Understanding environmental governance: A critical review

Abstract

This article presents an historical sketch of the insights and applications provided by social science scholars on environmental governance. The authors begin with a review of the conceptual developments during the past 50 years characterized in terms of six conceptual perspectives: pluralism, agency capture, ecological Marxism, ecological modernization, social constructionism, and global environmentalism. This section is followed by an empirical analysis of academic journal coverage of research on environmental governance from 1963 to 2001 listed in the database Sociological Abstracts. The authors conclude that an understanding of the potential for environmental improvement could be advanced by the treatment of works that fall within the conceptual typology described herein, as a cumulative body of interdisciplinary knowledge. Advancements in this area could, furthermore, be facilitated through a broadening of empirical and methodological treatment of environmental governance and a greater attention to macro-structural relations among state and societal forces and environmental phenomena. © 2004 Sage Publication.