Collaborative Proposal: Constituting Nature and Society in the Global Environment

全球环境作为科学和社会行动场所的出现，是标志着21世纪之交的变革性事件之一。用科学术语来说，全球框架改变了我们试图理解自然和社会对环境的影响以及它们之间相互作用的尺度和方法。在社会和政治方面，环境全球化产生了新的概念、制度、行动者联盟、政治战略和规范，它们超越了民族国家的政治，或与之竞争。本项目将运用科学技术研究、全球化和环境治理以及合作生产的理论，探讨这些耦合变化对新兴全球治理结构的影响，特别关注围绕全球环境科学、政治和政策的新制度安排。全球化被视为动态的，与本地化过程相互作用，需要全球和地方机构、规范、实践和技术之间的多样化适应。因此，为了理解环境全球化，有必要研究在全球层面以下运作的过程。共同生产是自然和社会秩序，或知识和生活形式的共同生产。这一框架对于研究诸如环境全球主义等新兴现象，以及理解研究和管理自然世界的社会方法的持续差异特别有用。研究设计是比较的，跨民族国家（美国、德国、印度）和非国家部门（科学、公司、公民社会）。在每个研究地点，该项目将重点关注与政策相关且理论上有趣的三个锚定概念：可持续性、脆弱性、预防。目标是通过尝试定义和实施这些概念来揭示自然知识和社会反应是如何共同产生的。在方法上，该项目将结合科学研究、法律、人类学、科学史和比较政治学的定性方法（包括案例和国家研究）。该项目将产生与全球环境科学和公共政策组织相关的新知识、研究方法和制度见解。研究结果将阐明如何加强全球环境治理机构与全球公民之间的关系。产出将包括以下建议：(1)全球环境研究计划的设计，特别是整合社会科学和自然科学研究的方法（例如，建模、合作团队、跨学科培训计划）；(2)建议加强科学与政策之间的联系，特别是评估方法（例如，政府间、多方利益相关者、共识会议）及其在不同政治文化中的不同接受程度；(3)确定适当承认和考虑到全球环境科学和政策的跨国差异的治理安排。该项目将培训研究生和博士后研究人员，并将加强哈佛大学肯尼迪政府学院与威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校拉福莱特公共事务学院在环境研究和科学技术研究方面的合作网络。

The emergence of the global environment as a site for scientific and social action is one of the transformative events marking the turn of the 21st century. In scientific terms, the global framing has altered the scales at which, and the methods by which, we seek to understand natural and social influences on the environment, as well as interactions between them. In social and political terms, environmental globalization has given rise to new concepts, institutions, actor coalitions, political strategies, and norms that transcend or compete with the politics of nation-states. Using theories in science and technology studies, about globalization and environmental governance and about co-production, this project will explore the implications of these coupled changes for emerging structures of global governance, focusing specifically on new institutional arrangements around global environmental science, politics, and policy. Globalization is seen for purposes of this project as dynamic, interacting with processes of localization and requiring diverse accommodations between global and local institutions, norms, practices, and technologies. To understand environmental globalization, it is therefore necessary to examine processes operating below the global levels. Co-production is the joint production of natural and social order, or knowledge and forms of life. This framework is particularly useful for studying emergent phenomena such as environmental globalism, and for understanding persistent differences in societal approaches to studying and managing the natural world. The study design is comparative, across nation-states (U.S., Germany, India) and across non-state sectors (science, corporations, civil society). In each research site, the project will focus on three anchoring concepts that are both policy-relevant and theoretically interesting: sustainability, vulnerability, precaution. The objective will be to uncover how natural knowledge and social response are being co-produced through attempts to define and implement these concepts. Methodologically, the project will incorporate qualitative approaches (including case and country studies) from science studies, law, anthropology, history of science, and comparative politics. The project will generate new knowledge, research methods, and institutional insights relevant to the organization of global environmental science and public policy. Research results will illuminate means of enhancing relations among the institutions of global environmental governance and a global citizenry. Outputs will include recommendations for: (1) the design of global environmental research programs, especially approaches to integrating social and natural science research (e.g., modeling, collaborative teams, interdisciplinary training programs); (2) proposals to strengthen linkages between science and policy, especially evaluations of assessment methods (e.g., intergovernmental, multi-stakeholder, consensus conferences) and their varying receptivity across political cultures; and (3) identification of governance arrangements that appropriately recognize and take into account cross-national variation in global environmental science and policy. The project will train graduate and postdoctoral researchers and will strengthen collaborative networks in environmental research and science and technology studies between the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.