Center for Environmental Politics

http://depts.washington.edu/envirpol/

Mission

The Center for Environmental Politics seeks to play a leadership role in producing and disseminating empirical social science research on new modes of environmental politics, policy, and governance at local, regional, national, and global levels. The Center’s 24 Faculty Associates are leaders in their fields and the 18 Graduate Fellows are working on exciting doctoral projects.

Although there has been substantial progress in the development of technical and scientific knowledge about the causes of several environmental problems, the translation of these ideas into politically feasible governance regimes has been a major stumbling block. The repeated lessons of these failures underscore the basic point that environmental challenges pose distinctive political and governance challenges that need to be addressed with equal footing to their economic and technical dimensions. Therefore, the agenda of the proposed Center is motivated by two core questions. First, why, despite the fact that the risks and costs associated with many environmental problems are substantial, and there are attractive technical solutions to address them, individual as well as organizations are not adequately motivated to address them? Second, how can be devise institutions and governance structures to respond to environmental challenges.

Core Services Offered

The Center provides intellectual community for faculty and graduate students across
campus interested in social science dimensions of environmental politics,
policy, and governance. The Center will play a leadership role in training the
next generation of environmental politics scholars.

Related UW Entities

College of Arts & Sciences: Department of Political Science, Department of Geography, Jackson School of International Studies, Department of Philosophy,Department of Scandinavian Studies, Department of Communication
School of Marine and Environmental Affairs
School of Environmental and Forestry Sciences
Milgard School of Business, UW Tacoma
Division of Politics, Philosophy & Public Affairs, UW Tacoma
School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Bothell
Additional cross-campus participation among social scientists is anticipated over time