Department of Politics

Are Policies for a Sustainable World Possible? A study of earth resources released September 15, 2000, by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Bank and the World Resources Institute (WRI) reveals: Half of the world's wetlands were lost last century. Logging and conversion have shrunk the world's forests by as much as half. Some 9 percent of the world's tree species are at risk of extinction; tropical deforestation may exceed 130,000 square kilometers per year. Fishing fleets are 40 percent larger than the ocean can sustain. Nearly 70 percent of the world's major marine fish stocks are overfished or are being fished at their biological limit. Soil degradation has affected two-thirds of the world's agricultural lands in the last 50 years. Some 30 percent of the world's original forests have been converted to agriculture. Since 1980, the global economy has tripled in size and population has grown by 30 percent to 6 billion people. Dams, diversions or canals fragment almost 60 percent of the world's largest rivers. Twenty percent of the world's freshwater fish are extinct, threatened or endangered. What Are We Doing to Create Those Policies? This course will explore the intersection of science and politics in the struggle to formulate laws and policies for biosphere management.

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COURSE DESCRIPTION

Web Syllabus: With its interactive links, hypertext seems the ideal medium for course syllabi. With a click, you can be at a site to which a paper syllabus could only refer. You can use it all on line and print whatever you want. Portions of this syllabus or its attachments make use of the portable document format (PDF). PDF files generally print better than HTML files. They offer exact visual replicas of printed pages comparable to printout from a color copier. They alow you to print selected pages, and they don't depend on your having any particular world processor. PDF is the dominant file type used for delivering facsimiles of paper documents, like court opinions and legislative reports, over the Internet. To read PDF files on your personal computer you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can download without charge from the publisher. This software is already loaded on most college-owned computers.

Digital Classroom: We have the good fortune to be meeting in South 100, a classroom equipped for digital projection from computer and VCR. I encourage you to take advantage of the available technology in your oral presentations.

Feedback: Whether or not you are asked to complete a standardized course evaluation, I am interested in your comments and suggestions for improving the course, the readings, the assignments and this course description. Feel free to send comments as you think of them. E-mail: callin@cornellcollege.edu.

Instructor: Craig W. Allin, Room 307, South Hall. Telephone: Office, (895-) 4278; Home, 895-8103. Phone messages may be left with faculty secretary Cheryl Dake (895-) 4283 or in her voice mail box or on the answering machine at my home. I do not check my office voice mail. If I do not answer the phone, I recommend contacting me by e-mail at callin@cornellcollege.edu.

Office Hours: If I'm not in class with you, you can probably find me in my office. Feel free to make an appointment or just show up. To help you find me,the most current version of my schedule is available for your electronic inspection over the campus network if you are using Microsoft Outlook [not Outlook Express].

1. On the File menu, point to Open, and then click Other User's Folder.

2. In the Open Other User's Folder box, click Name and select Craig Allin from the list.

3. In the Folder box, select Calendar from the pull-down menu.

Core Texts: The following books are available for purchase at the Cornell College Bookstore. Each is assigned in its entirety. (The following list is in the M.L.A. style.)

Rosenbaum, Walter A. Environmental Politics and Policy. Fifth Edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002. Vig, Norman J., and Michael E. Kraft, eds. Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-First Century. Fifth Edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2003.

 

Supplementary Texts: The following books are also available for purchase in the bookstore. The class will be divided into panels, and each panel will be responsible for reporting on one book. Do not purchase any of these books until you have your panel assignment.

	Ballonoff, Paul. Energy: Ending the Never-Ending Crisis. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1997. A former state energy commissioner argues the libertarian line on energy issues. Is the traditional and widely accepted state regulation of the utility industry counterproductive? Is the concept of natural monopoly outmoded? This is a relatively sophisticated argument in the realm of economics.
	Anderson, Terry L., and Donald R. Leal, eds. Free Market Environmentalism. Revised Edition. New York: Palgrave, 2000. The 1991 edition argued that private property was the solution, not the problem. Since publication, this idea has been embraced by conservatives and by some environmental groups. The thinking here is largely economic but not methodologically difficult. Are these guys really environmentalists or just fronting for big business and the property rights movement?
	Margolis, Howard. Dealing with Risk: Why the Public and the Experts Disagree on Environmental Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. University of Chicago public policy specialist answers the question his book title poses. The argument is methodologically sophisticated and recommended for students with strong preparation in natural sciences or psychology.
	Rabe, Barry George. Beyond NIMBY: Hazardous Waste Siting in Canada and the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994. A Brookings Fellow explores the politics of hazardous waste siting in two rich industrialized nations. Is it possible that a politics of cooperation may be the only alternative to failure?
	Tomas M. Koontz. Federalism in the Forest: National Versus State Natural Resource Policy. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002. In recent decades conservatives and western state governments have argued for state takeover or management of federal lands. Ohio State natural resources specialist examines empirically how state and national management of forests differ and provides insights regarding the probable consequences of devolution.

 

Internet Resources: The Home Page for the Politics Department contains a wealth of valuable information including programs and requirements of the Department of Politics; information about Politics Courses; and new, improved research links for politics, government, and law. There are also free Internet News Services that can be very helpful if you have your own computer connected either to the Cornell Network or to an Internet Service Provider. For this course I recommend the Environmental News Network at http://www.enn.com/ . You can subscribe for free delivery of environmental news daily by e-mail. ENN also maintains searchable archives.

1. Introductory Case Study -- The Politics of Planetary Health: video on the science and politics of global warming. This quick start should serve to get us in the mood for environmental politics and remind us that the stakes are rather high.
   

2. Introduction to Environmental Politics -- Using Rosenbaum (2002) as our guide, we will explore the history and structure of environmental politics in the United States. This is a standard text for courses in environmental politics and policy. We will read it over a four-day period. You will not be able to absorb all it has to offer in that short span of time, but you will get a broad foundation on which to build. Completing this book quickly will introduce you to the wide variety of topics that fall within the environmental politics rubric and introduce a large number of policy issues that you might want to explre in your individual project.
   

3. Excursions in Environmental Policy -- Craig will lead an exploration of the politics and policy of wilderness management on federal lands. Panels of students will present and evaluate the arguments made by authors of our supplementary texts. This portion of the course will allow us to learn from each other and to hear from authors representing a variety of approaches to a variety of issues. During this period you have no formal reading assignments. If you are wise, you will take advantage of this time to pur major energy into your policy paper and/or read ahead in the Vig & Kraft book.

4. Issues of Environmental Policy -- Following Vig & Kraft (2003), we will explore a variety of issues in environmental policy for the new millennium. This anthology is often used in graduate as well as undergraduate courses in environmental policy, and these somewhat more sophisticated articles will provide an opportunity to refine our understanding of the policy process and some of the issues raised by it.

5. Cases on Point -- Students will share the results of their own individual research and analysis. These presentations will allow each of us to learn from someone who has developed relative expertise on an environmental issue of her/his own choosing. Members of the class will evaluate selected' presentations.

REQUIREMENTS

1. Students are expected to attend all classes and to complete all assignments prior to class time on the day for which they are assigned. You should read carefully and be prepared to discuss all the assignments intelligently. You should also be on the look out for relevant news. As we meet, the nation's environmental policy seems once again up for grabs. One portion of the course grade will reflect the instructor's evaluation of your attendance, participation, and effort.

2. Each student will participate in a panel report during the second week of the course. See "Group Leadership Assignment," for details. The performance of your group will count for a portion of the course grade.

3. There will be a comprehensive final examination covering all the course's assigned reading and the panel reports.

4. Each student will complete a major research project on an approved topic. See "Individual Project Assignment," for details.
   

Learning Objectives:

1. To sample the diversity of scholarship applicable to environmental policy.

2. To develop expertise in a specific area of environmental policy.

3. To work effectively as part of a group in pursuit of a group goal.

4. To communicate your expertise effectively to the larger group in a multi-media presentation.
   

Assignment:

During the second week of the course, panels of students will share their knowledge the books listed as supplementary texts for this course and briefly described there. For the schedule of presentations consult Course Calendar & Assignments.

Preparation:

• The resulting groups will have leadership responsibility for the corresponding class meetings.

• Each panel will need to meet regularly to plan and prepare its presentation. To assure that there are no schedule conflicts, most mornings prior to the presentations are reserved for group meetings.

• Prior to your presentation (see Course Calendar & Assignments) your group will meet with me in the classroom. At that time, I will want you to show me your slides and explain what you will be doing and how.

• Prior to your meeting with me (see Course Calendar & Assignments) your group will e-mail me two thoughtful assignments/questions, suitable for use in an essay-style examination. Each assignment/question should allow respondents to engage intellectually with the central messages or core concepts from your book. Of course, it is your obligation to present those central messages or core concepts effectively to the class. Indeed, I hope that being required as a group to formulate questions/assignments about your presentation will help you to think more clearly and carefully about what is important and how it should be presented.

Things to think about:

Grading the Panel Presentations:

Grades will be assigned to the entire group. Grades are determined by content and elocution. Strong content depends on knowledge of the subject, clear presentation of main ideas, careful subordination of secondary ideas, explanations and examples, and close attention to logical transition, all supported by good visual aids. Effective elocution depends on your skill in referring to notes, managing the time available, enunciating clearly, speaking with appropriate pace and variety of emphasis, and maintaining effective eye contact with your audience.

INDIVIDUAL PROJECT ASSIGNMENT:
Policy Paper & Presentation

"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."
--John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

Learning Objectives:

Assignment: Your job is to write a policy paper of 3,500 to 5,000 words in length exclusive of abstract, illustrations, notes, bibliography, appendices, etc. Your paper must deal with a significant environmental policy question about which you have not previously written a college level paper and which is, or ought to be, on the agenda of American politics at the national, state, or local level. If in doubt, consult.

Public Policy & Policy Papers: A "policy" is regular practice or a clear course of action. (E.g., it is the policy of Cornell College to issue grades once a month.) A "public policy" is any policy adopted by a government. (E.g., it is the policy of the United States to prohibit hunting in national parks.) A "policy paper" is a concise document that recommends a public policy and argues for the adoption of that policy. Your policy paper--and the seminar report, which will be produced from the same materials--will be developed through five stages. The deadlines for each stage are listed on the Course Calendar and Assignments page.

Stage I -- Topic & Bibliography: You must submit an e-mail attachment describing your research topic and presenting a working bibliography for that topic. Your topic is satisfactory if it describes a reasonably discrete area or issue substantially related to the themes of this course. You bibliography is satisfactory if it contains sufficient scholarly or primary sources to assure the viability of research and writing on the chosen topic. You should begin work on this as the course commences. Before you submit your Topic & Bibliography document, take time to put the bibliography in proper form. Use one of the approved style sheets and indicate in your submission, which one you are using.

Stage II -- Policy Recommendation & Outline of Contentions: You must submit an e-mail attachment stating your policy recommendation and setting forth an outline of the contentions you intend to make for it. Please note that articulating a good policy recommendation will require you to have already completed much of the research on your chosen topic. The policy recommendation is the paper's thesis. The outline of contentions previews your paper's anticipated structure. Selecting a topic requires only that you identify an area appropriate for inquiry and susceptible to a policy recommendation. Stating a policy recommendation takes you an important step further: you must determine, with some considerable degree of specificity, what policy ought to be adopted with respect to your topic. For example, "scientific research in wilderness areas" is a topic. "Congress should amend the Wilderness Act to exempt recognized scientists from provisions restricting use of motorized vehicles and permanent facilities" is a policy recommendation. Your thesis must state a policy within the legal power of some officer, agency or institution of local, state, or national government in the United States. Topics of global concern are welcomed, but your thesis must be stated in terms of American policy. E.g., "Congress should ratify the Kyoto Accord and pass the legislation necessary to implement it."

This is the point at which trouble most often arises, so before you submit your policy recommendation and contentions, examine them carefully using the criteria set forth in Getting from Topic & Bibliography to Recommendation & Contentions. Before you organize your contentions into an outline, consult A Good Argument Is a Hierarchy of Contentions.

Convincing: They state a conclusion and back that conclusion with reasoned argument. The purpose is to convince the reader, and the better the argument, the higher the probability of success.

Well Researched: They are firmly rooted in careful research. You must have a command of the relevant facts. You must understand your own position and the positions of those with whom you disagree.

Concise: They are not always short, but they must be concise. That means no padding and no B.S. Papers such as these are meant for the eyes of very busy decision makers: the judge, the corporate executive, and the high government official. If you want to convince such a person, you must not waste her time.

Hierarchically Organized: They organize the arguments to be made into the strongest possible hierarchy of contentions. Refer again to A Good Argument Is a Hierarchy of Contentions.