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This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the politics of the environment and the development of environmental knowledge. Focusing on the quest for more sustainable forms of socio-economic development, it places environmental politics within a broad historical perspective, and examines the different political strategies and cultural practices that have emerged

In the course of the 1990s, the ideas and practices of environmentalism tended to lose whatever politically mobilizing force they might earlier have had, and largely came to resemble what Herbert Marcuse, in his classic text of the 1960s, termed the pure stuff of administration. The redefinition of environmental politics as an ambiguous quest for sustainable development can be seen as a form of reification, bringing environmental politics under the control of the established order and its administrative apparatus and making environmental problems amenable to the objective and instrumental procedures of technological rationality. What had seemed for many of us in the late 1970s to be a broad, social movement out to save the planet from further environmental destruction and ecological deterioration has given way to a much more amorphous, and socially acceptable political agenda and range of practical activity. The "environmental movement" has been effectively stripped of its underlying human meanings and motivations and instead transformed into institutions and professions; and the ideas of political ecology and the practices of appropriate technology have become a fragmented array of institutional, intellectual and practical activity, what I have termed the "making of green knowledge" (Jamison 2001). This paper is an attempt to explore some of the cultural dynamics of these transformation processes in terms of the human agency that have been involved in this multifarious shift in political agenda and practical focus.

Udgivelsesdato: SEP ; The paper discusses some of the contributions of environmental activism to the development of knowledge. The paper contrasts some of the main forms of knowledge-making that have emerged among activists and raises a number of questions both about the political and cognitive implications of such "green knowledge". The general argument is that, in the future, new types of interaction and new spaces for communication will need to be developed if green knowledge is not to be incorporated into the dominant culture or reduced to ineffective forms of protest.

The development of environmental politics from the postwar period to the contemporary era is examined. During the postwar period, environmentalism was the province of isolated intellectuals & writers. Environmentalism did not become popular until the 1960s & 1970s, & its popularity was the catalyst for the rise, in the 1980s & 1990s, of professionalized transnational environmental nongovernment organizations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace. The success of NGOs has created pressure to form an alliance in truth with multinational corporations in presenting an environmental discourse that emphasizes its global scope & the need for technical experts to fashion solutions to environmental problems. The alliance in truth marks the end of radicalism in environmental politics & undermines environmentalism's capacity as a medium for critical reflection about society. 2 Tables, 2 Figures, 23 References. D. Generoli

This essay articulates a comparative approach to the sociology of science. It suggests that even historically there have been numerous scholars interested in the national components of scientific knowledge. I develop a model which allows me to compare the differences in scientific growth in Sweden and Denmark. My model consists of three interrelated levels: metaphysical bias, national scientific interests, institutional structures. The comparison between the two countries shows them to be markedly different on all three levels. Finally, I suggest how the model can be applied to contemporary material.