Open AccessBook
Rational Ecology: Environment and Political Economy
TLDR
In this paper, the authors describe the variety of institutional arrangements through which collective decisions can be achieved and make special reference to decision-making on ecology, and assesses those means in connection with various forms of rationality used to make decisions and to act.Abstract:
The book describes the variety of institutional arrangements through which collective decisions can be achieved and makes special reference to decision-making on ecology. According to the author, the means employed by societies to make collective choices have far-reaching ramifications for the kind of world which exists or develops. He assesses those means in connection with various forms of rationality used to make decisions and to act: markets, bureaucracies, and polyarchies are among the institutional arrangements evaluated. He examines their capacity for intelligent decision-making, based on notions of justice, individual liberty or economic efficiency, and measures these against the yardstick of environmental concerns, a pressing set of problems which transcend particular political and institutional arrangements. The analysis extends beyond the realm of environmental choice to elucidate more fully the characteristics of the world's social choice mechanisms and proposes innovations for improving these forms.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services
TL;DR: The concept of ecosystem service value can be a useful guide when distinguishing and measuring where trade-offs between society and the rest of nature are possible and where they can be made to enhance human welfare in a sustainable manner.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to complexity blinder
TL;DR: The stock-flow metaphor of nature as a stock that provides a flow of services is insufficient for the difficulties we are in or the task ahead as discussed by the authors, combined with the mistaken presumption that we can analyze a global problem within a partial equilibrium economic framework and reach a new economy project-by-project without major institutional change.
Hazards and disaster planning theory’s emerging paradigm: communicative action and interactive practice
TL;DR: The gap between theory and practice in planning is closing as a new type of planning theorist is beginning to dominate the field as discussed by the authors, who make the gap complaint moot because they take practice as the raw material of their inquiry.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ecological modernisation theory in debate: A review
Arthur P.J. Mol,Gert Spaargaren +1 more
TL;DR: This article reviewed the various debates ecological modernisation ideas have been engaged in, focusing on more contemporary discussions, which only to some extent reflect similar topics, and respectively entered into discussions with constructivists and postmodernists on the material foundation of social theory, review and refine the controversies with eco-centrists on radical versus reformist environmental reforms and contribute to neo-Marxist understanding of social inequality.
Journal ArticleDOI
Adaptive Management: Promises and Pitfalls
Rebecca J. McLain,Robert Lee +1 more
TL;DR: Evidence shows that scientific adaptive management relies excessively on the use of linear systems models, discounts nonscientific forms of knowledge, and pays inadequate attention to policy processes that promote the development of shared understandings among diverse stakeholders.