new edition of Green Planet Blues
I know there are some folks on the GEP-ED list who have used our Green Planet Blues anthology in their teaching. We just wanted to alert users to the new edition, available in January. A summary with new table of contents and desk-copy info is attached. If you have any questions about the new pieces, or if you would like to get a look at any of them to prepare for classroom use, just let Geoff Dabelko or me know...Ken Conca Dr. Ken Conca Professor of Government and Politics Director, Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda 3140 Tydings Hall College Park MD 20742 USA 301-405-4125 voice 301-314-9690 fax kco...@gvpt.umd.edu www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/conca Green Planet Blues 4th edition.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document
comparative risk assessment case study
GEPED Colleagues: I am looking for a case study on comparative risk assessment for a class on advanced topics in environmental policy analysis. This class tries to provide critical literacy in various policy-analytic techniques that my students will encounter in the environmental policy world (EIS, risk assessment, cost-benefit, rulemaking and hearing processes, and so on). There are plenty of texts out there on comparative risk assessment and its limits/perils/assumptions, but the course design tries to avoid text books and lecturing in favor of having the students slog through primary materials. So what I'd really like is a report that provides an actual, detailed attempt to compare risks, done by a government agency, consultant, community group, or international organization. Ideally, I'd rather have a smaller exercise (e.g., which pesticides are worse) than one of these larger priority-setting exercises that many states in the US have begun to do under the rubric of comparing risks. If anyone has any good suggestions, please let me know off-list. I will compile the results and circulate to the list. Thanks....Ken Conca
[no subject]
Colleagues: Nils Petter Gleditsch asked me to post this conference announcement to the list. It is for a conference on climate change and security, to be held in Trondheim, Norway, on 21–24 June 2010. The call for papers is now open, and ends on August 31. For more information, see the conference homepage at www.dknvs.no/climsec Queries may be e-mailed to the organizing committee at clim...@dknvs.no...Ken Conca *** Call for papers on climate change and security *** A conference on ‘Climate change and security’ is being organized for the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. The conference will take place 21–24 June 2010 in Trondheim, Norway. The purpose of this conference is to examine the broad security implications of climate change. For the last few years, the debate about climate change has increasingly focused on the social implications, including the implications for security and peace. But as yet there is little academic work in this area. While the science of climate change is well established on the basis of peer-reviewed publications, the literature on the security implications remains more speculative. We aim to move this field forward with the joint efforts of scholars from multiple fields. Over four days, morning plenary sessions will feature keynote addresses by established names in the field. The afternoon sessions will consist of workshops with research papers selected on the basis of an open call. The first day will present the scientific basis for climate change. A major emphasis will be on the physical effects of climate change, but with particular reference to those effects that are likely to have social consequences, such as droughts, floods, and sea-level rise. The second day will deal with the economic effects of climate change – its negative and positive economic effects, as well as policies designed to respond to climate change. The third day will examine the implications of climate change for violent armed conflict of different kinds (interstate war, civil war, non-state group conflict, genocide and politicide). The fourth day will focus on security in a wider sense of the word, reviewing a wide range of consequences of climate change for human livelihoods, as well the insecurity of climate predictions, and subjective insecurity in facing the future as revealed by attitude surveys. Following the conference, we hope to gather some of the best papers in a special issue of a relevant journal or an edited volume with an academic publisher. The conference webpage is found at www.dknvs.no/climsec. You can also go directly to the Call for papers at http://climsec.prio.no/paper_submission.aspx. The Call ends on 31 August 2009. The organizing committee for the conference consists of Nils Petter Gleditsch, Ola Listhaug & Ragnar Torvik, professor of political science and economics respectively at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
Re: thesis and dissertation "writing" -- noted without comment
On cheating, great discussion, thanks to those who have been posting. A few
random thoughts:
Rational choice/incentive model: People cheat when the stakes are high and the
sanctions are low/unlikely. I read of one study in which MBA students were
found more likely than JD students to cheat, attributed to the latter's fear of
not being allowed to sit for the bar exam if caught. I try reasonably to catch
them, but do my students really fear being caught? I doubt it.
Socialization/norms model: I will speak only for the USA. (1) Studies show that
young people here increasingly crave fame and acclaim (I blame American Idol,
seriously). (2) Neoliberal commodification of education has made teachers at
lower levels into accomplices, which must send a powerful message to the kids.
We have seen MANY staff-facilitated cheating scandals on the
No-Child-Left-Behind standardized tests by which teachers and schools are
increasingly evaluated, including my own kids' former elementary school, with
nobody fired as a result. (3) "Pay to play" politics and financial Ponzi
schemes are pretty much the heart of our political economy, as recent events
have shown. It is not too strong to say that the dominant norms in public life
have become "be famous or you are a loser", "it's the outcome, not the path to
it, by which you will be judged", and "don't get caught."
Information/transaction costs model: The line as to what constitutes plagiarism
has been blurred with online resources, web-sites that interlink and reproduce
without attribution, etc, and students in K-12 are not taught seriously where
the line is; and the transaction costs have dropped greatly with cut-and-paste,
Google, Wikipedia, and online buy-a-paper sites.
In other words, all our social-science approaches lead in the same direction.
Too bleak?
On a lighter note, veterans will recall that GEPED had its own experience
several years ago, when someone posted a paragraph from a paper that a student
couldn't possibly have written, and I recognized it as being from Nancy
Peluso's chapter in the edited volume Ronnie Lipschutz and I did some years
back. I reproduced that e-mail exchange in my syllabi for a while, as a warning
to studentskc
>>> Susanne Moser 1/7/2009 11:24 AM >>>
Good morning everyone -
I don't know about you all - maybe you're used to this, maybe you're
cynical, maybe you've given up but I find all these posts rather
disturbing to read. I don't teach at a colleague or university so don't
have first-hand experience. Thus forgive if this is a totally dumb
question, but can someone please offer some hunches as to the reasons
for why such services exist?
Are professors placing too many demands on students (either or both in
quantity or quality)? Are students too dumb or ill-educated so that, by
the time they get to college they can't perform what is asked of them?
Is there a lack of mentoring, lack of writing assistance (because
professors have papers to publish or perish, and advisory staff got
cut)? Is there too much parental pressure to be a straight A student? Is
it the pressure to get into grad school and super-duper jobs? Is it
vanity? Is it just another money-making ploy by the good old capitalists
who will find just about any niche to exploit? Are morals that far out
the window and maybe more so than before? And is anyone going to get on
the barricades and resist this baffling trend of anti-intellectualism?
(if I go on for a bit, it will soon be a GEP-relevant topic)
Sorry, this just got me all rallied up, and I am not even at the bottom
of the first cup of caffeine
Susi
Peter Jacques wrote:
> Also, in this political economy of cheating, Turnitin.com offers a separate
> service ("writecheck") specifically and only for students who can see, for a
> fee, if their paper indicates plagiarism compared to the turnitin database
> without adding it to the turnitin database. At UCF, thesis chairs are now
> mandated to submit all theses and dissertations to turnitincom.
>
> Peter J. Jacques, Ph.D.
> Department of Political Science
> University of Central Florida
> P.O. Box 161356
> 4000 Central Florida Blvd.
> Orlando, FL 32816-1356
>
> Phone: (407) 823-2608
> Fax: (407) 823-0051
> http://ucf.academia.edu/PeterJacques
>
>
>
>>>> "Ken Conca" 1/7/2009 10:28 AM >>>
>>>>
> Be sure to read the section on plagiarism in the second link, in which the
> customer buying a dissertation is assured that the document will be an
> original, unplagiarized work, pre-screened with plagiarism-detecting
> software! Honor among thieves, indeedKen Conca
>
>
>>>> "Ronald Mitchell" 1/6/2009 4:39 PM >
Re: thesis and dissertation "writing" -- noted without comment
Be sure to read the section on plagiarism in the second link, in which the customer buying a dissertation is assured that the document will be an original, unplagiarized work, pre-screened with plagiarism-detecting software! Honor among thieves, indeedKen Conca >>> "Ronald Mitchell" 1/6/2009 4:39 PM >>> Colleagues, As many of us advise doctoral and masters students, I thought I would send on a site I came across while googling for "global warming dissertations": http://www.phd-dissertations.com/ and http://www.phd-dissertations.com/topic/global_warming_dissertation_thesis.ht ml Perhaps others were aware of this sort of service, but I was not. I leave it to others to determine what lessons to derive from the existence of this site. Best, Ron PS: Note that, among other options, their pricing allows delivery within 8-23 hours for only $39 per page! =-=-=-= Excerpts from the site: PhD-Dissertations.com "one of a kind and never resold" Our one-of-a-kind writing is guaranteed <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/guarantee.html> to match your specifications! Dissertations - Research Proposals - Thesis Papers Introduction dissertation Hypothesis dissertation Literature Review dissertation Methodology dissertation Conclusion Abstract - Problem Statement - Rationale - Statistical Analysis Data Collection - Results - Discussion - Recommendations 300+ Words Per Page A discount of 10% applies to orders of 75+ pages! Our New Jersey office provides phone support from 9:00 AM (EST) to 9:00 PM (EST). http://www.phd-dissertations.com/phone-2.gif An excerpt "Flexible: "You can order <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/order.html> a complete dissertation, thesis, or research proposal, from the first page through the last page. Or, we can write an individual chapter <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/dissertations_features.html> , section <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/dissertations_features.html> , abstract <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/abstract.html> , literature review <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/literaturereview.html> , proposal <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/proposal.html> , etc. Optionally, our doctoral-level researchers can supplement their scholarly information, innovative ideas, and current sources with any documents that you wish to provide. If you have already written parts of your dissertation or thesis, you can provide us with your existing material. We will incorporate that material into our process <http://www.phd-dissertations.com/dissertations_features.html> as a basis for expanding on your ideas, proving your hypothesis, and/or refining your arguments."
call for nominations: ISA Environmental Studies Section
I know there are several members of the ISA's Environmental Studies Section on this list, so I am taking the liberty of posting the call for nominations for section officers and committee members. If you are not a member, consider joining. If you are interested in standing for election or nominating someone else to do so, please reply promptly...Ken Conca The Nominations Committee (Michele Betsill, Ken Conca, Ronnie Lispschutz, and Dimitris Stevis) of the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association invites you to send us your nominations for the following officer positions of the Environmental Studies Section. Self-nominations are welcome, as, of course, are nominations of others (but please confirm that the nominated individuals are willing to stand for election). Please send nominations to Ken Conca at [EMAIL PROTECTED] The election will be conducted at the business meeting of the section during ISA’s annual convention, in March, and in an e-mail poll prior to the meeting. Nominees are not required to attend the convention to stand for election. Nominees should submit a short (paragraph or two) statement of qualifications. Positions opening up in 2008 include the following. For more information on the section or the committees, please see the section’s web page at http://environmental-studies.org/ --Section Vice-Chair: One person, two-year term. --Executive Committee: Six members, rolling two-year terms. Three seats open for election in 2008. --Nominations Committee: Four members, rolling two-year terms. Two seats open for election in 2008. --Harold & Margaret Sprout Award Committee: Five members, rolling two-year terms. Two seats open for election in 2008.
conference on climate and national security
GEPED colleagues: This conference, on climate change and national security, may be of interest to some on the list. I am not involved but promised to forward this, so contact the organizers directly with any questionskc *** This email is to alert you to a conference you might find interesting. It is being hosted by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (a consortium of Duke University, North Carolina State University, and UNC-Chapel Hill) and the US. Army War College and will be held on March 30th and 31st, 2007 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The conference will focus on Global Climate Change: National Security Implications - a subject both timely and important. We would warmly welcome your attendance. Please feel free to distribute this message to any of your colleagues/students you think might also like to attend. A detailed agenda and registration forms may be found by clicking on the web-site of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies - www.tiss-nc.org and following the links to the right.
Re: environmental jokes
The Weekly World News often has some fun material about outrageous disasters based on joke science that can be used to provoke more serious discussions. Those of you in the US will find it right there at the supermarket checkout line (You have seen it--these are the same folks who bring you "Psychic Pig Helps Track UFOs" etc.) My favorite: "Scientists Plan to Blow Up the Moon--We'll Have Summer All Year Round"--complete with an illustrated schematic of how changing the Earth's tilt would moderate solar effect on the seasons.Ken Conca >>> "Kate O'Neill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 02/09/06 12:35PM >>> And on Fiore, this is one of his best, from 2002: http://www.markfiore.com/animation/climate.html Would also suggest perusing the archives of The Onion for class handouts and little data snapshots (www.theonion.com). Of course, I can't think of any actual jokes... Perhaps that's because I'm in Berkeley, CA where environmental crises are NOT FUNNY. kate At 9:04 AM -0800 2/9/06, syma ebbin wrote: >The Mark Fiore website >(<http://www.markfiore.com/)>http://www.markfiore.com/) has some >good environmental cartoons (animated). Of course they have serious >political overtones and so you may not find them appropriate. > >I thought the climatemash.org site that someone had previously >listed on this listserve (was it Rob?) - was terrific! > >cheers, >Syma > >phaas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Does anyone know of any good environmental jokes, or sites that >carry such things? I want to lighten up my class so the students >don't get too bummed out. > >Peter M. Haas >Professor & Gra! duate Program Director >Department of Political Science >216 Thompson Hall >University of Massachusetts >Amherst, Massachusetts 01003 >USA >ph 1 413 545 6174 >fax 1 413 545 3349 > > > > > >>(*>>>(*>>>(*> >Syma A. Ebbin, PhD.
RE: Theory in International Environmental Politics
Neil has provoked a very interesting discussion. My silence on this was driven less by disinterest than by the stage of the (North American) calendar, as we enter that desperate time of the semesterPerhaps this could be continued in a future panel at the International Studies Association or some other forum? I wonder about the quest for a general theory, eco-political or otherwise. On the one hand, the limitations of mainstream IR theory for understanding eco-political dynamics have been probed by many scholars. (For example, my just-published book, Governing Water, begins with a critique of regime theory, essentially arguing that it holds constant certain configurations of knowledge, authority, and territoriality that are better treated as variables when it comes to thinking about the possible or existing institutional forms of environmental governance.) That said, there is a great deal of insight in regime theory that I would not want to simply toss off. The problem is not that it is "wrong" but that it offers a particularistic explanation-plus-blueprint for international institutional design. I would argue that neither the explanation nor the blueprint can be generalized across types of ecological problems, types of power and authority relations, or for that matter stages of global capitalist development. For an increasingly wide swath of socio-ecological controversies, knowledge can't be stabilized to the necessary degree for regime formation, putatively 'domestic' territory won't sit still for governance, and state-as-authority is increasingly problematic as a way to legitimize power. Who knows, there might have been a brief post-Cold War window when such stabilizations were possible around certain issues, but not now...And if so, we reach the limits of regime approach, either as a 'general' theory or as an effective political strategy. (As an aside, although I don't wish to put words in their mouths, I don't read the best contributions to regime theory as having claimed to offer such a general theory). One could deconstruct other conceptual points of departure (e.g., Hardin's tragedy of the commons, global civil society, political economy approaches) in analogous fashion. Studying environmental politics has made me sensitive to complexity, uncertainty, contingency, authority struggles, the importance of soft/socio-cultural as well as formal/legal-rational institutions, and the importance of contention and conflict as well as cooperation in generating outcomes. Under those circumstances, it seems much easier to specify what isn't going to happen than of what will, of what's not attainable rather than of what is. In my view there is a great deal of very creative work being done in/on global environmental politics. But can it be stitched together into general theory? Toward the end of his life, Kafka was reportedly asked in an interview why his work seemed to suggest hopelessness. "Certainly there is hope," he is said to have replied. "But not for us." Ken Conca >>> "Neil E Harrison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/28/2005 10:06:14 AM >>> Michael: When I was in your position several years ago, trying to build a theoretical framework for my doctoral research on international climate change policy, I used ideas from several domestic and international policy theories. In the domestic realm, for example, I used Kingdon (I liked the sense of serendipity embedded in his windows of opportunity) and in the international I used aspects of then current theory including ideas on regimes. After all, IEP is usually thought of in terms of the regimes that are created. I no longer think that this approach is useful. A more general theory (or perhaps paradigm) of global international politics would better integrate and connect the islands of information created through past research and generate more interesting research questions for future research. More recently, I have found a way of thinking about environmental politics that I believe, when fully developed, will generate a defendable (and testable) general theory of both domestic and international politics on environmental matters, which is ultimately what is needed. Despite the good work of Young especially, I think that deficiencies in the fundamental premises of current IR theory make it an unlikely source useful ideas about international environmental politics. Ecological theory suitably modified, however, is, in my mind, an essential part of a useful general theory of IEP. Good luck with the paper and with your studies. Thank you for your support, Neil -Original Message- From: Schoon, Michael L [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 5:40 PM To: Neil E Harrison Subject: RE: Theory in International Environmental Politics Neil, My name is Michael Schoon, a soon-to-be doctoral candidate stud
authors needed for globalization encyclopedia
Colleagues: I am the editor of the environment & health section of the Encyclopedia of Globalization, a large project that Jan Aart Scholte and Rowland Robertson are putting together for Routledge. We are still looking for authors for three of the many entries in this section: acid rain, desertification, natural resource depletion, and resources law. The task is to write a short entry (500-2000 words, depending on the topic) for a wide readership linking the specific topic to aspects of globalization. The author should be someone who is actively doing research on the specific issue that is the subject of the essay, and should be prepared to generate a draft essay quickly as the project is entering the wrap-up stages. If you are interested, please let me know directly rather than replying to the list....Ken Conca
Re: Contemporary structural dependency for undergrads?
Rob, I am not sure whether it would be accessible to your frosh and sophomores, but in more advanced classes I have used portions of Ankie Hoogvelt's book Globalization and the Postcolonial World, which is an attempt to update dependency theory from a globalization perspective....Ken Conca Dr. Ken Conca Associate professor of Government and Politics Director, Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland 3140 Tydings Hall College Park MD 20742 USA 301-405-4125 voice 301-314-9690 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.bsos.umd.edu/harrison >>> "Robert Darst" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/21/05 7:05 PM >>> Here's a poser: I'm looking for a reasonably contemporary presentation of structural dependency theory (i.e., the idea that national economic development is primarily determined by a country's position in the international distribution of wealth and power) that will be accessible to first-years and sophomores. I feel silly assigning pieces from the 60s and early 70s--that's so, like, ANCIENT--yet I haven't come across a clear presentation of this theory in the anti-globalization literature (though it often lurks in the background). Suggestions, anyone? Thanks, Rob Assistant Professor of Political Science University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Re: commodity chains & consumer goods
Stacy, my chapter in Confronting Consumption (Princen, Maniates, and Conca, eds.) focused on how a commodity chain perspective on global production and consumption systems posed challenges of adaptation for environmentalism as a social movement. It cites some of the classic literature on commodity chains, Fordist/post-Fordist production systems, and related themes. This chapter first appeared as an article in Global Environmental Politics vol. 1 no. 3 (August 2001). For general background you might take a look at Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism, edited by Gary Gereffi and Miguel Korzeniewicz (Praeger)--particularly the chapter by Gereffi. Also useful as a general introduction is Ash Amin, ed., Post-Fordism: A Reader. Finally, Confronting Consumption also has a case-study chapter on waste hazardous materials, by Jennifer Clapp, and a historical chapter on tropical ecosystems, by Richard Tucker Ken Conca >>> stacy vandeveer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 1/14/2005 1:40:25 PM >>> Colleagues, First, I am looking for suggestions for a short piece (an article, chapter, or part thereof) that outlines what we mean by "commodity chains" and why one might be interested in the environmental and human/labor rights issues surrounding these. Second, if folks have suggestions of material on commodity chains and consumer goods (chocolate, coffee, bananas, flowers, coltan for cell phones, etc.), I would love to have those. (not diamonds, I have loads of that material!) --Stacy Stacy D. VanDeveer 2003-06 Ronald H. O'Neal Professor Department of Political Science University of New Hampshire Durham, NH 03824 T: 603-862-0167 F: 603-862-0178 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
GEPED question: heads of state attending UNCED
TO: GEPED list Has anyone seen a list of the countries for which a head of state or government attended the 1992 UNCED meeting/Earth Summit? I have seen numerous references to the figure 108 heads of state in attendance (as well as some discrepant figures), but I cannot locate anything naming the actual states involved. We were hoping to use it as a crude indicator of the political salience of the conference in that state at that time. Thanks for any suggestionskc Dr. Ken Conca Associate professor of Government and Politics Director, Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland 3140 Tydings Hall College Park MD 20742 USA 301-405-4125 voice 301-314-9690 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.bsos.umd.edu/harrison
re: ecological sci-fi
I have used LeGuin's THE DISPOSSESSED to stimulate some good discussion in class, because it presents stark differences but also interesting ambiguities between low-throughput/community-maximizing and high-throughput/freedom-maximizing worlds. I also recommend G.W. Bush's HEALTHY FORESTS and the sequel, CLEAR SKIES, as among the best in contemporary environmental science fiction (or fiction science).Ken Conca
Ecolex and Faolex
Hi, Gep-ed nation. I haven't done much with Ecolex but a few years back made good use of FAO's 'Faolex' searchable database at http://faolex.fao.org/faolex/ which has been integrated into Ecolex along with IUCN and UNEP material. We were doing a study of the evolving principled content of international river basin agreements. Faolex has quite a bit of material related to forestry, water, fisheries, agriculture and other natural-resource matters, can be searched for both international agreements and domestic legislation, and has lots of search options (region, country, year, topical keywords, textual keywords, and more). It also tries to track changes over time such as amendments and repealed items. I assume Ecolex is built along the same lines although I have not used the newer tripartite version that merges FAO, IUCN and UNEP material. What I liked about Faolex for our purposes was that it included not only formal agreements but also "softer" items such as joint memoranda of understanding. Since we were studying the principles governments chose to articulate publicly and jointly, being able to work with both the formal and the informal was useful. That said, a potential problem with Faolex was that it included only what governments reported to it, so we had to do some cross-checking to confirm comprehensiveness of coverage. (For 1980-2000 we found only a few agreements from other sources that Faolex had missed, but we had to cut our study off at 1980 because coverage prior to that got very spotty as one moved backward in time). In other words, if one's goal is to assemble a comprehensive dataset I would be wary of using it without such independent cross-checking. I know enough about Ron's project to know that he has been paying attention to the challenges of comprehensiveness, and this is an important difference depending on one's research purposes. If anyone knows more about these aspects of Ecolex (formal versus informal, fielding reported items from governments versus independently building the data base) I'm sure that would of interest to many of us. [Also, if you happen to be interested in our river-basin study, which looked at norm diffusion, regime formation, and links between global-scale and basin-scale normative change, a research report on the project can be found at www.bsos.umd.edu/harrison and we hope to have an article in print soon). Thanks, Ron, for alerting us all to what you have been up to...Ken Conca Dr. Ken Conca Associate professor of Government and Politics Director, Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland 3140 Tydings Hall College Park MD 20742 USA 301-405-4125 voice 301-314-9690 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.bsos.umd.edu/harrison
