STS 3311

Environmental Governance

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

Environmental governance is defined as the assemblage of institutions that regulate society-nature interactions and shape environmental outcomes across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Institutions, broadly defined, are mechanisms of social coordination including laws (formal) and social norms (informal) that guide the behavior of individuals. Participants in the course will explore the roles of governments, markets, and collective action in environmental management and mismanagement. We will emphasize interactions among leading environmental policy strategies: public regulation, market-based incentives, and community-based resource management. The course is focused around a set of analytic perspectives. These theoretical frameworks allow us to synthesize empirical observations and material changes in ways that inform our understanding of contemporary evolution of environmental policy and management.

When Offered Fall.

Distribution Category (SSC-AS) (SBA-AG)
Course Attribute (CU-SBY)

• Students will gain familiarity with the concepts, theories, and applications of institutional analysis applied to environment.
• Students will develop critical awareness of the strengths and weakness of states, markets, and collective structures as resources for social regulation.
• Students will develop an historical appreciation of environmental policy in order to reflect critically on contemporary status and trends.
• Students will develop an interdisciplinary understanding of environmental policy through exploration of economic, sociological, and political scientific perspectives.
• Students will be exposed to a broad range of environmental problems and policy and management responses. Coverage includes national and international cases, and analyses at multiple scales.
• Students will develop capacity to conduct institutional analysis including the specification of a research question, policy research, synthesis, and communication.
• Students will build generic competencies including reading of scientific and popular texts, writing, oral communication, group work, and critical analysis.

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