Abstract
This chapter provides a brief survey of core determinants of environmental quality identified by previous research. The first part of the presentation focuses on the role of per capita income levels, since the latter received a lot of attention in the 1990s. The analysis shows that the level of economic development as captured by per capita income levels for numerous reasons cannot provide a basis for governance strategies to improve environmental stewardship and quality. The chapter then offers a short discussion of the potential influence of some of the institutional, cultural, and social factors examined as potential detenuiinants of environmental quality by scholars and the frequent lack of agreement on the impact of these factors, before the following chapter turns to the role of property rights as the central focus of this book.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Reference
Economic growth and development are not the same, of course. However, in so far as they are confused in the popular debate and by political and economic decision-makers, this analysis treats them interchangeably.
See also de Bruyn 1997, de Bruyn, van den Bergh, and Opschoor 1998, de Bruyn and Opschoor 1997, Dinda, Coondoo, and Pal 2000, Gangadharan and Valenzuela 2000
These challenges are difficult to overcome at the moment, however. De Bruyn and Opschoor (1997) themselves acknowledge that presently virtually every aggregation would be arbitrary from an environmental point of view.
Consequently, concern for the environment might be limited by the boundaries of development. If the industry owned by the elite pollutes the environment outside of the elite’s residential areas, any political response is likely to be small or absent, since the people suffering under the pollution do not have the means and political clout to affect change.
To some extent, these frameworks of observation provide a means to deal with uncertainty.
Sabatier (1999) himself emphasizes the difference between his approach and the cognitive ones mentioned above, which he finds too vague (p. 11).
Recently, Fenger and Klok (1998) have extended Sabatier’s model by factoring in the resource dependence of the coalitions.
While Elkins and Simeon (1979) address only political culture as one aspect of culture, they highlight these difficulties in defining and analyzing the impact of political culture.
Clague et al. originally intended CIM to measure the security of property rights in a society. For a discussion of whether CIM does not capture a much broader notion of institutional capacity, see Appendix A.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fuchs, D.A. (2003). Determinants of environmental quality. In: An Institutional Basis for Environmental Stewardship. Environment & Policy, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0709-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0709-1_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6166-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0709-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive