Summary: Environmental Policy

Read the summary and the most important questions on Environmental Policy

• 1 Module 1: Hierarchies

• 1.2 Introducing Hierarchies

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• What is a hierarchical mode of governance?

  • Relies on top-down decision-making and authority 
    
  • Primarily connected to public policy at the international, national, regional, and local level
  • Power is needed and is exercised through rule-setting, monitoring, reporting, and sanctioning 
  • Relies on command & control 

• Traditional areas of environmental policy making where hierarchical modes of governance are used:

  • Air and noise pollution
    
  • Waste management 
  • Environmental standards on technologies

• Why is the state so important in hierarchical governance?

  • The state is the dominating force in hierarchical governance
    
  • Governments are the highest legitimate authority with the power to coerce, tax, and punish its subjects 
  • Governments are the only ones that can adopt and enforce laws to forbid certain behavior by people or industries
  • There is no authority above national governments (with the exception of the European Union) that can adopt and enforce laws and regulations 

• During the 1990s, command and control regulation increasingly made way for industrial 'self-regulation'. Explain.

  Governments were not anymore to set and enforce rules to limit environmental degradation, but instead, industries themselves were to 'sets and enforces rules and standards relating to the conduct of firms in the industry' (Gupta and Lad, 1983). Industries report in what they are doing and what improvements they make to the government.

• Self-regulation doesn't mean that the government is absent. Explain.

  It often sets time-lines, provide incentives or threaten with legislation to ensure that self-regulation has the desired effects.

• What are Voluntary Environmental Agreements (VEAs)?

  Agreements among the corporate, government, and/or non-profit sector not required by legislation that aim to improve environmental quality or natural resource utilization.

• What are the five main characteristics of an ideal bureaucracy according to Max Weber?

  1. Division of labor
     
  2. Hierarchy of organization 
  3. Written rules and regulations 
  4. Impersonality 
  5. Employment based on technical qualifications 

• 1.3 Theme: Command & Control

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• Command and control: definition, author, and year.

  Command and control rules impose detailed, legally enforceable limits, conditions, and affirmative requirements, generally controlling sources that generate pollution on an individual basis (Steinzor, 1998).

• Provide 3 practical examples of environmental issues where command and control policies have been put in place.

  1. Limits set on the volume of timber that could be harvested 
     
  2. Bans on the cutting of trees
  3. Maximum levels legally allowed for pollution emissions 

• Name 3 characteristics of command and control regulation.

  1. Often used for point-source emissions from stationary and non-stationary sources 
     
  2. Legally binding to comply
  3. Non-compliance leads to fines and/or criminal prosecution