Course Description
Explores the shift from "government" to "governance" in the domain of natural resource management, focusing on land, forests, and rangelands in the global South. It explores the promise and challenges of networked forms of governance in which non-state actors are assuming roles traditionally assumed by state agencies.
Athena Title
Environmental Governance
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
By the end of this semester, those who take this course should: 1. Be familiar with basic trends in natural resource governance and their drivers; 2. Have a basic understanding of diverse governance paradigms (regulatory, market-based, self-organization); 3. Understand the relationship between formal and informal dimensions of governance; 4. Be conversant in basic theoretical building blocks; 5. Understand the importance of (and challenges associated with) designing effective, equitable, and democratic processes within natural resource governance arenas; and 6. Be able to employ newly acquired concepts in the analysis of a particular social and/or environmental problem. While these themes are relevant to any society, the course places emphasis on developing countries and in equipping students with an interpretive lens to enable them to understand many of the deficiencies in natural resource governance observed in the global South. "Global South," as a descriptor, attempts to destigmatize countries facing socio-economic challenges in their attempts to adapt and/or modernize.
Topical Outline
Course and thematic overview Global trends in governance Governance paradigms Governance paradigms (continued) Actors, powers, and accountability Rights and claims Power and authority Environmentality Legitimacy Focus on foraging and swidden agriculture Focus on pastoralism Focus on fisheries Focus on transnational land and resource acquisitions Multi-level/hybrid/networked governance Student presentations