Vatn, A. Environmental Governance – the Aspect of Coordination. ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE – THE ASPECT OF COORDINATION

This paper is asks whether the way we organize our economy makes it possible to solve the increasing environmental challenges humanity is facing. The basic market-firm structure, around which the economy is foremost organized, is well suited to handle independent choices. The vexing environmental problems we are confronted with shows that human action is fundamentally interdependent. The paper argues that to handle the kind of coordination problems implicit in this, demands a change in the relationship between the state and the market or even a more fundamental process of reorganizing the economy. The paper discusses specifically the introduction of ex ante state regulations and changes to other types of property structures of productive activities with high levels of interdependency like expanding state respectively common property. The paper closes with a discussion of the realism of these strategies seen against present trends