Negotiating Environmental Change: New Perspectives From Social Science

Citation

Berkhout, F., Leach, M. and Scoones, I. (2003), "Negotiating Environmental Change: New Perspectives From Social Science", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 422-422. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2003.14.3.422.1

Major advances have been made in the social and economic understanding of environmental problems. Social, economic and environmental changes are intimately related to one another, and a diversity of perspectives has emerged to describe and explain these relationships. This book, which is the final output of the UK's Global Environmental Change Programme, presents a critical review of debates in environmental social science over the past decade.

Three broad areas are covered in ten chapters: the problems of scientific uncertainty and its role in shaping environmental decisions and policy; the development of institutional frameworks for governing environmental services and resources; and the link between production and consumption, and the environment. The book begins with an overview essay examining how perspectives across environmental social science have shifted over the past decade and looking forward to the emergence of new research agendas. It argues that many of the assumptions underlying sustainable development need to be reformulated and reframed.