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Geographies of Environmental Governance: The Nexus of Nature and Neoliberalism
Author(s) -
Himley Matthew
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
geography compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.587
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 1749-8198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00094.x
Subject(s) - environmental governance , nexus (standard) , corporate governance , neoliberalism (international relations) , scholarship , political ecology , politics , sociology , governmentality , agency (philosophy) , environmental ethics , polycentricity , political science , environmental studies , social science , economics , management , law , philosophy , computer science , embedded system
Environmental governance has emerged as both a key organizing concept and priority arena of research for nature–society geographers. This article offers a critical review of the burgeoning geographical literature on environmental governance, emphasizing how geographers have employed the concept to analyze how neoliberal globalization has entailed a fundamental reconfiguration of the organizational and institutional arrangements through which society–environment relations are governed. I begin by tracing the diverse bodies of scholarship and theoretical perspectives – including political ecology and institutional theories of political economy – that have shaped how geographers have approached environmental governance. I then examine three themes central to work on the ‘neoliberalization’ of environmental governance: privatization and enclosure, the rescaling of governance, and the role of oppositional social movements. Finally, I propose that future research place more emphasis on documenting and analyzing the practices of neoliberal environmental governance through ethnographic methods.