Student: Nico Farrell
Graduation date: May 2019
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: November 2017
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Summary
Environmental legislation is built with consideration of a wide variety of influences, including international pressure, changing societal norms, and location-based interests (Sax 2009). The role of advocacy from environmental organizations in particular involves both direct appeals to legislators and indirect influence through effects on public dialogue. Many environmental organizations state that one of their central missions is to achieve greater legal protection for ecologically important areas, greater oversight and regulation of pollution, limits on greenhouse gases, or other legal goals, so examination of the outcomes of these efforts is both an important step toward understanding the genesis of environmental law and a review of the efficacy of this type of organizational action.
The direct impact of advocacy through lobbying has influenced agenda-setting, long-term goals, policy, and implementation (Andrews 2004). Grassroots campaigns in which individuals coordinate their messages to legislators with environmental advocacy through email have shown significant effects upon eventual legislation (Bergan 2009). In addition to domestic advocacy, the impact of environmental organizations on the world stage has been significant. One team of researchers studying this role express a view that environmental non-governmental organizations are “essential to societies’ movement toward forms of governance consistent with sustainability. We do not see NGOs, however, as replacements for other actors, namely governments and businesses” (Finger 2013). This role of environmental organizations affords them a unique position in the formation of legislative structures.
The indirect influence of environmental advocacy upon the writing of legislation presents a far more complex puzzle – interactions with public-awareness campaigns, protests, and other aspects of social movements can be major contributors to the process of legislation even though they work through intermediate steps. When the advocacy campaigns of environmental organizations face groups of citizens rather than public officials, they can influence the development and rhetoric of protests (Dyke 2003). Protests generally do not have direct impacts upon legislation, but do draw the attention of legislators, increasing the rate of Congressional hearings on the subjects of the protests (Olzak 2009). In these ways, environmental advocacy impacts legislative processes, but through a wider public dialogue rather than through direct communication.
Study of this indirect process of social influences draws upon the deep scholarly research in communication and rhetoric. These works examine the intersection of communication with social behavior, where “mass media and rhetoric thus closely relate to political science, while semantics and rhetoric enrich the study of law” (Waltman 2008). The meaning conveyed by political messaging is often bound up in the medium, with the method used to communicate a message being a major determinant in how that message is perceived and integrated (Ziliak 2008). Many of the arguments used by environmental advocates rely upon specific lines of reasoning like appeals to science, to the intrinsic importance of species, to the importance of future generations, or to the proper role of humans upon the earth, so an analysis of environmental advocacy must include an understanding of the roles these arguments have played in public dialogue as environmental movements have changed (Ehrlich 1996).
When evaluating the effectiveness of environmental advocacy, much of the relevant information is contained in not just whether a piece of environmental legislation was passed, but the extent to which it achieves substantive environmental goals. A superficial victory may succeed within a social context of rallying coalitions of environmentally-minded actors, but many observers have argued that environmentalism should be judged “in terms of its success in halting environmental deterioration rather than in simply avoiding its own demise” (Dunlap 2014). Therefore, a thorough review of environmental advocacy must also be literate in reviewing these pieces of environmental legislation and finding whether they have consistent political backing and mechanisms for effective enforcement.
The question of how to evaluate the success of environmental advocacy inevitably leads to the question of how to choose and prioritize environmental values. Even within the fields of environmental law, there are vociferous disagreements about how legislators ought to choose, e.g., which lands to protect and which interests ought to be prioritized (Percival 2015). When including a broader overview of all the approaches of arguing for the value of environmental laws, a plethora of options emerge. In many cases there are fundamental disagreements about what is meant by “environment” (Brennan and Lo 2017). A broad range of extant environmental laws reference the importance of preserving certain environmental interests for future generations, but there is wide-ranging disagreement about how these future generations ought to be valued (Hughes et al. 2009). A persistent argument among environmental advocates is the extent of our obligations toward non-human life, and whether it should be valued instrumentally or intrinsically (Nelson 2015). These divergent methods of valuing environmental interests are inextricably bound up in the resultant methods of advocating for environmental interests, as changing ideas can change the implementation of policy. (Campbell 2002)
Taken together, these perspectives offer a multifaceted view of the impact of environmental advocacy on legislation, often taking place through impacts on the process of public dialogue and changing conceptual mindsets. By tracing the full path of environmental law through underlying values, social movements, and organizational efforts, this interdisciplinary approach sheds light on the significant role of advocacy and public dialogue in the creation of environmental policy.
Andrews, Kenneth T., and Bob Edwards. 2004. “Advocacy Organizations in the U.S. Political Process.” Annual Review of Sociology 30 (1):479–506. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110542.
Bergan, Daniel E. 2009. “Does Grassroots Lobbying Work?: A Field Experiment Measuring the Effects of an e-Mail Lobbying Campaign on Legislative Behavior.” American Politics Research 37 (2):327–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X08326967.
Brennan, Andrew and Norva Lo. 2017. “Environmental Philosophy.” obo.
Campbell, John L. 2002. “Ideas, Politics, and Public Policy.” Annual Review of Sociology 28 (1):21–38. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141111.
Dunlap, Riley E. 2014. American Environmentalism: The US Environmental Movement, 1970-1990. Taylor & Francis.
Dyke, Nella van. 2003. “Crossing Movement Boundaries: Factors That Facilitate Coalition Protest by American College Students, 1930–1990.” Social Problems 50 (2):226–50. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2003.50.2.226.
Ehrlich, Paul R., and Anne H. Ehrlich. 1996. Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future. Island Press.
Finger, Matthias, and Thomas Princen. 2013. Environmental NGOs in World Politics: Linking the Local and the Global. Routledge.
Hughes, J. Donald, Bruce Foltz, Vernon Pratt, Alison Stone, Andrew Brennan, and Michael E. Zimmerman. 2009. “Environmental Philosophy.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, 354-384. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, Gale Virtual Reference Library
Nelson, Michael P., and Leslie A. Ryan. 2015. “Environmental Ethics.” obo.
Olzak, Susan, and Sarah A. Soule. 2009. “Cross-Cutting Influences of Environmental Protest and Legislation.” Social Forces 88 (1):201–25. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.0.0236.
Percival, Robert V., Christopher H. Schroeder, Alan S. Miller, and James P. Leape. 2015. Environmental Regulation: Law, Science, and Policy. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Sax, Joseph L. 2009. “Environmental Law.” In Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Robert Frodeman, 348-354. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference. USA. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Waltman, John L. 2008. “Communication.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd ed., edited by William A. Darity, Jr., 31-34. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Ziliak, Stephen. 2008. “Rhetoric.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd ed., edited by William A. Darity, Jr., 237-239. Vol. 7. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Questions
- Descriptive: What are the approaches to advocacy currently being used by environmental organizations? How do different communities conceptualize, if at all, the need for environmental laws? What is the current structure of environmental legislation?
- Explanatory: To what extent are our current environmental laws a result of previous advocacy and rhetoric? How have our concepts of the need for environmental laws been shaped by advocacy? Where did environmental organizations get their ideas for their particular approaches?
- Evaluative: What are the positive and negative impacts on public perception of different approaches to environmental advocacy? Have the environmental laws arising out of past advocacy met our environmental needs?
- Instrumental: How can we choose particular approaches to environmental advocacy to best meet our needs for future environmental protection?
Concentration courses
- POL 124 (Politics and the Environment, 4 credits), taken at Whitman College spring 2011. Course specifically about the intersection of politics and environmental frameworks.
- POL 201 (Intro to Legal Theory, 4 credits), taken at Whitman College spring 2010. Course exploring the many legal theories that underpin modern laws and, in many cases, rhetoric surrounding legal issues.
- ENVS 460 (Topics in Environmental Law and Policy, 4 credits), fall 2017. Course examining a variety of topics related to environmental laws, policies, and their political sources.
- POLS 305 (American Civil Liberties, 4 credits), spring 2018. Course looking at how public perception and legislation interact.
- ENVS 350 (Environmental Theory, 4 credits), spring 2018. Course covers a variety of theories behind environmental thought relevant to my examination of the roots of environmental action.
- POLS 307 (Government and the Economy, 4 credits), fall 2018. Course includes a broad overview of the framework involved in the policy-making process.
Arts and humanities courses
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- ICS 28H (Social Environmental History - Honors, 2.67 semester credits), taken at De Anza College spring 2011.
- PHIL 1H (Introduction to Philosophy - Honors, 2.67 semester credits), taken at De Anza College spring 2011.