Selected Issues: Global Environmental Governance

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/S_SIGEG

Course Objective

Learning outcomes: A. Knowledge and understanding
- The student has acquired knowledge and understanding of: (1) major empirical developments in Global Environmental Governance. B. Skills
- The student is able to: (2) identify the policy relevance of the results of political research as well as detecting pitfalls and shortcomings; (3) apply theories and approaches of International Relations to the policy field of global environmental governance. (4) write an academic research paper at Master's level; (5) give a presentation and engage in an academic debate. C. Attitude
- The student displays: (6) critical theoretical and normative reflection on research results.

Course Content

This course introduces students to the current state of research within the field of global environmental governance. Global environmental change is one of the great challenges humankind is facing today. Humans now influence almost all biological and physical systems of the planet. Scientists today see mounting evidence that the entire earth system now operates well outside the normal state exhibited over the past 500,000 years, and that human activity is generating change that extends well beyond natural variability – in some cases, alarmingly so – and at rates that continue to accelerate. The perennial question from a social science perspective is how to organize the co-evolution of societies and their surrounding environment, in other words, how to develop effective and equitable governance solutions for today’s global problems. This course teaches students how to apply core concepts of political science to substantial issues in international studies. At the same time, students will be made aware of the current state of research within the field of global environmental governance. This knowledge will be useful in the upcoming workshop later in the program. Governance refers to the phenomenon that many public functions increasingly seem to be assumed and carried out by actors other than the government actors of the nation-state. In particular, the course further investigates three profound transformations in global environmental governance: (1) the increasing diversity of agency (i.e. the observation that authority to govern is vested not only in governments and public actors but in a host of non-state actors as well); (2) the institutionalization of novel governance mechanisms and instruments beyond international agreements (e.g. private certification schemes in global forest politics); and (3), the increased fragmentation of global environmental governance into a number of functionally interlinked but increasingly conflictive policy domains (e.g. the potential overlap between climate change and biodiversity governance). For each type of empirical transformation discussed above, a selection of important examples will be analyzed. Students are encouraged to make their own contributions in the form of one essay that presents original research and one class presentation that critically discusses a concrete empirical example of global environmental governance.

Teaching Methods

Seminars

Method of Assessment

Written assignment, research paper (70%) and a group presentation (30%)

Literature

Biermann, F. & Pattberg, P. (Eds.) (2012). Global Environmental Governance Reconsidered. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Available at the VU book store). A reading list with required readings in addition to the text book will be announced in the course manual (see CANVAS)

Target Audience

Mandatory course for students in the specialisation Global Environmental Governance, Sustainability and Climate Change (GEGSCC). Elective course for students in the other specialisations.