Politik und Umwelt

The topic "politics and the environment" is larger than environmental policy as a well-defined policy area. Working on the challenges arising from the confrontation of today's societies with the limits to natural resources and the destruction of ecological systems has profoundly changed policy content, structures and processes. This book describes environmental policy both as an example of the general development of political systems and as a driver of their modernisation. The chapters touch on fundamental issues of political science. Taking the example of national, international and transnational environmental policy, they discuss questions of governance beyond national states or in multi-level systems, of development and change of cross-border cooperation in the international system, of the influence of non-state actors, of interdependence and integration of various policy domains, of state autonomy under the conditions of globalisation and international competition, and problems of justice, participation, and democracy.

The contributions reflect the diversity of methodical approaches and theoretical alignments within political science. They show that applying them to environmental policy and its specific challenges is fertile both for gaining knowledge of practical relevance and for the further development of the discipline itself.