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8 - CONCLUSION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2009

Lyle Scruggs
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Summary

The paucity of studies in the comparative political economy literature that address environmental problems is somewhat surprising. First environmental protection is an important political issue. Since before the oil shocks of the 1970s, it has been one of the three most important social issues, often polling ahead of the traditional items of economic performance – growth, unemployment, and inflation. Second, environmental quality is a collective good that simultaneously affects human well-being and is intimately associated with economic production. The provision of collective economic “goods” (growth, low prices, full employment, etc.) is a common subject in comparative political economy, making the lack of attention to environmental outcomes all the more exceptional. Finally, the physical environment is a fundamental component of social risk that is a critical issue around which politics and economics interact.

Why does this oversight persist? There are several explanations. First, there has been a tendency to treat “environmental politics” (by both traditional political economists and by environmental policy specialists) as something that is fundamentally different from traditional political economy subject matter. The intellectual roots of environmental politics challenge much of the materialist and distributional consensus that is taken for granted in the study of contemporary political economy. For this reason, environmental policy has been consigned to a realm that is not very relevant to material welfare.

A second reason for the lack of attention to environmental issues comes from more serious and reasoned objections to the theories that placed environmental issues on the intellectual map.

Type
Chapter
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Sustaining Abundance
Environmental Performance in Industrial Democracies
, pp. 204 - 214
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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  • CONCLUSION
  • Lyle Scruggs, University of Connecticut
  • Book: Sustaining Abundance
  • Online publication: 07 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615689.009
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  • CONCLUSION
  • Lyle Scruggs, University of Connecticut
  • Book: Sustaining Abundance
  • Online publication: 07 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615689.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • CONCLUSION
  • Lyle Scruggs, University of Connecticut
  • Book: Sustaining Abundance
  • Online publication: 07 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615689.009
Available formats
×