Environmental Protection In Multi Layered Systems

The book aims at understanding the current distribution and use of powers over the environment among various layers of government and their consequences on environmental protection, comparing federal, regional and unitary State models and drawing theoretical and practical consequences.

Federalism as decision-making deals with the fundamental question of what answers federalism, as a pragmatic governance tool, can provide to current challenges. Federal theories and the management of specific policies are examined from a comparative and multi-disciplinary perspective.

The literature on Multi-level governance (MLG), an approach that explicitly looks at the system of the many interacting authority structures at work in the global political economy, has grown significantly over the last decade. The authors in this volu

Rapid environmental change calls for individuals and societies with an ability to transform our interactions with each other and the ecosystems upon which we depend. Adaptive capacity - the ability of a social-ecological system (or the components of that system) to be robust to disturbances and capable of responding to changes - is increasingly recognized as a critical attribute of multi-level environmental governance. This unique volume offers the first interdisciplinary and integrative perspective on an emerging area of applied scholarship, with contributions from internationally recognized researchers and practitioners. It demonstrates how adaptive capacity makes environmental governance possible in complex social-ecological systems. Cutting-edge theoretical developments are explored and empirical case studies offered from a wide range of geographic settings and natural resource contexts, such as water, climate, fisheries and forestry. • Of interest to researchers, policymakers and resource managers seeking to navigate and understand social-ecological change in diverse geographic settings and resource contexts

The US, Switzerland and Canada are wealthy democracies that should be conducive to effective decentralized or cooperative environmental policy-making. However, a closer examination of their environmental policy over many decades finds no evidence that these approaches have worked. So does it matter which level of government makes policy? Can cooperation between sub-national governments protect the environment? Building on comparative case studies on air and water pollution and making use of extensive historical material, Inger Weibust questions how governance structure affects environmental policy performance in the US, Switzerland, Canada and the European Union. The research breaks new ground by studying formal and informal environmental cooperation. It analyzes whether federal systems with more centralized policy-making produce stricter environmental policies and debates whether devolution and the establishment of subsidiaries will lead to less environmental protection. An essential insight into the complexities of policy-making and governance structures, this book is an important contribution to the growing debates surrounding comparative federalism and multi-level governance.

The main theme of this book is the adaptation process of the new EU member states from Central-Eastern Europe (Hungary and Poland) to the multi-level system of governance in public policy, particularly in the regional and environmental policy areas. The work conceptualizes policy learning and institutional and policy adaptation within the EU system of governance and draws lessons from the experience of previous waves of enlargement-cohesion-countries (Ireland, Portugal and Greece). In doing so, the book makes an important contribution to the literature on the transformation of domestic policy-making structures, as a result of the increasing Europeanization of public policy, as well as on the conceptual tools, explanatory variables and mechanisms determining this process.