Collaborative Research Project: Protecting the Environment: Does the Environmental Movement Matter?

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PI and Co-PI J. Craig Jenkins, Ohio State UniversityRobert J. Brulle, Drexel UniversityTitle: Protecting the Environment: Does the Environmental Movement Matter? SES - 0819412 ABSTRACTThis research project will examine the extent to which the environmental movement?s potential is being realized. Emerging during the last quarter of the 19th century, the U.S. environmental movement has been an important voice in debates over environmentally related public policy and its implementation. With rising levels of environmental degradation, especially in the form of global warming, the role of the environmental movement takes on increasing importance. According to social movement theory, the environmental movement is central to increasing the adaptive capacity of our society to deal with environmental problems. The researchers will address three major questions: 1) How have environmental problems stimulated environmental movement mobilization?, 2) how has the environmental movement interacted with government, business and the broader public to change public policy and business practices?, and 3) what was the ultimate impact of the resultant public policy decisions on the natural environment? Environmental problems are slow to develop and difficult to turn around. Thus capturing these dynamics requires a long-term longitudinal design. The investigators plan to collect and analyze seven new measures over a 100 year time period in the following areas: (1) environmental movement actions; (2) cultural attention to environmental issues; (3) governmental policy development; (4) political opportunity; (5) implementation efforts; (6) countermovement and business political actions; and (7) environmental quality conditions. This project?s core scientific merit is its contribution to policy change dynamics. The research addresses whether the environmental movement mattered in terms of environmental policy enactment, its implementation and finally its effects on actual environmental problems. Thus this project contributes to social movement research by providing a systematic analysis of multiple movement outcomes, including the objective environmental outcomes being addressed. Of special importance is evaluating the significance of cultural production on movement mobilization and bringing this to bear along with analysis of organization change and collective action. This project also addresses the broader concerns of government policy makers in the environmental field, such as the U.S. Global Change Science Program, the IPCC and the National Research Council. All three of these institutions have called for research on our societal capacity for creative innovation in addressing environmental problems. By illuminating the social and political interactions that led to successful environmental policy decisions, this research can better inform the process of institutional change necessary to facilitate the creation of an ecologically sustainable society.