Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART I Earth system analysis
- PART II Society and institutions of global; environmental change
- 4 The social embeddedness of global environmental governance
- 5 Globalising a green civil society: in search of conceptual clarity
- PART III Self-regulation of industry and the law
- PART IV The potential of the state
- PART V The potential of world regions
- PART VI Formation and implementation of international regimes
- PART VII Improving the instruments of global governance
- PART VIII Fundamental concepts of institutionalising common concern
- Index
4 - The social embeddedness of global environmental governance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART I Earth system analysis
- PART II Society and institutions of global; environmental change
- 4 The social embeddedness of global environmental governance
- 5 Globalising a green civil society: in search of conceptual clarity
- PART III Self-regulation of industry and the law
- PART IV The potential of the state
- PART V The potential of world regions
- PART VI Formation and implementation of international regimes
- PART VII Improving the instruments of global governance
- PART VIII Fundamental concepts of institutionalising common concern
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Facing the challenges of global environmental change is more than a political and legal problem – it is also a social one. New institutions of global environmental governance have to be rooted in the emerging‘world society’. However, what are the societal preconditions for the institutionalisation of new patterns of governance that allow for an environmentally effective and socially acceptable way of dealing with global environmental problems? One might argue that the new and sometimes threatening nature of these problems will almost automatically lead the ‘world society’ to develop efficient institutional forms of dealing with them, following a kind of rational logic of problem pressure and interest in survival. Yet it is a well known fact that there is no deduction from problems (ⅰ) to problem perceptions and (ⅱ) to solutions. Especially if complex and far-reaching problems are at stake, as in the case of global environmental change, even the very definition of the nature and the scope of the problem is contested, forcing social science research towards reconstructing the process of their social construction. The same holds for the solutions: what might be regarded as a reasonable (effective, feasible, acceptable …) solution varies according to the different actors involved and their views of nature and society, interests, and institutional and national backgrounds. One might even doubt whether ‘rational’ solutions have a chance against those that merely reflect power structures and actual interests of the parties involved.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Multilevel Governance of Global Environmental ChangePerspectives from Science, Sociology and the Law, pp. 79 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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