Comparative Environmental Politics: Beyond an Enclave Approach

As environmental issues have become a mainstay of social science research over the past two decades, there has arisen a rich research literature on the domestic politics of environmental protection in diverse societies around the globe (for a review, see Steinberg and VanDeveer, forthcoming). Whether issuing from economics, political science, sociology, urban studies or other fields, contributions to the emerging field of comparative environmental politics hold in common two premises. First, to understand the fate of the planet and its inhabitants requires that we move beyond the facile holism of saving planet Earth and grapple with the complexities of domestic politics. Second, research advances in this area require that we take advantage of the wide stock of experiences around the globe--making explicit cross-national comparisons, and drawing on and contributing to broader research literatures with help from concepts and tools that travel well across borders