Suchergebnisse

Mutual trust among individuals is frequently cited as an important factor in encouraging collective action, particularly in environmental policy settings. Yet the precise role of trust in the collective action process remains uncertain. This article explores the hypothesis that trust is overrated as a cause of cooperation. It initially tests this hypothesis through two case studies of voluntary collective action in a new context: the creation of multiactor Habitat Conservation Plans to protect endangered species. The two cases suggest that institutional mechanisms and political leadership can play an important role in encouraging collective action without relying on trust among cooperators. Besides their theoretical implications, the results suggest policymakers might spend more energy on creating incentives and assurance mechanisms to encourage collaboration, rather than the potentially fruitless task of building of social capital among rival stakeholders.

Some research has posited that while initially damaging to the environment, continued economic growth eventually leads to superior environmental quality. This relationship is often described as an 'Environmental Kuznets Curve' (EKC), after a similar hypothesis regarding income inequality made by economist Simon Kuznets. Following such findings, the EKC is sometimes offered as a rationale for encouraging economic growth as the best environmental policy option. This paper reconsiders the policy-relevance of the EKC idea, drawing on a wide range of international data collected in the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) project. Specifically, it tests the theoretical arguments advanced by Arrow and others (1995) that EKC relationships are unlikely to hold for environmental problems that are intergenerational in time or spread across national boundaries. The results of this research substantially confirm those arguments, providing more evidence that the EKC idea is an inadequate guide for environmental policy makers around the globe.