The first part of the research proposal
On March 3, each group will present the first part of the research proposal for 4 to 5
minutes at our Zoom lecture time. You need to prepare about five slides for the presentation.
You could either present your proposal or play your recorded video of the proposal on March 4.
Before March 14, 10 pm, each group will submit the first part of their research proposal to
the folder on D2L. This part should be 3 to 5 pages (single-spaced) and should contain the
following two sections:
1. Research Problem. In this section, you define the broad question that your research will
address and the context within which you will investigate it. You need to convince readers:
a) that the question is important in terms of its contribution to theory; and
b) that the context you have chosen is appropriate.
Question: This should not be purely descriptive (i.e., “what is out there?” “how does it
work?”), but should be about how a social process works and should have demonstrable links
to theory.
Explain to the reader where existing theory about a social process stops short, breaks down, or
is in need of revision and how your project will contribute to fixing the situation. [one-half
page to one page].
Context: Explain why you expect to learn something novel and interesting from this case.
Remember that you cannot argue that your single example is “typical” (that we can generalize
from it). Rather, you should show how its special characteristics will provide unique insights
into the social process. Why is this a good window into the processes you are interested in?
[one-half page to one page].
2. Literature Review. In this section you explain at greater length the relationship of your
research problem to the current state of knowledge in a given field.
You need to demonstrate your knowledge of previous research on this topic (or closely related
topics) that lays the groundwork for your study.
You need to consider: a) works involved in building or reconstructing the same theory (but
perhaps in different settings); and b) works on the same phenomenon or process that you are
studying that have used other theoretical perspectives.
Depending on your topic, there will be a greater or lesser depth of material, and you will need to
develop a way of deciding which works are most directly relevant. [You only need to write
two to three pages].
Grading rubrics of the research proposal (Initial thinking):
1. The issues investigated must be theoretically grounded;
2. The research should be based on empirical observation or be subject to empirical
validation or illustration;
3. The research design must be appropriate to the questions asked;
4. The proposed research must advance our understanding of social processes, structures
and methods.
5. The proposed research shows that the research outcome would have potentially broader
impacts to our societies.
The environmental nation state in decline
Mol, A. P. J.
This article is made publically available in the institutional repository of Wageningen
University and Research, under article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, also known
as the Amendment Taverne.
Article 25fa states that the author of a short scientific work funded either wholly or
partially by Dutch public funds is entitled to make that work publicly available for no
consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first
published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication
of the work.
For questions regarding the public availability of this article, please contact
[email protected].
Please cite this publication as follows:
Mol, A. P. J. (2016). The environmental nation state in decline. Environmental
Politics, 25(1), 48-68. DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2015.1074385
You can download the published version at:
https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2015.1074385
Environmental Politics, 2016
Vol. 25, No. 1, 48–68, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2015.1074385
The environmental nation state in decline
Arthur P.J. Mol*
Environmental Policy group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
The environmental nation state is not a formal category but a substantive
one. The current set of national environmental state institutions originated in
the late 1960s/1970s but has since changed in character. Many scholars note
that since the new millennium, the environmental nation state in OECD
countries is losing power and authority and is thus in decline, in line with
wider concerns about the positions of states versus markets under conditions
of (neo-liberal) globalisation. Assessing the decline of environmental nation
state authority, three conclusions are drawn. States do not lose power in all
sectors vis-à-vis markets. Hence, environmental nation state decline does not
follow a general tendency. Second, the decline of environmental nation state
powers cannot be equated with less effective or lower levels of environmental protection, as other environmental authorities have stepped in, and
the jury is still out on their environmental effectiveness. Third, declining
powers of environmental nation state institutions increasingly become a selffulfilling prophecy of environmental policymakers, but non-state environmental authorities cannot take over all environmental state functions.
Keywords: state capacity; state authority;
environmental performance; globalisation
private
governance;
Introduction
There is wide concern and criticism among environmental advocates regarding
the poor successes, declining capacity and power, and waning priorities of nation
state authorities in coping with current local and global environmental problems.
According to these advocates, environmental state agencies and ministries are
proving increasingly unable to develop, implement, and improve policies, plans,
and measures that redirect societal and economic developments towards sustainability. This concern and criticism is more than the usual qualifications of
environmental advocates who never consider the grass green enough and/or
strategically operate an apocalyptic horizon of failing environmental states to
move public opinion. Quite a number of environmental social scientists have
joined this assessment of decreasing capacity and powers of environmental
nation state authorities (e.g. Falkner 2003, Arnouts and Arts 2009, Anthoff and
*Email: [email protected]
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
Environmental Politics
49
Hahn 2010, Kraft and Vig 2010), although their analyses and assessments of
causes and consequences vary. Many scholars imply that decreasing environmental state capacity and power affect environmental protection levels, reiterating the importance of state institutions for delivery of public goods. Others have
noted that the environmental state is not the only set of organisations and
institutions with authority to deal with environmental burdens (e.g. Spaargaren
and Mol 2008).
The claim of weakening or incapable environmental nation state institutions
seems to be part of wider concerns with the ‘infrastructural power’ (Mann 1984)
of states and the changing position of states versus markets in the new millennium. Some scholars claim that under neo-liberal globalisation, the strengthening
of the power and influence of (global) market institutions came together with, at
best, the stagnating and even often-declining capacity, reach, and powers of state
institutions. However, that conclusion is not evident in respect of all agendas, as
the recent regaining by political institutions of influence and powers over global
financial markets proves.1 Under neo-liberal globalisation, some state agendas
seem to be more affected then others. Against this background, I focus here on
two questions. Is there in fact a stagnating or even waning role, capacity, and
power of environmental state authorities in OECD countries? Moreover, what
would a decline of the environmental authority of nation state institutions mean
for environmental problem solving? Hence, I aim here to qualify the weakening
of the nation state environmental authority and assess what this means for
managing prevailing environmental burdens. In the next section, I analyse the
(historical) emergence and development of environmental state institutions
before analysing why this state decline is specific to the environment. I then
evaluate the idea that this state decline affects environmental performance.
Finally, I discuss how we should normatively assess ‘shrinking’ environmental
nation state powers.
I end this introduction with a short note on concepts and delineation. In
analysing what has happened with state authority in coping with environmental
agendas, I will use the concept ‘environmental state’ in a rather analytical (and
non-normative) way (cf. Mol and Buttel 2002), akin to the concept of ‘ecological
state’ or ‘ecostate’ (cf. Meadowcroft 2005). The modern environmental state
refers to the set of governmental organisations, institutions, and practices (i.e.
what James Meadowcroft refers to as ‘structures and arrangements’) that have
been developed and installed over a five-decade period to cope with the modern
environmental burdens that have emerged on public and political agendas since
the 1960s, initially in OECD countries and later more globally. This set of state
organisations, institutions, and practices differs in form, size, outlook, and
functioning according to time and place. Hence, the environmental state is not
an ahistorical formal category, but rather a substantive one. In its modern form
(on which I will concentrate), it developed in the 1960s and 1970s in the OECD
countries, spread to wider geographies in the following two decades, and changed in character. We will have to see – and will start analysing here – how long it
50
A.P.J. Mol
will last, where, and with what prospects. My core focus is on national state
institutions in OECD countries.
Environmental nation state decline
The idea of environmental nation state stagnation and decline can only be
understood with a historical perspective. Roughly speaking, the environmental
state in the OECD countries has gone through at least four phases. In these
different historical phases, the outlook and configuration of environmental state
institutions reflect the specifics of national historical contexts, policy styles,
environmental threats, and national economic and political developments, as
various historical and comparative studies of national environmental policy and
management have shown (e.g. Hays 1987, Ahuis 2004, Hillstrom and Hillstrom
2010, Steinberg and VanDeveer 2012). Whereas the phases have thus not developed exactly synchronously in all OECD countries, and national environmental
state prospects are ‘coloured’ by national circumstances, for the purpose of this
discussion I sketch the main tendencies and periods and neglect individual
particularities and outliers.
Rise and institutionalisation
Until the late 1950s/early 1960s, most developed states had installed only
marginal state organisations and institutions to cope with environmental destruction, often initially at local levels. Nature protection and nature conservation was
a main focal point since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in
Europe, the USA, and Russia, and some national health-related organisations and
institutions were in place (e.g. on drinking water, urban waste collection and
dumping, workplace safety, and health). Alternatively, to put it in Samuel Hays
(1987) terminology, ‘beauty’ and ‘health’ received some state attention, but
‘permanence’ did not (yet). Most of the modern environmental threats related
to ‘permanence’, such as industrial and agricultural surface and ground water
pollution, air pollution, toxic chemicals, and soil pollution, as well as the more
international and global environmental threats, were left unaddressed.
The period from the 1960s until the early 1980s could be marked as the
era of establishment and institutionalisation of the modern environmental
nation state. Triggered by wide public protests and local and national environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), most OECD countries
constructed governmental environmental institutions and capacity in the form
of: national environmental laws and regulations; national governmental organisations (ministries, environmental protection agencies, and environmental
advisory councils); national environmental planning and policy instruments
such as Environmental Impact Assessments; environmental inspection, control,
and enforcement; and others (see Binder 2002, Busch et al. 2005). These state
institutions and organisations were constructed most visibly at the nation state
Environmental Politics
51
level, but often had equivalents or operational arms at lower governmental
levels. The division of tasks and responsibilities between these governmental
levels differed by country, depending among others on culture, size, and state
form.
The 1980s can be seen as a decade of stagnation of environmental state
capacity building due to two interdependent reasons. First, the neo-liberalisation
debates and pressure, most strongly felt in the USA and the UK but with wider
outreach, hampered further building, expansion, and detailing of environmental
state capacity (McCormick 1991, Kraft and Vig 2010). Second, disappointment
with the results of environmental state institutions and organisations in mitigating
environmental devastations resulted in debates on environmental state failure
(e.g. Jänicke 1986) and reflections on the poor performance of a ‘nation state
strategy’ in addressing environmental infringements. Budgets, human resources,
new legislation, and policies stagnated and occasionally came under threat,
especially at the national level, marking a type of cap on two decades of rapid
environmental state expansion. However, although environmental deregulation
and privatisation were frequently mentioned and even planned in those years, in
retrospect, no overall shrinking or decline of environmental nation state institutions and capacities can be identified in industrialised countries during the 1980s
(Collier 1997, Mol and Buttel 2002).
The 1990s, then, can best be marked as an era of environmental state
redefinition, reinvention, regained legitimation, and increased power and capacity in two ways. First, the environmental state became much further embedded
in and connected to wider segments of society and the economy. This expanded
scope manifested itself in new steering strategies and instruments (or governance
models) and in participation of non-state actors in all types of partnerships,
hybrid institutions, and participative governance models. These models, strategies, and instruments meant a stronger embeddedness of environmental nation
state institutions in societies (including the economy), which further strengthened
(rather than weakened or undermined) the operational arms of the environmental
nation state. Concepts of regulatory reinvention in the USA (Rosenbaum 2000,
Kraft and Vig 2010) or political modernisation in Europe (Jänicke 1993, Van
Tatenhove et al. 2000) capture this renovation of the environmental nation state.
Second, international and global environmental agendas emerged strongly, and
the environmental nation state became refortified and legitimised through addressing international and global challenges via international cooperation.
International environmental treaties (UNEP 2012, p. 464), international environmental summits, international environmental organisations and networks, and
international environmental programs and support mushroomed and further
expanded and legitimised the environmental nation state powers. Most of these
international actions were developed, monitored, funded, implemented, and
verified primarily or mainly through the international state system. Together,
these developments set aside debates and questions on the need, powers, adequacy, and capacity of environmental nation state institutions and organisations
52
A.P.J. Mol
in addressing environmental burdens, and arguably extended the age of the
Environmental Leviathan (Paehlke and Torgerson 1990).
Stagnation and decline
In the remainder of this article, I will further assess the fourth, current phase in
the development of the modern environmental nation state in OECD countries.
My thesis is that this phase should be labelled one of stagnation and relative
decline of the environmental nation state. In this phase, the power, capacity, and
impact of the environmental nation state in most OECD countries are stagnating
and, in particular countries, even declining. Alternatively, to put it in terms of
Knill et al. (2009), the density and intensity of environmental nation state
operations are affected. Density refers to the number of policies and interventions
of the environmental nation state institutions, intensity to the strictness/stringency (or when subsidies are involved, generosity) of environmental nation state
interventions. Indicators or proxies that ‘measure’ such affected density and/or
intensity include, for instance, the following: state capacities in terms of number
of national staff and budgets at environmental state institutions; the output and
innovation of stringent environmental laws, of new, effective environmental
policy instruments, and of ambitious environmental plans; effective implementation of environmental state decisions; quality and efficiency of environmental
state administration; adequacy of nation state institutions in addressing new
environmental challenges; environmental Weberianness (Rauch and Evans
2000); and relative power of environmental state institutions vis-à-vis other
(nation-)state institutions and vis-à-vis major private parties. However, such
indicators/proxies are not easy to quantify and compare across time, and there
is little monitoring of such indicators and proxies.2
There is, of course, longitudinal data on environmental quality, emissions,
and performance of OECD countries, such as those compiled by the Yale
centre of Environmental Policy (Hsu et al. 2014), from the World Resources
Institute database, or from UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook data portal.
However, these longitudinal data sets cannot be related back to national state
capacity or state performance, as many other variables intervene. Other
studies have compiled comparative data sets that are related to state capacity,
but often these data were not collected longitudinally or were not collected
over a sufficiently long period (e.g. Weidner and Jänicke 2002, Esty and
Porter 2005, Jacob and Volkery 2006). There hardly exist longitudinal
national databases with indicators on environmental states covering the past
one-and-a-half decades or so. More-qualitative country case studies do exist
that interpret and assess environmental state capacities, often regarding specific environmental issue areas. I will present three longitudinal databases and
some qualitative country case studies to make a reasonable case for the thesis
of environmental nation state stagnation/decline in OECD countries, under the
current condition of an expanding environmental agenda.
Environmental Politics
53
Environmental capacities as measured by the number of staff of national
Ministries for the Environment and/or national environmental protection
agencies between the 1990s and early 2010s show some variation among
the different OECD countries (Table 1).3 A group of countries show stagnation in staff numbers in national environmental authorities (the USA, Japan,
Finland, Sweden, Norway). Another group of countries show declining staff
numbers in national ministries but some increase in staff at executive
environmental agencies (Germany, Austria, New Zealand). A third group
of countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, and
Australia, experience (sharp) declines in number of staff at national environmental authorities (but not always at agencies). A second indicator documents public environmental expenditures. Between 1995 and 2012 in the
EU, public environmental expenditures as percentages of total government
expenditures and as percentage of GDP (since 2002) have been stagnating
or decreasing for most European OECD countries, with a single exception –
Sweden (European Commission/Eurostat 2011, Eurostat 2014). The USEPA
budget in constant dollars also stabilised between 1990 and 2008 (Kraft and
Vig 2010, p. 378).
The World Economic Forum has surveyed business leaders of different
countries over a number of years on the stringency of national environmental regulation and the stringency of national environmental enforcement
(ranging from 1 = lax to 7 = stringent; e.g. WEF 2014, p. 56–57). Average
perceived levels of environmental regulatory and enforcement stringency for
OECD countries have stayed rather stable, whereas those of all countries
have increased between 2004/2005 and 2013/2014 (see Figure 1). OECD
countries with decreasing national staff capacity (see Table 1) have systematically a lower perceived environmental (regulation and enforcement) stringency than do those OECD countries with stagnating environmental staff
capacity (on average a 0.4/0.5 difference over the years).
5.6
5.4
5.2
5
4.8
4.6
4.4
4.2
4
3.8
3.6
regulation stringency all
regulation stringency OECD
enforcement stringency all
enforcement stringency OECD
2004/2005 2006/2007 2009/2010 2011/2012 2013/2014
Figure 1. Company CEO perceptions of stringency of environmental regulation and
enforcement in OECD countries and all countries (scale 1 = lax, 7 = stringent). Source:
World Economic Forum database.
54
A.P.J. Mol
Table 1. Number of staff of national Ministries of the Environment/Environmental
Protection Agencies in the 1990s and 2010s for selected OECD countries.
Country
Number of
staff 1990s
Number of staff
2010s
Australia*
Declining
Declining
Annual reports of
ministries
(1995)
2540 (2013)
Andersen and Liefferink
(1997, p. 89); website
UBA; Bundeskanzleramt
data
(2003)
853 (2013)
(1995)
479 (2014)
(1991)
6973 (2010)
6400 (2014)
138 (2002)
70 (2008)
3400 (1999)
2575 (2006)
450 (1996)
450 (2014)
295 (1994)
280 (2014)
Andersen and Liefferink
(1997, p. 129); website
MoE
>800 (1993)

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