The Politics of Environmental Performance
Institutions and Preferences in Industrialized Democracies

In this book, Detlef Jahn analyzes the role of politics in the field of environmental performance in twenty-one OECD countries.

Detlef Jahn (Author)

9781107542648, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 July 2018

392 pages, 28 b/w illus. 31 tables
23 x 15 x 2 cm, 0.6 kg

'Professor Jahn has produced an impressive, nuanced study of the determinants of environmental performance among advanced industrial democracies, a neglected topic of increasing importance in comparative politics. It includes many important innovations on the conceptualization of environmental performance and policy-making at various levels, and its focus on political factors is an important contribution to this debate. The book should be read by students and scholars of comparative environmental politics and policy.' Lyle Scruggs, University of Connecticut

As the world faces the prospect of climate change, nuclear disasters, and water scarcity, it is clear that environmental degradation is an increasingly serious challenge with economic and social consequences. In this book, Detlef Jahn analyzes political processes in a macro-comparative study in order to estimate the role of politics in the field of environmental performance in twenty-one OECD countries. His model demonstrates various styles of politics used to combat environmental degradation. He finds that economic and environmental performance are still closely linked, and that moving towards a service society does not by itself solve the environmental challenge. The close relationship of these areas was made strikingly clear in the economic crisis of the new millennium. He argues that economic globalization fosters environmental deterioration, and undermines efforts in domestic politics and international coordination to improve the environmental record.

1. Introduction
Part I. Approach, Method, and Concepts: 2. Explaining environmental performance
3. Preferences in environmental politics
4. The institutional settings in twenty-one OECD countries
Part II. Environmental Performance in twenty-one OECD Countries: 5. Measuring environmental performance
6. Aggregating environmental performance data
Part III. Analysis: 7. Domestic politics
8. International politics
9. The nexus of domestic and international politics
10. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]