readers draw their own conclusions about how science affects policy as well as how politics influence science. The chapters offer well-crafted and data-rich narratives in areas as diverse as climate change, protection of desert ecosystems, forest and fisheries management, acid rain, and control of persistent toxic pollutants, all of which lend themselves to varied interpretation and debate. The book will be especially welcomed by those teaching courses in international and comparative environmental politics. -- Michael Kraft, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay