Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Environmental Politics in the New West

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The complex political processes associated with environmental politics in the U.S. involve local residents, including property owners, businesses, and residents; governmental bodies ranging from local through state to federal agencies; and non-governmental organizations, some of which are locally based, but many of which have regional or national constituencies. Scholarly attention has focused on all three general groups, although more attention has focused on local-and national-scale interactions than on political activities at the regional scale. This doctoral dissertation research project will contribute to a better understanding of contemporary environmental politics through a case study examining the goals, strategies, and representational practices of one particular environmental organization. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, based in Bozeman, Montana, attempts to influence public policy in a region experiencing rapid growth and characterized by divergent interest groups -- urban and rural populations, long-time residents and new migrants, ranchers and environmentalists. The study will situate the coalition within this regional politics and will proceed to a detailed analysis of the coalition's activities over the last five years. Attention will focus on three interrelated dimensions: (1) the goals of the coalition, how those goals are defined, and how well they represent the views of coalition members; (2) the specific strategies (legal, legislative, and scientific) that the coalition has used in attempting to achieve these goals as well as the varying spatial scales at which those strategies have been deployed; and (3) representations (especially of Yellowstone National Park, the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, and Montana as "the last best place") that the coalition has used in pursuing those strategies. The study will include a survey of 1,500 coalition members (approximately 20% of total membership), extensive interviews with coalition leaders and staff, and careful analysis of the materials produced by the coalition in the last five years, including newsletters, advertisements, reports, and legal documents. This project will enhance understanding of the mechanisms of environmental politics and the ways in which environmental policy is shaped from the grassroots level. More broadly, it will contribute to research on regional change in the age of globalization. The rapid transformation of the ways of life and land uses in the greater Yellowstone region affects the goals and policies of the coalition, while the coalition's activities help shape the direction and pace of change. The coalition therefore represents regional organizations that have become active players in reshaping the landscape of the West, and analysis of its operations and actions provides one lens through which the mechanisms and processes of regional change can be better understood. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.