MSc Environmental Governance

What is ‘environmental policy’? What importance should it assume within the wider universe of policy types (economic, social, cultural …)? Who does and should formulate and enact environmental policy? What values should environmental policy embody? Whose interests should it serve? What should it aim to achieve, and over what spatial and temporal scales? How can it be made more people-inclusive? What unintended knock-on effects do otherwise well considered and well-intended policies have? These questions speak to some of the major issues in defining, formulating and implementing environmental policy today. Environmental policy, in its various concrete forms, has fast risen-up local, national and international policy agendas since the late 1970s. Policy principles, goals and instruments must today be devised in a febrile context in which talk of ‘environmental crisis’, looming ‘resource scarcity’ and a transition to ‘sustainable living’ are commonplace.

This interdisciplinary unit offers participants a real world – rather than purely theoretical – perspective on the links between principles, practice and outcomes in the arena of environmental policy. It supplements the semester 1 core course unit for the MSc in Environmental Governance (‘GEOG 70921 ‘Key Debates in Environmental Governance’) and explores how different governance paradigms and instruments play-out on the ground in different places and in different environmental policy arenas. The unit is compulsory and core for EG students, but can be taken as an option by others.

• To provide participants with a detailed working knowledge of the principles, practices and outcomes of environmental policy today.

• To explore some of the key challenges of enacting environmental policy, and how they might be overcome.

• To give participants a detailed understanding of environmental policy as it operates in a range of environmental sectors and resource locations.

 

By taking this unit students can expect to develop academic skills including using theoretical concepts and frameworks to interpret significant and real-world policy issues, literature reviewing and synthesis of sources, and an interdisciplinary perspective on the environment.

Students will gain a broad and critical understanding of environmental policy issues and appreciate how they can be examined from a range of different analytical and theoretical positions.

Students will gain a range of transferable skills including critical thinking, argumentation, self-directed learning and writing, communication, policy analysis, and experience with engaging with primary sources (academic, policy and media).

Students are required to engage with academic (e.g. journal articles, books) and non-academic (e.g. reports, maps) digital resources for the duration of the course. Student learning is supported by online platforms through Blackboard, including session materials and digital resources.

Students will use a range of digital communications media including email, online forums, databases, archives and social media, requiring the use of popular and specialist search engines.

• Introduction: environmental policy in context.
• Rethinking restoration: policy, pragmatism and urban water daylighting.
• The city and environmental policy/politics: socio-environmental injustice and inequality. 
• Climate adaptation policies.
• Financialization and the environment: the example of the Clean Development Mechanism.
• Just Transitions and their Discontents.
• Transboundary river basins and environmental sustainability in the Global South
  Carbon removal demonstrations and the politics of open-air experiments. 
• Risk and responsibility: exploring corporate social responsibility in the extractive sector. 
• The dangers and distractions of (Net) Zero carbon.
• Course revisions and dissertation planning workshop.

The first session of the unit will map-out some of the principal dimensions of environmental policy and explore some of the generic facets, institutions, aims and concepts of environmental policy, regulation, management and governance. The follow up sessions take participants into different topical arenas each week, exploring how policy is framed and enacted in spheres such as river basin management, climate change mitigation, minerals extraction, energy consumption and flood planning. Emphasis is placed on real-world challenges and the outcomes of policy implementation. The module is team taught, and over the the course teachers will expose participants to different substantive aspects of environmental policy today – from the challenges of multi-level governance, marketisation and decentralisation, to technology and the differences between ‘hard’ (regulatory) and ‘soft’ (voluntary) environmental measures, and so on. This course unit is organised through a set of lectures and discussion seminars where to make connections between theory and practice. For each session, the lecturer frames and explores a specific environmental policy issue. The course thus requires active preparation by reading and taking notes before seminars and active participation in the lectures/seminars and then writing a proposal and final essay on a topic chosen from a broad list.

• Understand the main tenets of the environmental policy process, including formation, implementation and evaluation.
• Critically situate environmental policy in its wider political, economic and cultural contexts.
• Comprehend the challenges facing different environmental sectors (e.g. energy, water).
• Evaluate different theoretical approaches in relation to real world policy issues.
• Engage with key contemporary debates and challenges in environmental policy.

• Think critically and independently.
• Analyse and evaluate different kinds of argumentation.
• Make connections between theoretical arguments and real-world cases.
• Assess the merits of contrasting theories and their policy implications.
• Write and present clearly thought-out arguments based on academic literatures.

• Critical thinking and logical reasoning in written and oral contexts.
• Organisational skills and independent learning.
• Data collection skills.

• Clarity in written communication.
• Motivated and self-directed learning.
• Critical thinking and argumentation.

Assessment 1:

Essay proposal and policy conceptual diagram - 500 words - Oral formative feedback from convenor and written feedback within 15 working days of submission through Turnitin, in line with university policy - 15%.

Assessment 2:

Final coursework essay - 2500 words - Written feedback within 15 working days of submission through Turnitin, in line with university policy - 85%.

Assessment 1:

Essay proposal and policy conceptual diagram - 500 words - Oral formative feedback from convenor and written feedback within 15 working days of submission through Turnitin, in line with university policy - 15%.

Assessment 2:

Final coursework essay - 2500 words - Written feedback within 15 working days of submission through Turnitin, in line with university policy - 85%.

Key text: Evans, J. and Thomas, C. (2024) Environmental Governance (2nd edition), London: Routledge

Adger, N. and Jordan A. (2009) (eds) Governing sustainability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 
Backstrand, K. et al (eds) (2010) Environmental politics and deliberative democracy (Edward Elgar).
Basu, M. (eds) (2024) The Routledge Handbook of International Environmental Policy (London, Routledge)
Beder, S. (2006) Environmental principles and policies: an interdisciplinary introduction (Earthscan, London).
Bromley, D. and Paavola, J. (2002) Economics, ethics and environmental policy (Oxford: Blackwell).
Cohen, S. (2006) Understanding Environmental Policy (New York: Columbia University Press). 
Cullenward, D. and Victor, D. (2020) Making climate policy work (Cambridge, Polity).
Elling, B. (2010) Rationality and the environment: decision making in environmental politics and assessment (London: Earthscan).
Goria, A. et al. (eds) (2010) Governance for the environment: a comparative analysis of environmental policy integration (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).
Haigh, N. (1998 onwards) Manual of European environmental policy (Elsevier: Oxford). [Updated yearly]
Held, D. et al. (eds) (2011) The governance of climate change (Cambridge: Polity)
Jordan, A.  and Lenschow, A. (eds) (2008) Innovation in environmental policy? (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).
Jordan, A. et al. (eds) (2010) Climate change policy in the European Union: confronting the dilemmas of mitigation and adaptation? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Kütting, G. and Lipschutz, R. (2009) Environmental governance: power and knowledge in a local-global world (London: Routledge)
Meijer, J. and der Berg, A. (2010) Handbook of environmental policy (Nova Science Publishers).
Minteer, B. (2009) Nature in Common? Environmental Ethics and the Contested Foundations of Environmental Policy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).
O’Neill, J. (1993) Ecology, policy and politics (London: Routledge).
O’Neill, J. et al. (2008) Environmental values (London: Routledge).
Roberts, J. (2010) Environmental Policy (London: Routledge) [available as e-book via Manchester library]
Soderholm, P. (ed.) (2010) Environmental policy and household behaviour (London: Earthscan).
Snell, C. and Haq, G. (2014) The Short Guide to Environmental Policy (Bristol: Policy Press)
Speth, J. and Haas, P. (2006) Global environmental governance (Island Press, Washington). 
Vig, N., Kraft, M. and Rabe B. (2021) Environmental policy: new directions for the 21st Century, 11th Edition (CQ Press: Washington).
 

This course unit will support EDI through using and providing students with resources from a diverse range of authors and contexts. Students can choose to focus their essays on issues they are most comfortable with undertaking, and they will receive support in selecting appropriate case studies. DASS students will be supported through discussing research expectations. Assessment has been designed not to disadvantage any student.