Feature publication

Cadman, Timothy. (2011). Quality and Legitimacy of Global Governance: Case Lessons From Forestry. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Since the Rio 'Earth' Summit of 1992, sustainable development has become the major policy framework through which the international community deals with pressing environmental issues such as deforestation. Implicit in this approach is the belief that the market provides the best mechanism to bring government, business and society together, and a whole plethora of market-driven schemes have been developed in response. Yet how legitimate are these institutions, and where is their democratic accountability? This book looks at four institutions created to address forest management, namely the Forest Stewardship Council (non-governmental), the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (business), the ISO 14000 Series of environmental standards (technocratic), and the United Nations Forum on Forests (governmental). It finds large discrepancies in the approaches taken, and the degree to which the four systems provide for meaningful participation and productive deliberation amongst stakeholders trying to address the global forest crisis. 

The Introduction (PDF*429KB) to this puclication is avaliable for your information.

'An innovative and outstanding piece of scholarship on forest policy, environmental politics, international relations and democracy. Written in a lively and engaging style, this study makes a major contribution to governance theory.' – David Humphreys, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Policy, The Open University, UK

'Cadman's book is theoretically rich, highly innovative, empirically exhaustive and very well written. I urge anyone who wishes to gain a solid understanding of the key debates and empirical research to read this fine piece of work.' – Ben Cashore, Professor of Environmental Governance and Political Science, Yale University, USA

TIM CADMAN Sustainable Business Fellow in the School of Accounting, Economic and Finance of the Faculty of Business at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba, Australia. He is Research Fellow of the Earth Systems Governance network and a member of the Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development. He specialises in environmental-social governance, environmental politics and policy, climate change and sustainable forest management.

For comments or feedback on this book please contact the author, Tim Cadman. 

MacKillop, Fionn. (2010). Towards More ‘Sustainable’ Water Management? The Challenges of Water and Land Use in the Los Angeles Metropolis. Editions Universitaires Europeennes.

This book is based on the author’s PhD dissertation (2004-2007) at LATTS (Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires, Societes), Paris, and the UCLA Institute of the Environment. Drawing on previous work for the author’s Master’s degree on the links between urban fragmentation and the development of water and power networks in Los Angeles (MacKillop, F., Boudreau, JA, 2008, Water and power networks and urban fragmentation in Los Angeles: Rethinking assumed mechanisms, Geoforum, 39 (6), 1833-1842), the dissertation analyses claims and controversies around water supply ‘sustainability’ in major master-planned communities in the periphery of Los Angeles. Developers, water agencies and politicians claimed that these developments would herald a new age of water and land use stewardship in the region, through innovative practices and technologies ranging from novel landscaping to water demand management measures and water recycling. Despite this, local community groups, sometimes supported by national environmental organisations, were voicing their opposition on the grounds that these developments would make an already difficult situation even worse. The region would be exposed to more water shortages, especially in the context of climate change. To go beyond these sometimes passionate arguments, the author mobilised urban regime theory, urban political ecology and other approaches, to question the notion of ‘sustainability’ in this context by analysing what the word meant, for which group, and why, with the aim of producing an accurate picture of where this region is going in terms of managing its water and land use.

Fionn MacKillop is an Early Career Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development, University of Southern Queensland. He was previously a Research Fellow on the Climate Science and Urban Design research project funded by the ESRC within the Manchester Architectural Research Centre at The University of Manchester, UK. His research interests include sustainable water management, urban climate science, waste management, sustainable urban development, urban political ecology, and actor-network theory.

For comments or feedback on this book please contact the author, Fionn MacKillop. 

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