How do governments respond to environmental issues? This course explores the politics of environmental problems that cross national borders, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. We will examine how states, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations address environmental challenges through cooperation and negotiation.
This class will use basic international relations (IR) concepts and frameworks to think about environmental problems. There is no prior knowledge required, but students interested in IR will get to learn about new applications of material they may be familiar with in other contexts.
The first half of the class will cover an introduction to international environmental problems, collective action, the actors involved in global environmental politics, and how states act in relation to global environmental governance. The second half of the class will cover international treaties, market mechanisms, non-state actors in environmental governance, and the global economy, with accompanying environmental case studies for each.
This class will use "The Environment and International Relations," 2nd edition, as a textbook:
O’Neill, K. (2017). The Environment and International Relations (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Assignments
Grades in the course will be based on small weekly discussion board posts and intermittent reading responses. There will be an online midterm in the middle of the course and a final essay due at the end. You'll receive feedback on assignments throughout the quarter and feedback on the final essay topic before the full draft is due. The assignments are intended to help you stay engaged with the course content and build skills to succeed on the midterm and final essay.